If you are a marketer who is interested in implementing marketing automation software in your organization, then the first thing that you need to do is sell your idea to your CxOs who will provide you the budgets, manpower and most importantly the company wide support required to succeed. You need your organization’s and colleagues’ support to implement marketing automation successfully. Most importantly, you will need the buy-in of key stakeholders, people who are part of the C-suite.
As a marketer your first step to craft your case is to understand the ones you are pitching your idea to. You need to outline the persona of each executive and their corporate perspective in order to achieve your goal.
This is how you sell marketing automation to your CxO:
The CMO
Your first stop will be the CMO, your boss who is probably interested in knowing if his team is capable of handling a new system. The CMO will probably be the first person to be on board with marketing automation if he understands the benefits of marketing automation already. But you will still have to present your case. The CMO is someone who will be interested in a tool that will help the company generate, nurture leads and help Sales close more deals.
You have to show your CMO concrete examples as to how an automation platform will be beneficial for your organization. If you can pitch examples specific to how your team can become more efficient if you have access to such a platform, you will be able to sell your idea. However, you have to show that providing relevant content to the right audience will be able to contribute to greater number of conversions and ultimately close more deals. Marketing automation tools’ ability to generate real time reports would be a strong selling point for you when you present your case to the CMO.
The CEO
Your CEO is a key executive and this will prove to be a complicated sell. You will have to address both the quantitative as well as the qualitative concerns of your CEO. But you have to make sure that you get the CEO’s approval more than anyone else’s. What you have to understand that the CEO is ultimately more concerned about the bigger picture. So, your pitch should focus on how marketing automation will help the company by increasing revenue, efficiency as well as customer satisfaction. Your pitch should also showcase how automation can help your company outpace all the competition and become market leaders in the long run.
The CFO
Remember, that when you sell your idea to the CFO, you will have to be extra sure of the data that you provide. The CFO’s top priorities are controlling the costs for your organization and understanding ROI of every proposed purchase. You have to provide the CFO with data that showcases the success of marketing automation in your industry. The main concern for the CFO is ultimately the bottom line. Be sure to highlight the fact that marketing automation lets you measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and increase revenue.
The VP of Sales
The major concerns of VP of Sales are sales growth and profit. As we all know that marketing and sales are interdependent on each other, so your relation with the sales department comes into play here. Before you start on your pitch, remember that marketing automation is a platform that is not only meant for marketing but also for sales. Prepare yourself to pitch this point the most so that the VP can realize the effectiveness of automation for both the departments. Talk at length about how the quality of leads will improve drastically and sales can focus on selling and closing more deals. And yes, don’t forget to tell her that the lead revisit alerts and lead scoring will help salespeople identify the best time to call their prospects. And believe me, you will never hear a “No” from her. She has already realised the value a CRM brings in and would love the additional intelligence of marketing automation tool. Use statistics to convince her how an integrated CRM-Marketing Automation system will help her team exceed their sales goals.
The CIO
When it comes to the CIO, you will have to demonstrate why marketing automation is a viable investment. The CIO should not be concerned about the marketing aspect of this proposal so make sure you don your technical hat before you begin your pitch. Your CIO will want to know how viable this piece of technology will be for the long run. Make sure to assure your CIO that implementation will not overburden the IT team and things will run seamlessly. He will probably be interested in how the marketing automation tool will integrate with the existing systems seamlessly and also about the data security features of the tool.
More than anything else, make sure that your organization actually needs a marketing automation platform. Your entire pitch will fall short if your company has no need for marketing automation at the moment. Be honest to yourself as well as your CxOs while preparing and launching your pitch.
If you are facing difficulty in preparing a pitch or do not know how to sell marketing automation to your CxOs, then don’t hesitate to schedule a FREE consultation with us right now and we’d love to pitch it to your boss together!
