Joel - in this case, no need to start time-traveling to take out the engineers who invented the marketing platforms. They are a force for good that can be tamed to the will of the humans... OK, enough of that. I think one of the most dramatic changes brought about by automation platforms is the realization among marketers that once implemented, there is no rationale for not engaging in improving the nurturing process after prospects first interact with your brand. The "one-step-and-done" lead gen model no longer has a realistic place at the table... and 28-field forms required for prospects to download your content can be replaced with drip-feed profile development. It's a future we should be walking toward, not away from.

Ultimately, the promise of marketing automation is less about the systems themselves – it is more about a change in mindset for marketers and agencies.

It opens up the possibility to move away from the traditional 6-week campaign cycle to a perpetual approach that exists as long as there are products to sell and customers to buy.

It allows us to trigger communication and engagement based upon observable behaviour. It also means we can adapt a campaign in near real time.

But it does mean that we all have to think and plan differently. We have to focus on a variety of scenarios covering both purchase and influence and create compelling content and incentives to move customers from one buying stage to another.

Far from being something marketers should be fearful of, I believe it represents a fantastic opportunity to take a big step forward.

I was initially quite excited when I saw the cover of B2B Marketing, but as I read on I found the information not to be very practical. Marketing automation however doesn't have to be complex. Once you know what you want to achieve, the Cloud offers a most complete toolbox in order to implement the actual automation and data exchanges between platforms. It's all in the APIs!

Especially smaller organisations and start-ups (because less legacy systems involved) can benefit tremendously from the type of solutions offered by Web companies that have joined the http://thesmallbusinessweb.com/

Marketing professionals can dip their toes in marketing automation at virtually no cost and can do so very easily and quickly. The building blocks of marketing automation are available right now.
As William Gibson rightly said: "The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet."
As someone else said ... "Just Do It"

Automated marketing systems often come with a monthly pricetag, am I right?

So I'm conflicted on this one.

On the one hand I want to minimise the number of systems I'm paying for on a monthly basis because I'm worried that I'll be too lazy to maximise their use so I'll be wasting money.

On the other hand I want to resell (or build) automated systems like those that I can charge clients for on a monthly basis - therefore automating my revenue!

Is that two-faced of me?

Joel, this is a great post. The title was very compelling.

I have noticed that when you inject the word "automation" into a conversation around "relationship-building" people tend to be very skeptical. "You can't automate a relationship" they say, (not until the AI is more evolved I guess) but really, as you mentioned above, it's not about automating the relationship, it's about efficiently connecting marketers to their best leads, and allowing those marketers to pass on better, more qualified leads to their sales people.

As technology continues to penetrate every aspect of our lives, we do need to embrace it, and evolve as marketers and as humans. It's not something that should eliminate humans from the equation (like "set & forget") but rather an apparatus for stronger more relevant relationships to develop between people and between brands.

Our CEO recently wrote about this in a post entitled: Bionic Marketing http://gurl.im/281f1y

Joel - My experience with businesses is they are fearful. Perhaps it's because I'm in the mid-west and we're not known as early adopters. Marketing automation offers exceptional efficiency and it does take effort to implement. However, it's not the technical side of the equation that's difficult - it's the content and planning side. So, services that streamline adoption are valuable. Also, I find what gets more attention by prospects of MA is a discussion on the benefits in terms of sales efficiency - not marketing (actually both). A 10% boost in sales is far easier to understand than a 10% improvement in a departments efficiency.