We are now firmly in the latter portion of 2013. For many companies, this means it is time to plan out marketing budgets for 2014.  In the vast majority of organizations, upper management is responsible for ultimately setting and approving budget initiatives. If you are looking to make your marketing spends more efficient and effective in 2014, it is critical to have a multi-channel marketing automation technology solution. A vital part of this process for marketing management to build a case for having this solution is to understand the CEO or CFO’s perspective, and position the budget item in language that will have the most impact for them.

Both CEOs and CFOs typically enjoy seeing a cost-benefit analysis with projected benefits outweighing the costs. Positioning a marketing technology solution as a means of reducing wasted marketing dollars, which should ultimately create a positive ROI, is likely to be the type of message that will resonate with this audience.

CEOs and CFOs are not spending their day-to-day efforts managing marketing. A CEO will usually have a keen understanding of the fundamentals of marketing, and there are times that CEOs have experience in the marketing function. However, while the fundamentals of marketing have remained constant, tactical approaches have changed over time. The proliferation of marketing channels has been a significant cause of this. Both the CEO and CFO should know how complex the current marketing environment is due to the necessity of being present in more places at a given time due to audience fragmentation. More complexity requires more automation. Without automation, there is potential for inefficiency, and inefficiency usually does not create competitive advantage. No matter what the current economic conditions are, resources are ultimately scarce, and both the CEO and CFO would ultimately like to see a marketing management environment where returns on effort and dollars spent are maximized.

CEOs and CFOs are often driven by the bottom line. With the bottom line, there’s a cogent case for multi-channel marketing automation. For instance, Top Performers are 7 times more likely than Everyone Else to invest in centralized, multi-channel marketing tools across corporate & regional marketing. If there’s any way to get buy in from upper management about marketing technology, this statistic showing the direct correlation would be a great place to start. At the end of the day, who doesn’t want to be a top performer?

Here are some additional persuasive points to present to upper management to enable them to see the value in a marketing automation solution:

1. Automation helps to complete marketing tasks faster. Speed is essential in a competitive business environment.
2. Automating time consuming tasks like approvals, reporting, external vendor communications, and change management is a hallmark of speed and efficiency.
3. A marketing automation solution with an integrated digital asset management system can reduce search and asset retrieval time for sales teams, enabling them to spend more time closing revenue producing deals. This can reduce the length of the sales cycle.
4. Automation produces an efficient communications process that gets sales messages to a target market faster, which results in better conversion rates and greater revenue.

Does presenting this case sound overwhelming to you? It’d be normal to feel that way initially, but you won’t need to go at it alone. A smart technology vendor should be happy to help you make your case. When they meet with you, they should be prepared to show you a quality price-value proposition detailing how their solution has made a difference for existing customers and how they will leverage this experience to make a positive impact on your company’s bottom line.

If you’d like to learn more about how our proven marketing automation solution can impact your bottom line, contact us today!