BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - May 7, 2009) - A recent study,
"
Marketing Automation: A Strategic Guide to
Automating End-to-End Marketing Activities," conducted by
Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company
(
NYSE:
HHS), underscores the strategic value of marketing automation
platforms. "Very few companies indicated they were looking for an
'integrated marketing platform,'" said Ian Michiels, Practice Director of
the
Customer Management
Technology Group and author of the study. "Most organizations will
seek to address a specific business pain in marketing and end up adopting a
mix of separate technologies which often lead to disparate data and
difficulty measuring marketing performance." The study identified current
trends in marketing automation adoption, organizational capabilities that
support the technology, and the integrated features that are most valuable
to organizations that use marketing automation platforms.
In the context of the research, marketing automation is defined by
technology that automates marketing management and customer engagement.
"Marketing automation platforms" contain two essential ingredients. First,
they help automate one or more internal marketing processes (otherwise
categorized as "marketing management"), such as workflow & approval,
planning & budgeting, asset management and creation, project management, or
event management. Second, they automate customer engagement, which
automates marketing campaign execution across one or more marketing
channels: online media, email marketing, microsites, the website, direct
mail, keywords, etc.
The research found that just 23% of the respondents currently used a
marketing automation platform, but 58% of all respondents planned to use
them in the future. More importantly, organizations that achieved superior
performance in annual revenue growth and year-over-year growth in return on
marketing investments were two times more likely to use an integrated
platform. "The research underscores the value of marketing automation and
suggests we will continue to see growth in adoption of these solutions in
the future. Integration helps deliver analytics about the state of the
business and improves productivity across the entire marketing function,"
said Michiels.
The study allows readers to compare their current performance relative to
peers and competitors and identify recommendations to grow revenue and gain
market share. The report also identifies leading performance as a result
of marketing automation initiatives, compared to the Industry Average and
Laggards. A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part
to the following underwriters: Microsoft and Silverpop. Furthermore this
research is being disseminated to the market through the support of various
media outlets, such as the ECT News network and ITO America. To obtain a
complimentary copy of the report, visit the
Aberdeen Group - Marketing Automation Report Download Page:
http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=5711.
Check out the upcoming Aberdeen
CMO Summit website
About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company
Aberdeen provides fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers
demonstrable results. Having queried more than 30,000 companies in the
past two years, Aberdeen is positioned to educate users to action: driving
market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering
meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the
global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights
that drive decisions.
As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in
context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's
analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of
Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement -
Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role
Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit
Aberdeen or call (617) 723-7890, or to
learn more about
Harte-Hanks,
call (800) 456-9748.
© 2009 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
451 D Street, Suite 710
Boston, Massachusetts 02210-1928
Telephone: (617) 854-5200
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com
Contact Information: Media Contact:
Ian Michiels
Aberdeen Harte-Hanks
(925) 264-1824
ian.michiels@aberdeen.com