What is MA (Marketing Automation)? Explanation of basic knowledge and tips for utilizationv

What can be achieved with MA can be broadly classified into the following five categories.

1. Efficient actions to increase prospective customers (leads)
→ Efficient creation of SEO-friendly content and landing pages for advertisements, etc.

2. Efficiency of actions to foster purchase motivation of prospective customers (leads)
Scenarios are set according to the attributes of prospective customers, and emails with content tailored to prospective customers are automatically delivered (step mail), etc.

3. Selecting and narrowing down prospective customers (leads) that lead to business negotiations
→ Scoring prospective customers’ willingness to purchase and selecting prospective customers for sales and business negotiations

Four. Management of prospective customer (lead) information and cooperation with other tools
→ Creation of a list organized by prospective customer information, cooperation with various tools such as SFA and CRM, etc.

Five. Creation of various reports
→ Efficiency in creating reports used to verify the effectiveness of marketing activities

With MA, you can manage information such as the attributes and behavior of prospective customers (leads) and approach them according to their interests.

However, it is difficult to take an individual approach tailored to each prospective customer.
What I want to be aware of is the efficiency of approaching prospective customers.
MA was born to design (systematize) the flow of communication with prospective customers in the form of “scenarios” and automate actions such as sending emails and sending materials.

With the DX (Digital Transformation) initiative as a trigger, the number of companies that are focusing on online marketing is increasing, and the introduction of MA is also spreading.
However, many general MAs are highly functional, and many companies lament that they are not able to use them even though they have introduced them.

In this article, we will explain the know-how for successful MA introduction.
We will also cover the main functions of MA, tips on how to use it, and how to choose the MA that suits your company.

For those who are interested in introducing MA, and those who have already introduced MA, please refer to it.

Table of contents

MA (Marketing Automation) refers to “tools” and their “mechanisms” that make marketing activities more efficient .
(Hereafter, “MA” is used as a word that refers to tools.)

With MA, you can not only centrally manage prospective customer attribute information (name, company name, email address, job title, etc.), but also record prospective customer behavior and use it for marketing activities.

In addition to recording behavior such as when a prospective customer visited a website, what materials they downloaded, and what kind of inquiry they made, it also quantifies the level of purchase motivation of the prospective customer assigned to that behavior (scoring). )can.

For example, 3 points for downloading materials, 7 points for making inquiries, 12 points for attending seminars, and so on.
After that, prospective customers who recorded a score higher than the target point are judged to be highly motivated to purchase, and campaign information that leads to a contract is sent by e-mail.
On the other hand, for prospective customers who do not reach the target score, we first send content such as industry reports and product use cases by e-mail to get them interested in your products and services.

The important thing in marketing is communication that matches the stage of the prospective customer’s willingness to buy.
With MA, prospective customers can be categorized (segmented) according to their purchasing intentions, making it easier to understand what kind of communication should be done with which prospective customer. By utilizing this classification (segmentation), it is possible to achieve highly accurate marketing tailored to each prospective customer, as well as careful follow-up.

Recently, with the spread of the Internet and mobile devices, we have become able to get the information we need by ourselves.
For this reason, instead of proactive approaches from the company side such as telephone sales and walk-in sales, the mainstream approach is to send out the information that the prospective customer needs and have the prospective customer find the information themselves. is on the rise.

That’s why it’s important to create a system that allows each prospective customer to “get the information they want at the right time.”

Let’s take another look at what kind of power MA can exert in each step of marketing activities. Here, we will explain BtoB marketing as an example, where MA is often used.

In general, B2B marketing can be divided into the following 9 steps.

Among the steps shown in the above figure, MA covers the range from “1. Attracting customers” to “5. Narrowing down leads”.

“Lead” is a word that describes a potential customer.
In marketing, we first attract “potential customers” who can become prospective customers (leads) through SEO-friendly content and seminars.
Then, in order to provide more detailed information about the product to the potential customers who have attracted customers, we ask them to register for the e-mail magazine and follow the SNS account.
By doing so, you will be able to communicate with the potential customer, and the potential customer will become a “lead”.
After that, we will ask prospective customers to increase their knowledge of our products through the provision of e-mail magazines and various materials.
Based on “behavioral data” such as the opening status of those e-mail magazines and the download status of materials, we confirm the willingness of prospective customers to purchase. .

The scope of MA covers from “1. Attracting customers” to “5. Narrowing down leads” for connecting to this sales.

From “1. Attracting customers” to “5. Narrowing down leads” can be further divided into three initiatives: “lead generation,” “lead nurturing,” and “lead qualification.”

Let’s take a closer look at these three initiatives.

1. Lead generation (creation of potential customers)

The process of generating prospects (leads).
Refers to the flow of obtaining information necessary for communication through e-mail newsletters, etc., from website visitors and seminar participants.

▼Action example

• Request materials and make inquiries from the website (at that time, ask prospective customers to enter their information)
• Get business cards from prospective customers when holding seminars or exhibitions

2. Lead nurturing (nurturing prospective customers’ willingness to buy)

A process in which prospective customers (leads) are provided with additional information to gradually increase their interest in products and services and to foster their willingness to purchase.

▼Action example

• Introduce how to use your company’s products and services through e-mail magazines, etc.
• Introduce examples of customers with similar attributes to prospective customers through e-mail magazines, etc.
• Provide industry reports related to the company’s products and services through e-mail magazines, etc., to inform industry trend information and the positioning of the company’s products.
• Hold product briefings for prospective customers who are interested in your company’s products

3. Lead qualification (selection and narrowing down of prospective customers)

The process of confirming the level of purchase motivation of prospective customers (leads) and selecting prospective customers for sales and business negotiation proposals.
Based on the various behaviors of prospective customers, the level of willingness to purchase is scored, and the information of prospective customers with high scores is passed to the sales department to proceed with business negotiations.

▼Action example

• Score each behavior of the prospect, such as “2 points for opening an email” or “3 points for requesting a document”
• Pass leads with a score of 15 or higher to sales

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Next, we will introduce the specific functions of MA that match these three initiatives.

The main functions of MA according to the efforts of “lead generation”, “lead nurturing” and “lead qualification” are as follows.

Let’s take a closer look at each.

1. Features for lead generation

Features for attracting customers

● Support for creating web pages and landing pages

Many MAs have features that allow you to efficiently create web pages and landing pages without specialized knowledge.
For example, when a seminar is suddenly decided, you can easily create a page without asking an external production company.
Also, by creating multiple patterns of pages and conducting AB tests, you can also know the types of pages that are likely to produce results. 

●SEO support function

Some MAs have a function to assist SEO (search engine optimization) of each web page.
For example, it can tell you how many search customers you can expect to attract by writing articles on themes, or tell you what kind of content you can create to help you rank higher in search results.
If a user visiting from a search engine is a potential customer with some kind of worries or issues, by making a proposal that leads to a solution to the problem, the probability of becoming a prospective customer will increase.
Therefore, it is very important to keep SEO in mind when marketing.

●Ad linking function

By linking with various web advertisements (listing advertisements, SNS advertisements, etc.), it is a function that measures the effectiveness of each advertisement and gives you a sense of which advertisements you should focus on.
In addition, depending on MA, ad delivery can be optimized for each prospect segment.
For example, you can distribute advertisements to potential customers who have just visited your website and potential customers who have downloaded materials, or exclude customers who have purchased products from the advertisement distribution list.

MA also demonstrates its power in terms of reducing the time and effort of advertising management and maximizing the effectiveness of advertising.

Ability to reach out to site visitors

● Inquiry form creation support

MA has a function to create forms such as “document request”, “event application” and “inquiry”.
Get potential customers to fill out forms to generate leads.

The biggest advantage of creating forms using MA is that the data sent from the form is recorded smoothly in the MA database.
In the case of forms created with tools other than MA, it is necessary to connect information to MA, but if you use the form creation tool attached to MA, you do not need to do that.

Furthermore, if you use MA’s API function (function for linking with external tools), even data entered in an external form can be automatically linked with MA.

In addition, by automatically inquiring with existing customer data, when the prospective customer information is submitted from the form, you can instantly know whether the customer has a transaction in the past or not. It is also possible to distribute messages.

Chatbot, live chat

Some MAs have an automatic response function through chat called a chat bot.
You can display a small chat window at the edge of the screen for prospective customers who have been on your website for a certain amount of time, and automatically answer some questions.
You can also switch to a manned live chat instead of an autoresponder.

The advantage of MA’s chatbot function is that it is possible to create segments based on prospective customer data and distribute multiple chatbots according to each segment.

There are also MAs that are easy to link with external chatbots.

2. Features for lead nurturing

● Email marketing function

Based on the prospective customer database managed by MA, it is a function to segment prospective customers and distribute emails according to each segment.

By changing the content and delivery frequency of emails for each segment, you can aim to increase the email opening rate and foster purchase motivation.

For example, prospective customers who have just started subscribing to an e-mail magazine will be sent an email about industry trends two days later, and prospective customers who have requested materials will be introduced to articles comparing products from other companies three days later. It is possible to design detailed scenarios such as sending emails.

In addition, if you distribute emails through MA, you can watch numerical values ​​such as email delivery rate, opening rate, link click rate (CTR) in the email, churn rate, etc. It will be easier to turn PDCA. 

● Notification function according to the actions of prospective customers

MA also has a notification function for external services and apps.
If there are prospects who meet specific criteria, you can automatically notify the marketing department and sales staff through internal emails and chat tools such as Slack.

For example, you can share information such as a prospect who previously failed to close a deal returned to your site, or a repeat visitor who viewed the same case study page three or more times.

As a result, it is possible to follow up quickly according to the behavior of prospective customers, and in addition to being able to firmly grasp prospective customers with high accuracy, it leads to a reduction in opportunity loss.

3. Functions for lead qualification (selection and narrowing down of prospective customers)

●Lead scoring

Based on prospective customer behavior and reaction data, prospective customers’ interests in products and services are quantified (scored) and used for various marketing measures.

For example, download a document 3 points, make an inquiry 7 points, attend a seminar 12 points, and so on.
Prospects with a score of 10 points or more are judged to have a high willingness to buy, and campaign information that will lead to a contract is sent by e-mail. .
Prospects with a score of 5 or less are judged to have little interest in products and services, so we first send content such as industry reports and product use cases to deepen their interest by e-mail.

By scoring the motivation of prospective customers, it becomes easier to proceed with marketing and communication according to the stage of purchase motivation of prospective customers.

● Report creation, analysis function

You can output the prospective customer data handled by MA as a report.
MA has a wide variety of report templates and customizable reports.
For example, by customizing the items in the template, you can create a report that collects only the information that each department wants to check, such as for the marketing department, sales department, or production department.
In addition, reports can be sent periodically via email, streamlining the flow of effect measurement.

In some cases, it is possible to link with external services such as Google Analytics.
For details, check the MA functions of each company.

Four. Features for lead management

●Lead management function

With MA, you can centrally manage various prospective customer information.

In addition, by assigning a unique attribute name to each prospect’s information, it is possible to categorize them, for example, “prospects via inquiries” or “prospects who have attended multiple seminars.”

By the way, there are also tools that can manage the information of “anonymous” prospective customers who have just visited the website with the tracking function.
“Anonymous” prospective customers can be “realized” by comparing them with the information at the time of inquiry or document request.

● API linkage

The API linkage function is a function that allows information to be shared by linking MA with other software or services using a mechanism called API (Application Programming Interface).
By using this function, for example, the access information of a specific prospective customer detected by MA can be notified in real time to the chat tool (such as Slack) that the company usually uses.
You can also connect information submitted from another contact form to MA.
In addition, various advertisements can be delivered based on the information managed by MA.

●Acquisition of access log

Record the behavior history of the prospect on the website.
By linking behavior history with attribute information, you can see what kind of prospective customers have seen what webpages.
As a result, you can see what kind of information prospective customers are exposed to, and it becomes easier to draw a line between “things that seem to be better communicated” and “things that seem to be unnecessary” during business negotiations, resulting in efficient communication. It will be possible.

●CRM linkage

CRM stands for “customer relationship management tool” and refers to a tool for managing information on “customers” who have purchased products.
Even if a prospective customer becomes a customer after closing a deal, it is possible to further promote products based on that customer information, and it is necessary to provide customer support and customer success, so customer information management is necessary.
By linking with CRM, MA can manage not only prospective customer information but also customer information, so it is possible to grasp all marketing activities.

● SFA cooperation

SFA stands for “sales support system” and refers to a tool for streamlining sales activities, and is often used by sales representatives.
By linking MA and SFA, you can automatically register the information of prospective customers who are highly motivated to purchase in SFA used by sales representatives.

This is a supplement to the explanation about “CRM linkage” and “SFM linkage” above.
The lines between ‘MA’, ‘CRM’ and ‘SFA’ these days are blurred as each covers a wide area beyond the domain of each tool.
Therefore, we will explain the proper use of “MA”, “CRM”, and “SFA” again in “10. Differences between MA, CRM, and SFA” in this article.

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I hope you have learned how useful MA can be in marketing.

In the next chapter, we will divide the merits of introducing MA into four categories and explain them.

The main benefits of introducing MA are as follows.

[Merit 1] You can approach efficiently according to the needs of prospective customers

If you continue to use MA, you will be able to grasp the needs and wants of prospective customers with higher accuracy.
For example, you can accumulate data such as Mr. A who “requested materials” wanted to “see more use cases” and Mr. B wanted to “compare with other companies”.
As a result, you will be able to understand what kind of approach to take according to the stage and request of the prospective customer.
Also, if the process from negotiating to signing a contract is smooth, customers will feel that “this company understands me well” and will accept the subsequent approach favorably.
This can lead to subsequent cross-selling and up-selling.

In other words, by introducing MA, it is possible to build engagement with customers, improve the profit (LTV) obtained from transactions with each customer, and further improve the profit of the business as a whole.

[Merit 2] Increased sales productivity

It is inefficient to blindly conduct sales without knowing whether the prospective customer’s willingness to purchase is high or low.
You should take a more polite approach to prospective customers who are willing to accept business negotiations, and take a long-term view to prospective customers who do not wish to have business negotiations, and carefully convey the appeal of your company’s products.

In that respect, if you use MA, you can narrow down and approach prospective customers who have increased willingness to buy.
If you share the information gathered in MA with your sales representative, it will help you succeed in negotiations.
It also gives you an idea of ​​how to approach your potential customers.
As a result, the success rate of business negotiations can be increased company-wide without being influenced by the personal skills of sales representatives.

[Merit 3] Reduce lost marketing opportunities

Prospects can gather information online and make purchases at any time of the day, 24 hours a day.
Therefore, it is important to have content available online at all times.
Let’s convert the information that many prospective customers commonly want into content and publish it as an SEO-friendly web page.
Then people can find them via search engines.
You can also set up a 24/7 support window with an automated reply chatbot.

Also, in MA, register not only information about prospects obtained online, but also information obtained from offline events and sales activities.
That way, when the prospective customer information is duplicated, you can prevent troubles such as “sending the same email to the same prospective customer multiple times”.

By collectively managing prospective customer information, you can eliminate the omission of prospective customers who could not be approached and reduce the risk of opportunity loss.

[Advantage 4] You can focus on what you need to do manually

If you have routine tasks such as setting emails to be delivered by prospective customer attribute or stage, verifying the effectiveness of each advertising campaign, or replying to frequently asked questions, use MA to automate them.

Automating repetitive tasks frees up human resources for other areas.
Automation using MA is also recommended to prevent human errors such as misdelivery of emails.

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In this way, the use of MA has great advantages.
However, such a convenient MA needs to be skillfully introduced into the business in order to receive the maximum benefits.
For this reason, it is important to carefully prepare for the introduction.

Next, I will tell you what you need to prepare before introducing MA.

MA is not a convenient tool that simply introduces it and makes marketing activities go smoothly.
If you don’t make some preparations before introducing it, even a high-performance MA will be a waste of money.

From here, we will introduce four things to prepare before introduction in order to make the most of MA.

[Preparation 1] Clarify the purpose of introducing MA

When considering the introduction of MA, clarify what problems you want to solve and what purpose you want to achieve by introducing MA.

For example, let’s say you have a problem, “I have a list of prospective customers in my company, but it’s hard to connect to business negotiations.”
Therefore, when I checked the current lead nurturing method, I found that the prospective customers (leads) that were created were blindly conducting tele-appointment sales and sending emails, and that they were repeatedly taking actions that the prospective customers did not want. rice field.

To solve this problem, you need an approach that is tailored to your prospective customers’ high willingness to buy.
Therefore, by visualizing purchase intent using MA’s scoring function, we decided to implement the optimal approach for each prospective customer.

If the issues and objectives of the company are clear in this way, the use cases of MA will be clarified.

[Preparation 2] Prepare prospective customer information and data to be registered in MA

What you should do immediately after introducing MA is to register information on business cards you have acquired in the past, subscribers of e-mail magazines and prospective customers who have made inquiries in the MA database.

So, gather as much information about your prospects as possible.
In particular, the prospective customer information held by each sales representative is often a black box, so with the cooperation of the sales representative, organize the prospective customer information so that it can be immediately registered in MA. keep it.

As a method of importing information into MA, there are mainly batch imports using Excel format files and CSV files.
Therefore, it may be better to organize the prospective customer information in Excel first.
In addition, there is also a method of importing analog information on business cards while converting them into data through a business card scanning service such as “SanSan”.

[Preparation 3] Understand the prospective customer (lead) information held in the company

Although it overlaps with [Preparation 2] above, when introducing MA, let’s grasp what kind of prospective customer (lead) information is available in the company.
What you should be careful about here is the case where the prospective customer’s willingness to buy is low.
Even if you have a lot of information about prospects with low purchasing intentions, it won’t lead to close deals immediately.
Therefore, please do not start using MA with excessive expectations.
MA is also a tool for generating prospective customers (leads).
If you only have information about prospects with low purchase intentions, you should consider an approach that will increase the purchase intentions of those prospects, or focus on creating new prospects.

The terms “MQL” and “SQL” are sometimes used to understand the purchasing intentions of prospective customers.
Please remember these two words, and think about an approach to increase the number of prospective customers who are highly motivated to buy in the order of “MQL” → “SQL”.

[Preparation 4] Securing skills and resources to carry out marketing using MA

MA is a tool to make marketing activities more efficient, not a tool to compensate for internal web marketing knowledge.
Therefore, in order to operate MA, some knowledge of marketing is required.

For example, not only marketing knowledge such as SEO, SNS marketing, and advertising operations, but also system construction and business flow design are required to some extent.

According to a survey by Startia Holdings Co., Ltd. , more than 80% of companies that are currently introducing MA or have introduced MA in the past said, “If we were to introduce and operate MA again, we would hire an external specialist. I want to ask my house for consulting.”
In other words, although MA has been introduced, the knowledge of marketing and business flow design has not caught up, and many companies are seeking external support for MA utilization.

Therefore, if there is a lack of knowledge within the company, we recommend that you ask external experts for consulting, or consider hiring and training in-house marketing personnel.

In addition, the vendor (tool provider) of the introduced MA may provide support for the introduction of MA.
It is a good idea to check in advance whether MA vendor-led support services are available.

Also, the MA started after it was introduced.
It is necessary to keep turning the PDCA cycle while looking at the actual results.

Therefore, it is necessary not only to secure human resources to promote marketing by utilizing MA, but also to establish a company-wide marketing organization involving sales and production departments.

When introducing MA, it is important to prepare as described above and choose an MA that suits your company.

From here, we will introduce the representative MAs in Japan.
Each tool has a large market share in Japan, and each has its own characteristics and strengths.

The characteristics of each company’s MA are briefly summarized, but if you want to know more detailed information, please check the website of each company.

1. HubSpot

Our company’s “HubSpot” is an MA tool that has the No. 1 share in the world and is used by many companies.
HubSpot has pioneered “inbound marketing,” which provides valuable information to customers and builds long-lasting relationships.
In fact, the HubSpot tool was born when the founder’s blog, which provided useful information to its readers, became a hot topic.
Against this background, we specialize in content-based lead generation and lead nurturing.

For example, HubSpot’s built-in CMS allows you to create a website without any technical knowledge .
It also has an “SEO function” that allows you to create content while checking advice that is useful for SEO.
As a result, the content production required for lead generation and lead nurturing can be done in-house, and the PDCA cycle for content production and improvement can be quickly implemented.

In addition to the basic functions of MA, “HubSpot” has CRM (customer relationship management), SFA (sales support tool), and customer support functions free of charge.
As a result, even companies that find it difficult to introduce multiple tools due to budget constraints, or companies that have not introduced tools for customer information management, can implement comprehensive measures from marketing to customer support with HubSpot.

You can fully utilize it even if it is free, but if you use various plans of “Marketing Hub” (from 5,400 yen / month), you can add functions that suit your company and increase the number of lead information that can be registered.

In addition, even if the in-house marketing knowledge is insufficient, internal members can proceed with learning on their own by using the online learning course ” HubSpot Academy ” where you can learn marketing for free .

2. Pardot

MA for BtoB provided by salesforce.com, the world’s No. 1 share of SFA (sales support system).
It has a proven track record in SFA, and although it can be linked with other tools, it is particularly characterized by its smooth linkage with SFA .
As a result, leads and lead information created through marketing activities can be smoothly shared with sales representatives, increasing the contribution of marketing activities to sales.

In addition, since the prospects owned by the company are summarized in a funnel-type graph by stage, the number of leads in each stage can be seen at a glance, and the overall lead status can be grasped immediately.
As a result, it is easy to formulate hypotheses such as issues in marketing activities and which processes should be strengthened, and it becomes possible to quickly turn the PDCA cycle.

Online learning content ” Trailhead ” is available so that MA operation staff can learn how to operate the tool by themselves.

The cheapest “Growth plan” is available from 150,000 yen per month.

In addition, since ” Marketing Cloud ” is also provided as an MA for BtoC , it is a good idea to consider it according to the purpose of introduction at your company.

3. Bow Now

As the slogan says, “Free to use”, it is a tool for B2B that allows you to use all the basic functions of MA, such as tracking companies that have visited the website, narrowing down lists, and distributing e-mail magazines, for free.
It is free and has the minimum required functions, so even those who use MA for the first time can easily introduce it.
In addition, due to its limited functions, it is possible to manage prospective customer information, provide information that matches prospective customers, and cooperate with the sales department, and proceed with what should be addressed in MA first.

If the number of page views is 50,000 or less and the number of leads that can be registered is 1,000 or less, you can use it for free.
If the number of PVs of the site or the number of leads held increases, you can continue to use the service by paying an additional fee or changing to a paid plan.

With a paid plan, you can use the support center where you can consult about the operation of the tool.
If you use the free plan, use the manual site open to all users.

Four. Adobe Marketo Engage

A Japanese subsidiary was established in 2014 and is rapidly expanding its market share in Japan.
It is designed with an emphasis on lead nurturing and scoring, allowing you to send information to prospective customers at the optimum timing.

It has a good reputation for its ease of operation, and you can easily set prospective customer segment conditions by dragging and dropping.
It is easy to link with external tools, and can be widely used regardless of BtoB or BtoC.

We have a well-developed support system, and in addition to support at the time of introduction, we also offer consulting on how to use MA after introducing MA, such as marketing strategy planning and email delivery support.
In addition to online learning content called ” Marketo University “, an online community where users can consult each other is also available, providing a learning environment.
Therefore, even if there is little knowledge of MA in the company or there is only one person in charge of operation, it can be operated with confidence.

Five. SATORI

A purely domestic MA tool provided by SATORI Corporation. The biggest feature is that it not only collects the behavioral data of prospective customers who have obtained information from the inquiry form, but also anonymous visitors’ behavior data before they are converted into prospective customers
. .

Since content can be distributed to the majority of anonymous prospective customers who visit the website and leave without entering personal information, you can promote lead nurturing anonymously and increase purchase motivation.
As a result, you can increase the rate of obtaining personal information in the end, and you can prevent opportunity loss such as prospective customers who are interested in your company and visit your website leave.
By being able to approach anonymous prospective customers, it is possible to expand the range of measures, so it is a tool that can be used even by companies that do not have a sufficient number of leads or have not built a mechanism to attract customers, such as operating owned media.

6. List Finder

Among the domestic tools introduced by listed companies, it is the MA with the largest number of introductions.
Since it has the necessary functions at a low price starting from 39,800 yen per month, it is being introduced in Japan mainly by small and medium-sized enterprises.
You can obtain information about prospective customers such as “who”, “what page”, and “how many seconds they viewed” on your company’s website, so that data is useful for developing new customers.

The support system is also substantial, such as receiving free consulting at the time of introduction.

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The cost of paid MA tools varies from company to company, ranging from 6,000 yen to 500,000 yen per month.
Also, depending on the tool, there may be an initial cost or only one plan.
When introducing it in earnest, check in advance whether your company can do what you want to do within the price plan you are about to apply for.

From here, I will explain the operation flow after introducing MA.
Operation after introducing MA is essential.
We will divide the main flow of operations into nine processes and delve into each process.

1. member assignment

First, let’s secure a member to operate MA.
Personnel who promote the introduction of MA are those who have a strong desire to learn and are comfortable communicating with other departments.
This is because when introducing MA, it is necessary to learn the difference between various marketing terms, how to use tools, setting procedures, etc.
Be aware that if you assign someone who is not interested in learning new things or trying new things, the project itself may fail.

Also, during MA operation, there are many situations where multiple departments are involved in thinking about strategies and other departments are asked to cooperate.
Therefore, it is suitable for people with good communication skills.

2. Confirmation of how to cooperate with other departments

Once you have decided on the members who will operate the MA, check the flow of collaboration between your department and other departments, and whether collaboration between existing tools and MA is necessary.

Collaboration with other departments is essential in order to utilize MA to create leads and ultimately lead to sales.
If other departments already manage customer information with another tool, it is necessary to coordinate with that tool so that information in MA can be shared seamlessly.
If there is work that requires cooperation from other departments, sharing information before introducing MA can prevent confusion after introduction.

Recently, there are many companies that are promoting marketing by using MA and other tools together.
In particular, by linking with CRM and SFA, it is possible to visualize whether or not the prospects collected by the marketing department have subsequently led to a contract.
If there is an existing tool in use, check in advance whether the newly introduced MA can be easily linked with the existing tool, and if it seems difficult, whether to outsource it.

3. Setting marketing goals (KPI/KGI)

Next, set quantitative marketing goals.
If you do not set quantitative targets, you will not be able to understand the effectiveness of your marketing measures and the measures with high priority, and you will not be able to implement the PDCA cycle for improvement.
Therefore, be sure to set goals that are quantifiable, measurable, and achievable in a realistic timeframe, in line with your challenges.

In addition, when setting goals, decide on two things: KGI (goal to aim) and KPI (index for measuring progress toward achieving the goal).
By clarifying the indicators for measuring the degree of goal achievement, the progress of measures can be visualized and the accuracy of measures can be improved.

The following indicators are mainly used for KGI and KPI when introducing MA.

When checking the goals and indicators that have been set, you can proceed more efficiently by dividing roles, such as assigning the indicators to be checked by each area of ​​responsibility

Four. Marketing strategy planning

Once you have decided on your goals and the people in charge, think of a marketing strategy to achieve your goals.
However, if the strategy is considered without considering the customer data, resources, know-how, etc. owned by the company, it may become an unexecutable strategy, and the strategy plan that has been devised may not be executed.
Therefore, it is important to analyze customer information and your company’s strengths and formulate a strategy.

For example, let’s consider a case where you want to increase the “number of corporate contracts” for your company’s SaaS service.
Let’s say you’ve discovered that your current corporate customers’ primary awareness path is through advertising.
You can then hypothesize that you’ll win more deals if you better reach out to prospects through advertising.
Based on this, among the prospective customers who visited the website from the campaign announcement advertisement, it is possible to consider an approach of sending emails with details of the campaign to prospective customers who are highly likely to request materials, etc.

The above is a very simple example, but if you analyze your customers and your company’s strengths in this way, you can come up with viable and effective strategies.

By the way, you can use frameworks such as 3C analysis, SWOT analysis, and 4P analysis to understand the characteristics of your customers and your company’s strengths.

Let’s develop a strategy while also using these frameworks according to the purpose.

Five. Persona design

Once you have a strategy for your goals, create a “persona” to clarify the prospective image you will approach.
A “persona” is a picture of the ideal customer for a product or service.
Creating personas helps you identify your prospect’s needs so you can create content that aligns with those needs.

A persona is set at a level that allows a person to have a clear image of a specific person, such as “35 years old, working for an IT company, team leader, coaching a soccer team that my son participates in on holidays…”.

6. Create a customer journey map

After designing the persona, create a “customer journey map”.
A “customer journey map” is a diagram like the one below that shows a series of actions and thoughts from a persona’s recognition of a product or service to the purchase decision.

The content of interest differs between the persona before recognizing the product or service and the persona who has already recognized the service and is comparing various services.
By creating a “customer journey map”, it is possible to predict what kind of information the persona at each stage will be interested in and what kind of actions they will take, so lead nurturing can proceed appropriately.

7. Content planning

After creating personas and customer journey maps, think about the content and format of the content you provide to prospective customers in each step of the customer journey map.
For example, in the case of download materials, there are types of content such as “industry reports” that summarize recent trends in the industry and “templates” that help prospective customers with their marketing activities.
Experience and participatory content such as seminars and product demonstrations can also be considered.

Prospects who have little interest in the product will be more likely to accept “templates” that can be used immediately.
On the other hand, for prospective customers who have already made inquiries and are highly motivated to buy, content that allows them to try products for a certain period of time is considered effective.

In this way, we plan the contents to be provided according to the purchase intention of prospective customers.
Also, once you have decided what content to prepare, make a plan for when to create which content.

8. Creation and setting of distribution scenarios

Based on the created customer journey map, decide the distribution scenario, which content should be distributed to prospective customers who have taken action, when and from which channel.
After that, let’s set the distribution conditions of the content to execute the decided scenario in MA.

Note that the more detailed the conditions for prospective customers to whom content is delivered, the more time it takes to set conditions, which may delay the delivery of content.
Also, if the conditions are set in detail and the prospective customers to whom the content is to be delivered are narrowed down too much, the amount of data that can be obtained is limited, making it impossible to verify the effectiveness of the measures.
Since the population of leads that can be advanced to lead nurturing is also reduced, the number of leads that can be passed to sales and the number of closed deals will also decrease.

Therefore, if you are unfamiliar with MA operation, it is a good idea to create a simple scenario first, and then create a detailed scenario once you are familiar with it.

9. Review of operations

Let’s check whether each KGI/KPI that was decided in advance has reached the target value using MA’s report function, etc., and look back on the effect of each measure.
Let’s also look back on the issues in mastering MA, such as not being able to use the MA functions well, setting things up properly, etc., and get support if necessary.

Tools that are often used in conjunction with MA include CRM (customer information management) and SFA (sales support system).
In order to give you a clearer understanding of the role of the MA, I will briefly introduce the differences between the three.

The common point of MA, CRM, and SFA is “to manage customer or prospective customer information”.
However, their main roles and areas of expertise in the marketing process are different.

What is CRM/SFA?

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) means “customer relationship management”.
Specifically, it refers to centralized management of customer information such as download history of materials, content of business negotiations, content of past inquiries and purchase history, or dedicated tools for it.

The purpose is to understand the needs of customers and respond appropriately to each customer, thereby building good relationships with customers and making them repeat customers and fans of the company.

SFA (Sales Force Automation) means “sales support system” and refers to a tool equipped with functions to streamline operations such as visualizing the progress of each project and creating daily reports.
By centrally managing business deals within the company, you can check the progress of all deals without omission.
For example, you can quickly notice a project that is behind schedule and check it with the sales representative, or prevent oversight of the project.
In addition, it is possible to streamline operations such as creating daily reports and issuing invoices, and reduce the workload of sales representatives.

In this way, by utilizing SFA, it is possible to improve the efficiency of sales activities and increase the closing rate.

SFA and SFA are explained in detail in the following articles, so please take a look if you are interested.

Role of each tool

The table below summarizes the role of each MA, SFA, and CRM tool and the main features they have.

The main role of CRM is to consistently manage customer information from before closing to after closing.
On the other hand, the main role of MA is to manage prospective customer information before closing a deal and to streamline marketing activities using that information.
The main role of SFA is to improve the efficiency of sales operations.

As explained in this article, MA can help you understand the needs and wants of more potential and prospective customers.
As a result, it is possible to approach prospective customers individually, and as a result of creating a good relationship with prospective customers, it leads to an improvement in the closing rate.

Also, by introducing MA into the organization, the attitude of the entire organization to work on marketing will change.
The introduction of MA will also serve as an opportunity to develop excellent marketers within the organization.

MA is a tool for automating marketing activities, but “people” are responsible for designing how to use this tool.
In addition, there are “people” such as potential customers and prospects at the end of the tool.

Companies that can make good use of MA never lose sight of its essence.
No matter how convenient digital tools come out, I hope that you will incorporate MA into your work while keeping in mind that it is “people” who use and make use of them.

And when introducing MA into your business, first introduce it on a small scale.
We recommend that you start small, and when you meet an MA that fits your company, gradually spread it throughout the company.
No tool can really be a good fit for your business until you actually use it.