It is interesting that we continue to see a proliferation of “marketing automation tools and technologies” emerge every month. Marketers have their choice from Eloqua, Aprimo, Marketo, Vtrenz, Market2Lead, Manticore and the open source option, Loopfuse. And while each has great benefits, I can’t help but think that no matter how much the engine (Marketing Automation System) is perfected, it will not run well if the fuel (the DATA) is sewage.

Are we still, in 2008, renting “sewage lists” and them pumping them though these marketing automation processes? Most list vendors sell or rent title-based B2B contact lists. The problem is that a person’s title is only an appellation of rank, it has very little to do with the person’s roles and responsibilities in an organization. Say the buyer of your product is typically a Director of IT. Someone comes to your site and accurately fills out a form that they are the Director of IT. Hooray, you got ‘em. But wait, at IBM there could be 150 directors of IT; how do you know this is the one responsible for network security and has budget authority?

Just yesterday, I was on a call with the VP of Marketing who had been at a few of the Marketing Automation vendors and she could not believe what ReachForce is doing. At several past positions she set up her own inside telemarketing team to do contact discovery because she knew that title-based lists produces abysmal response rates. While this tactic had success, it was cost prohibitive to scale, manage and build. In her case, she thought that there was no option but to do that as she did not want to use the sewage and be in 99% inaccuracy land.

Marketing Automation is a necessary tool for all marketers, but any one of these tools is only as good as the data put into it.

My point is that marketing automation is important but getting quality data or fuel to put into it is PRICELESS!!

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