One of the questions we received directly from our faithful fans (quite a few actually) regarding what benefit these services provide and the type of functionality to look for when selecting a marketing automation platform. While each Web business and enterprise will be different, a few possible answers today come from the 2011 Loopfuse Marketing Automation Survey.
According to the survey results, "better quality leads" was the most important benefit of marketing automation among respondents, followed closely by a better understanding of prospect behavior and a higher volume of leads overall. The survey also indicated that among most widely used marketing automation features, Email Marketing tops the list, followed closely by Web Lead Capture. Lead Scoring, a more advanced practice, scored the lowest, uncovering a significant opportunity for capturing better quality leads.
"Marketing Automation continues to gain traction among SMBs, especially as they seek to engage more potential customers online," said Sean Dwyer, president and CEO, LoopFuse. "Within such a dynamic marketplace, neither high costs nor complexity should be barriers to marketing automation adoption among SMBs. Our SMB-friendly pricing and feature set, including a free version, removes cost and complexity as barriers to adoption and allows any company to realize the clear benefits of marketing automation."