Integration: The Reality Of Marketing Automation Implementation

So you’ve upgraded to a marketing automation platform (MAP), in hopes of strengthening the relationship between marketing and sales? Smart move. When your marketing and sales teams communicate and work together, the entire company benefits. The same is true of your CRM and MAP — when they communicate and work together, the entire company benefits.

Integrating those two — CRM and MAP — will be the first step of making the most of your MAP investment. Just as when you try to get your marketing and sales teams on the same wavelength, though, you should expect some bumps in the road.

Your CRM is older. Built at a different time — for a different purpose — your CRM understandably contains old, incomplete data. It may not have been designed to work well with other systems. And — despite its limitations — people are comfortable with it. They know how to use it. And even though they may have recognized the limitations of the CRM, your team has learned to work around it.

On the other hand, your MAP is newer. It demands good data. It’s designed to play well with others. For your team, however, your MAP does represent change. And change can be hard to accept.

Technekes can ease the transition. As a data-driven marketing company, we’ve been syncing up with CRMs long before marketing automation arrived on the horizon. And now, with more than 15 years of industry-specific, strategic, cross-channel campaigns under our belt, we can work with you to ensure that your MAP does what it’s designed to do — bring sales and marketing together for the greatest impact on your bottom line.

For more information, please contact me at 704.412.7754 or meghan.flanagan@technekes.com.