take marketing automation migration plungeOnce you’ve evaluated your existing Marketing Automation tool and determined that it does not meet your needs, it’s time to take the plunge. Before you take that leap, how should you effectively migrate Marketing Automation tools? Did you miss our “Marketing Automation Value Check List" to see if you’re getting a good value for your investment?

Survival of the Fittest

There can be a lot of risk associated with migration, since you are not only still responsible for executing marketing campaigns, but also for quickly showing the benefits of using a new marketing tool. You need to become more efficient through automation and/or more effective in generating qualified leads for the sales team.

Guidelines for a Great Migration

Below are some high level guidelines to ensure that your migration goes as planned and you are demonstrating the value of your new investment quickly.

  1. Scope out the project and jot down a few of these items. Depending on the size of your organization, you may need to be quite detailed.
    • Number of emails sent (open, click, conversion rates)
    • Size of database
    • Social Channel activity
    • Leads Generated (Marketing Qualified/Net new Prospects for sales)
    • Number of leads passed to sales
  1. Benchmark and identify specific gaps in your legacy software that you are trying to solve with your new Marketing Automation tool.
    • Build automated nurturing flow
    • Automatically pass leads to sales
    • Decreasing time it takes to execute a campaign using templates, etc…
  1. Inventory your assets and programs to prepare to migrate from existing Marketing Automation solution
    • Landing pages/Emails in use
    • Templates and Style Guides
    • Images
    • Whitepapers, eBooks or other assets
    • Audience Lists or Segments, etc…
  1. Prioritize which marketing campaigns need to run continuously
    • Need to document which ones need to be built first and cannot afford to stop during your migration.
    • Plan out remaining campaigns on a timeline based on business need.
  1. Determine resourcing for this project. In many cases, working with an external expert who knows both your current technology and your new solution, will bring an outside perspective.
  2. Determine a realistic timeline. Depending on the size of your organization a migration can be done in a little as a month if you are very well organized or take upwards of 3 months.  You may need to be running multiple solutions at the same time to ensure a smooth transition. Be sure to consider any significant marketing deadlines or seasonal aspects to your business.
  3. Ask for Help. You may need an external consultant for strategy or an office temp to do more manual tasks. Identify someone in sales and in IT who can lend support. Bring them into your plan in order to have a smoother transition.

Measured Results Marketing, specializes in helping companies improve their marketing/sales processes and improve their use of Marketing Automation and Sales CRM systems to create a successful Demand Generation Ecosystem®. If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.