By now Oracle’s acquisition of marketing automation leader, Eloqua is old news. In some circles, so is Gartner’s prediction that by 2017 the CMO will spend more on IT Than the CIO. Marketing—particularly digital marketing—is big business for the singular reason that it allows companies to do what its glitzier predecessors could not: quantitatively measure results.
As Lisa Arthur, CMO of Teradata Applications, wrote in a recent Forbes blog post, “the business landscape has shifted, and it’s no longer marketing that drives business growth – it’s digital marketing that drives business growth.”
Given that scenario, the predicted increase in IT spending by the CMO is not all that surprising. Nor is the apparent trend towards the acquisition of smaller marketing automation companies by software giants. The big guys want a piece of the pie. It stands to reason, however, that this trend could put small to mid sized businesses at even more of a disadvantage.
Consider this statement in Sales Engine International’s blog post,
Breaking News: Eloqua Acquisition Irrelevant to Mid-market:
“Larger organizations have the staff, budget and content assets in place to use marketing automation to its full potential. Small and mid-sized companies simply can’t do everything that is required to make use of marketing automation in its current state. They don’t need more add-ons for business intelligence and Big Data. These organizations need talent and resources to run an effective digital marketing program and to make proper use of the technology they already own.”
Though some companies believe they can buy the software and their fortunes will change overnight, the reality is that purchasing the software license is one thing, executing is another thing entirely. No matter what the promise, marketing automation software does not deliver without a solid sales and marketing infrastructure behind it. That includes the people, processes and systems to make it work.
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That is why working with sales and marketing as a service provider like NuGrowth can be so empowering for smaller and mid sized businesses looking to grow.
Not only do they benefit from access to unparalleled sales leadership and dedicated inside sales representatives, they get access to an effective digital marketing team, proven territory management systems and access to state of the art marketing automation software all for roughly the same cost as a VP of sales. As if that weren’t enough, they get an organization that is built to scale, an external perspective and an outside team that is vested in the success of their venture.
If you are interested in learning how NuGrowth can help you solve your sales and marketing challenges, please give us a call at (800) 966-3051 or fill out a brief contact form and we will be in touch.
