by Sarah Kelleher 
Marketing Automation is a big investment for most companies and it’s critical to show a good return and improvements to your marketing strategy and performance. In this case, partnering with a consultancy or agency to help you with this may just seem like an additional cost. So, when should you ask you Marketing Automation help?
Typically, implementation is somewhere where all companies benefit from the technical and strategic expertise that a partner can offer. More often than not, it’s a case of knowing what’s possible. To fully take advantage of all that marketing automation has to offer, the broad experience and in-depth knowledge that a consultant is invaluable.
Aside from the knowledge and experience aspect, time is another important factor. In many organisations, the co-ordinator of a Marketing Automation implementation will need to continue their ‘day job’ at the same time. This means self-implementations can take a lot longer to achieve the results you’re hoping for than getting a partner to drive and manage that process with you.
Of course, I’m biased! My business and job entirely depend on people needing help with Marketing Automation. Truly, I believe that people get much more from their system by extracting value from our wealth of experience and knowledge and applying to their own business context. My goal is always to provide added value to Marketing Automation and never to be seen as just an additional cost.
For us, it wasn’t that we didn’t want to ask for help. We just didn’t initially realize how much we didn’t know about the platform and how to make it work for us. That’s when we reached out to a configuration and implementation specialist and we never looked back.