Finland is Slowly Catching up with Marketing Automation

No marketing automation, no win.

Well-handled marketing automation has become a key competence in obtaining and nurturing leads, and measuring marketing results altogether.

Taking up marketing automation and trying to achieve its fullest potential is a big part of digital business growth. However, it is something many Finnish companies are lagging behind in. Why is that?

To get a rough picture of what the marketing automation situation in Finland is, we conducted a light qualitative research with the students of Aalto University back in 2016. We approached the big picture with three main questions in mind:

• What opportunities do Finnish companies perceive in marketing automation?

• What about challenges?

• Is Finland truly behind in its usage and why?

To answer these questions, we interviewed 21 companies from different industries: mid- and large-sized firms from both B2C and B2B.

The remaining companies wished to remain anonymous

We sat down with marketing directors and customer relations managers, and in a discussion-like atmosphere they offered valuable insight specific to their industries on the state of marketing automation in Finland.

What Did We Find?

In Finland, B2B is certainly lagging behind B2C in marketing automation.

These B2B companies do not see how marketing automation could possibly be relevant in their field. However, it must not be forgotten is that customers in B2B are people too, and can be exposed to relevant and personalized content just like in B2C.

Marketing automation also enables these companies to manage more leads – something that many Finnish companies are not ambitious enough to realize, but something that is obvious to large companies with hundreds of thousands of customers.

In addition to these mentality-related obstacles, there are many other challenges along the way that impede the utilization of marketing automation. In our research we identified that these challenges can be organizational, technical, financial, expertise-related, or even legal (and highly industry-dependent).

For instance, integration difficulties between old databases and new marketing automation platforms is what impedes taking up marketing automation in older companies, and legal concerns regarding sharing customer data with third parties become very substantive in the financial sector.

Being able to nurture and retain a large number of customers with marketing automation has become invaluable to them.

Digital transformation is nevertheless happening in Finland – companies that have adopted marketing automation have generally felt that they have benefited from it.

First and foremost, marketing automation makes marketing altogether actually measurable. This enables companies to see what works and what doesn’t, and learn from mistakes. And secondly, marketing automation gives the opportunity to process, enrich and utilize customer data.

B2B companies that utilize marketing automation truly believe they are ahead of the curve. Being able to nurture and retain a large number of customers with marketing automation has become invaluable to them.

Clearing the obstacles and seeing more success stories is what will speed up taking up marketing automation in Finnish companies. Give marketing automation a go - it's easy and cost-efficient to start.