If you're not yet using a #marketingautomation platform today, you must consider solutions like Salesforce #Pardot, #Eloqua, #Hubspot or #Marketo. More and more enterprise business is transforming digitally, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to reach a broader audience and remain relevant. Marketing automation is no longer a complicated tech tool- it's ] the industry standard to drive revenue, and a key component to successful marketing campaigns. If you think that Pardot is just about mass email or just and email-marketing platform (an #ESP), you're wrong. Both B2B and B2C marketers rely increasingly on tools like Pardot for behavioral intelligence and to deliver contextual multi-touch journeys and engagement with their consumers.

Select the right MAP (Marketing Automation Platform)

At Forcery, we're huge fans of Salesforce Pardot. However, the marketing automation tool you choose is only as good as your CRM (customer relationship management system). Take care to choose the right platform, and select the best marketing automation implementation expert

1. Integrate Marketing Automation with your CRM

Your CRM must be a single source of truth, with a robust and clean data set. Otherwise, personalization and effectiveness of marketing campaigns are useless.

2. Ensure your Partner provides the best onboarding and training during implementation

Choose a Partner with a great track record of solutions implementations. The consulting ecosystem is crowded. Even the largest consultancies usually say "yes," and Google solutions later. Choose a partner with a great track record, and who with CRM or marketing automation training experience.

3.Import your Prospects

These can be leads or contacts- the beauty of marketing automation is that it's used for lead generation, but also cross-selling and upselling. Connecting a CRM to a marketing automation platform surfaces incredible personalization and segmentation capabilities.

4. Build and Import Creative Templates

Once you have contacts in your system, it's time to start thinking about what you plan to market to them. Many systems have drag-and-drop builders custom made for each marketing automation tool. Start out with an #email blast letting your customers and prospects know about new or upcoming product releases. Or use your first email send to distribute an email #newsletter.

5. Launch your first campaign

With the difficult configuration complete, it's time to get started! With contacts loaded, emails prepared and the system ready to go, you can start testing out marketing strategy.

6 Analyze, Report and Measure Results.

A marketers job is never done. However, marketing automation systems deliver incredible reporting, analytics and business intelligence. If you are disciplined with your approach, and benchmark KPIs, you can iteratively improve your marketing automation performance over time.