By Bob Hebeisen

Part 3 of 7…Here are 7 ways Marketing Automation helps marketers multitask more effectively:#1. Setting up marketing campaigns for appropriate tracking #2. A/B testing #3. Integration with CRM #4. Lead nurturing for better lead quality #5. Doing the little things right, automatically #6. Reviewing results and applying your learning #7. Taking a moment to celebrate your successes

Have you ever generated a ton of leads, and then proudly walked down to the sales bullpen and have your sales reps tell you the leads were junk?  Well Marketing Automation can help with that too.

Marketing Automation solutions typically easily integrate with SalesForce.com and other major CRM systems.  So your leads can be flowed automatically into the CRM, and the leads stay synchronized as you continue to execute marketing and sales activities against the contacts.

Have you ever had to manually upload leads into your CRM?  Or manually export leads from the CRM to use for a marketing campaign?  Or manually updated a bunch of contacts in the CRM to reflect the fact that a marketing activity was just executed against them?

If you have, then you know that it is possible, but it is often not easy, and it can easily sink half your day each time you do it (or it can be so unpleasant that it gets put on the back burner and delayed for a long time).  So having your marketing activities automatically synched with your CRM is an immeasurable benefit.

Another advantage of having your Marketing Automation and CRM systems integrated is that metrics continue to be tracked as the sales team works leads and updates the status.  So you can measure the effectiveness of your campaigns at a deeper level — not just cost per lead, but cost per opportunity, or cost per sale, or cost per customer lifetime value.

Next time your sales reps tell you that your leads are lousy, you can actually run a report to see if the data supports that assertion!