Top Marketing Automation Myths: This Hurts

Most myths are useless. Some of them hurt. Marketing automation myths are no different.

A Salesforce State of Marketing report pegs that over 67% of marketing leaders currently use a marketing automation platform (thank you Jordie Van Rijn of Email Monday for that).

For many businesses that don’t, there’s at least a plan in place (or maybe just a gnawing thought) that it’s time to put marketing automation to use.

There are nearly 11 times more businesses that are dabbling with marketing automation today than they were in early 2011.

Agreed that marketing automation is hot. We know that it has the potential to alleviate your stress, make things easier on your business, and put some sophistication back into marketing.

Further, when you do marketing automation right, you also nudge your business that much closer to profitability.

But then, for too many businesses, marketing automation feels like that’s something only Amazon can afford to do. Or there are several more myths and other things that are probably stopping you in your tracks when it comes to marketing automation.

Here are a few myths that have the potential to hurt your business:

Email Marketing Automation: The options

Drip is a fantastic email marketing automation tool. MailChimp has always been around and is the popular kid on the block. GrowthFunnel, and Convertflow are new entrants to the mix.

You then have the big kahunas of the marketing automation world such as Marketo, Pardot, OntraPort, and InfusionSoft.

The problem? You have no freaking clue what you’d need to start with. Just spending time choosing between marketing automation tools feels like it’s a sin.

My suggestion? Just don’t sweat it. Start with MailChimp. If and when you need slightly advanced automation (or if you have too many offers for lead generation plastered across your site), use Drip or Convertkit.

Read up about teardown between Mailchimp Vs Drip 

Set it up & forget it

If your idea of marketing automation was to craft up a sales funnel  and let software do all the heavy lifting for you, prepare to be disappointed.

Marketing automation does have the word “automation” in it but it won’t be “set it and forget”.

The basic setup and how your prospective customer or lead moves from the top of the funnel to the bottom might all be set up.

Your job then is to tweak it, test it, optimize it, and continue to work on it until it works for your business — and all of this is a single workflow.

Depending on your business, you could have multiple workflows, campaigns, offers, products, and services.

At that point, complexity tends to creep in. As Matt Burke writes on HuBSpot,

“Lazy marketing automation is easy, but the keyword here is “lazy.” Quality marketing automation on the other hand takes work, and it’s well worth your effort in the end. ”

Automation brings in a flavor of “smart and sophisticated” to help you grow strong, sustainable systems.

I can do marketing automation myself

Maybe you can, but you won’t do it well enough for it to work.

Marketing Automation is like a little motor that does something very well. The difference is that an actual motor (the machine) is built once and it continues to work and deliver what it’s meant to.

When you want to automate parts of your business, your workflows need to be built up, tweaked, and managed before and while it’s working.

Now, that takes work.

You could do it but the trouble is that you have a business to run. But yes, with the rise of super tools like Zapier and Integromat, you can still venture out into the wild.

Marketing automation is complicated

In a day and age where you are just a few drags and clicks away from doing whatever you could ever want to do for your business, implementing marketing automation has never been this simple.

Click this, click that, connect this, connect that — boom! You have magic working for you.

If you are not implementing marketing automation today because if you thought it was complicated, you really didn’t spend a Sunday afternoon “tinkering” with the tools.

What are marketing automation myths hurting your business? Tell me about it.