Marketing Automation Vendor Selection: Summing Up

It’s time to wrap up this series of posts on marketing automation vendor selection, which were based on my November 10 Webinar with Neolane  (replay available here).  I’ve summarized them in three commandments.

• Forget the Past. Marketers have been doing such a bad job of selecting systems that they should forget their old approach and start from scratch. I described the old methods in the first two posts of the series, The Seven Deadly Sins of Marketing Automation System Selection and Marketers Do a Bad Job Selecting Marketing Automation Systems.

• Remember the Future. The paradox is intentional: you can’t remember the future because it hasn’t happened.  This uncertainty itself is what you need to remember.  I gave my own ideas about what the future might hold in Marketing Vendor Selection: Trends You'll Need to Support.

• Change the Present. This is the only thing you can change.  If you make the right choices, the future will take care of itself. I gave advice on improving the selection process in Vendor Selection: Writing a Good Requirements Document and Marketing Automation Selection: Finding a Future-Safe Vendor.

Believe it or not, there’s much more to be said on this topic. You’ll find a helpful (and free) vendor selection workbook in the Resources section of the Raab Guide site. I’m also working on four more workbooks on specific aspects of vendor selection, which should all be published over the next month or so. So stay tuned and good luck.