Ideally, salespeople are selling most of the working day. The simple act of automating contacts and leads should free up even more of a salesperson's time. Automating marketing functions in some cases helps companies scale communications with huge customer populations. At minimum, marketing automation lets a company stay in touch with customers the organization might otherwise have ignored. Customers scored and segmented in lower, less valuable classes might not buy more frequently simply by virtue of receiving a regular e-mail newsletter, but they might be less inclined to abandon the relationship.
Companies also find that marketing cycle times have been cut drastically.
It used to be that from creative concept to launch, direct mail campaigns could take 10 weeks. With the latest customer analytic tools, target populations can be identified quickly, labels generated and the mail piece sent in a few days. That so many companies fail to capture operational improvements means something went horribly wrong somewhere.