Recently my friends at La Fosse Associates (a specialist recruitment firm) invited me to their offices to talk a little about marketing automation and how understanding and use of data is driving the future of B2B marketing. They were kind enough to record and publish the interview – which you can view below.

One of the central themes we discussed centred on how easy it seems to be for B2B marketers to fall into the trap of being a marketing automaton.

As technology has transformed the marketing profession over the past decade or two, it has become all too easy to lose sight of what makes great marketing. Because we can now automate so many elements of how our customers and prospects interact with our brand, there is a temptation to write and forget.

It has got to the stage where I can often pick which marketing automation technology (and/or agency) a company is using by how they approach me: “Ah yes, you’re using [insert name of vendor] template 3c now.” In other words, with so many best practice followers start to look like just that: followers.

This is why ABM is getting such traction at the moment. As a return to first principles, ABM encourages you to really think about what the best next action will really be, and where it should take place. And that’s a much better strategy than becoming a marketing automaton.