36 Percent Of US SMBs Are Planning To Use Marketing Automation; More Than Double Of Current Adoption

San Jose, CA, July 24, 2012: A detailed study conducted by Techaisle shows that marketing automation is now among the top ten relevant technology areas of investment for an SMB and that 36 percent of US SMBs are planning to use a marketing automation solution. In terms of current adoption, it is higher within mid-market businesses (100-999) at 28 percent compared to small businesses (1-99) at 10 percent. As per the survey, marketing automation vendors - Marketo, HubSpot, Genius, Eloqua and SalesFusion have the highest preference within the mid-market businesses.

The survey reveals that early-adopter SMBs have realized several benefits from using marketing automation thereby generating enough proof points for others to follow. For example, 49 percent of current users say that they are able to better manage their sales leads, 46 percent have seen an improvement in demand generation and 42 percent have improved their marketing ROI.

Although small businesses differ slightly from mid-market businesses in their primary business objectives for using marketing automation, the top three common objectives are: identifying new customers, generating additional revenue from current customers and better managing demand generation activities.

Of the 16 different features usually available in a typical marketing automation solution, SMBs are currently using an average of 7.7 and plan to add another 3.6 over the next one year. The top five components currently being used are: email marketing, campaign management, message personalization, SEO, and CRM integration. These SMBs are planning to add web lead capture, social media monitoring and analytics dashboard.

For the SMBs that are currently not using marketing automation but plan to use, capabilities such as social media monitoring, lead nurturing, monitoring web visits and CRM integration percolate to the top. Demonstrating their seriousness, SMBs are budgeting to spend from a low of US$260 per month to a high of US$3950 per month and between 2 to 25 users depending upon size of business and whether they are B2B or B2C.

To derive full benefits, SMBs are relying on independent consultants, internal teams and marketing automation vendors for advice, selection as well as implementation. Mid-market businesses are also increasingly turning to established IT vendors directly (as opposed to marketing automation vendors) for implementation support.

The above detailed analysis is available for purchase as individual country reports titled SMB Marketing Automation Adoption and Trends.

About Techaisle

Techaisle is a global SMB ICT Market Research and Industry Analyst organization delivering forward looking insights and Tracking the Future of SMBs and Channels. Techaisle conducts surveys with SMBs and channels in 25 countries to understand market trends, opportunities, buying behavior, and IT priorities. Techaisle’s services include: Syndicated Research Re