When I first started in the enterprise software industry, marketing automation software was a relatively quiet niche. There were a handful of vendors controlling the majority of the market share, but enough buzz to where new products were starting to make a play for a piece of that market. Today, marketing automation is one of the most rapidly growing segments of the CRM software industry.
Within marketing automation, I started to see an interesting trend: SMBs are the fastest growing segment of marketing automation users. I was curious about this and decided to dig deeper.
I tracked down executives from three of the leading vendors in marketing automation software: Infusionsoft, HubSpot and Genoo. Each of these vendors has a strong focus on the SMB segment, and therefore, are seeing a lot of the action. I conducted a roundtable interview, asking each executive to answer these questions:
1. Why are small businesses leading the industry growth in marketing automation?
2. What are the primary issues SMBs are looking to address when implementing marketing automation software?
3. Has the evolution of SaaS-based systems influenced the appeal of marketing automation software to SMBs?
4. What have you seen in terms of SMB use of social media?
These experts came up with some very thought-provoking and insightful commentary. To see the discussion in its entirety, visit the Software Advice blog.
