Survey: Marketing automation is appealing to companies – challenge is lack of know-how

Companies are very interested in marketing automation but the implementation is hampered by the lack of knowledge and know-how. This is the main result that came out from the survey conducted by Liana Technologies in the spring of 2017. The survey asked marketing and communications professionals about the benefits and challenges of marketing automation.

Liana Technologies conducted the survey in May 2017 and got a total of 421 responses from Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The purpose of the survey was to find out whether or not marketing automation is already utilized in companies, what benefits have been achieved with the technology and why some companies still hesitate to adopt the new technology. 

The results revealed that marketing automation is already in use in many companies. Over a third of the respondents said they are using marketing automation in their work. Those companies not yet using the technology are very interested in automation technology. Almost 40% of the companies not using marketing automation said they are planning to adopt the technology within the next 12 months. However, over a half of the respondents still didn’t know about their plans.

The main obstacle for adopting the technology is the lack of know-how. Nearly 60% of the respondents said the lack of experience or knowledge is the main reason why the company has not taken marketing automation in use. Almost half of the respondents also named the lack of personnel and a third the lack of strategy as the main reason for not having adopted the technology. Technical challenges, like the difficulty of adoption process or complicated usage, were also frequently mentioned in the survey results.

Juho Mattila, the marketing automation specialist at Liana Technologies, knows the situation all too well: “Too often companies can’t get further from the planning stage. Instead of excessive planning it is important to start doing automation with the customer data that already exists. The processes and automation chains can constantly be modified and improved according to the received data. Experience and knowledge will also grow gradually along the way”, says Juho Mattila.

Marketing automation is very beneficial for companies. The survey results revealed that those already using automation technology have reached concrete benefits from the technology. The most important benefit of automation technology, according to almost 70% of the respondents, is better targeted customer communication. Also improved customer experience and better quality of leads were frequently mentioned by the respondents. 

“The technology partner has a huge impact on the success in automation processes. The purpose of automation is to help marketers in their daily tasks, so the companies should really spend time on choosing the right partner. Agile tools make working convenient and efficient, and you get visible results fast”, tells Juho Mattila, the Business Director of Marketing Automation at Liana Technologies.

For more information
Juho Mattila
Business Director, Marketing Automation
Liana Technologies Ltd.
+358 40 836 7216
[email protected]