5 Signs That You Needed a Marketing Automation Software Yesterday

The adoption of marketing software is expected to increase by 50% by 2015. (Source: Sirius Decisions)

If your business has yet to consider the transition, you're now at risk of falling behind.

Perhaps you're dealing with a resistant boss, you're worried about how much it will cost, or you think what you have in place now is enough to sustain your efforts.

Whatever your reason for carrying on without a marketing automation software may be, I'm here to challenge it.

With businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects experiencing a 451% increase in qualified leads, it's important that you start thinking about the opportunity it presents for growth. (Source: The Annuitas Group)

Need a little more encouragement? Here's 5 signs that your business not only needs marketing automation software, but you needed it yesterday.

You Have Zero Time to Do Anything

If you're relying on a disjoined set of tools to execute your marketing campaigns, it's likely that you're feeling like the odds are working against you. 

Quite honestly, that's because they are. 

The disconnect, the logging in and logging out, and the learning curve required to attain proficiency in each new tool will suck every last minute out of your day. Before you know it it will be 5 o'clock and your "to-do" list will still be far from manageable. 

Quite simply, one of the greatest benefits of implementing a marketing software is the luxury of having all of the tools you need in one platform. 

The less time you have to spend trying to align your efforts across platforms, the more time you have to pour your efforts into the elements of your campaign that are necessary to drive success. 

Your Analytics Are a Mess

"What's the return on investment?"

"How do these numbers compare to last month?"

"Has this increased our profit margin?"

These are the questions your boss cares about. The questions that you better have an answer to when the time comes. But how? 

Forging together numbers from here, there, and everywhere is problematic at best. 

If you're using one software to measure the performance of your website, another to track your email efforts, and a third-party resource to scrape together social media insights, you're asking for oversight. 

If your boss wants comprehensive reporting and you want the resources necessary to deliver such reports, it's time to have a conversation about marketing software. 

You Don't Know Where Your Leads Originated From

Quick, which of your marketing efforts is turning up the most leads?

If you hesitated, or worse, you haven't the slightest clue, you're missing out on an opportunity to optimize your traffic.

Having a understanding of which sources are driving the most leads to the yard will not only help you to see more clearly what is working, but also help you to rule out the ineffective areas. 

With a marketing software in place, determining the origin of your leads is never a guessing game. With the ability to break down your sources quickly and easily, you'll never feel like you're in the dark again. 

Your Conversion Rates Suck

Generating website traffic feels good, but converting visitors into leads feels even better.

If you're having trouble capturing and converting leads, it's likely that you don't have the proper tools in place to persuade them to take the next step.

Or maybe you do have some of the right tools in place, but you simply don't know how they are performing or how to fix them if they're underperforming.

Marketing automation software makes creating, testing, and improving things like calls-to-action, landing pages, and forms to ensure that your business is converting the number of leads it's deserving of.

Knowing that companies with 30 or more landing pages generate 7x more leads than those with fewer than 10, having the resources in place to make awesome calls-to-action and well-performing landing pages a reality is critical to your business' potential success. (Source: HubSpot)

You're Out of Ideas for Content

Scratching your head from content ideas?

If you don't have the proper insights into what is working, why it's working, and where it's working, you're essentially inviting writer's block to take over.

Rather than create content that might resonate, marketing software can provide you with the resources you need to put forth content that will resonate. 

For example, with HubSpot I have an entire toolbelt of resources from which I can pull content ideas, whether it be for a blog, a piece of premium content, or a social media post.

With the Keyword Tool I have the ability to identify keyword rank, difficulty rates, and leads and visits generated by each keyword, making it easy to map out which words are going to drive the greatest results.

Additionally, Social Inbox makes it easy to break through the noise on social media and access what our buyer personas are talking about, which is essentially is the key to creating content that will resonate with them.

While there's no definitive cure to writer's block, this type of insight surely makes things easier.