This week on the Blog Network today we heard from Wendy Heft, a Principal at Greenleaf Book Group who wanted to learn more about the market of marketing automation tools.

Heft wanted to find out if marketing automation is as high in its repertoire of businesses as would you think, if the bigger, more aggressive branding efforts of big business indicate that the more marketable products are hurting the smaller companies in the competition.

“Smaller business marketers want to know what’s the value of marketing automation to their company?” Heft asked. “What do large marketing platforms have that smaller competitors don’t have?”

To answer those questions, Heft recommends a two step process that the smaller business owner can take:

Discuss what your main advantage is and why

Define an implementation plan that will mitigate risk

How to do it:

Partner with a provider.

Go with an early adopter customer and, in a best-case scenario, learn how to scale.

For Heft, this means going with either a customer of one of the larger marketing automation platforms or some other smaller model that she can then help develop. She also says that it’s important to look outside your demographic or customer group for options.

“The problem that a lot of small businesses have when trying to solve for marketing automation is that they’re working with a tool that isn’t necessarily appropriate for their niche,” Heft says. “They don’t even realize it because what’s popular among the major players has a much higher presence in the marketplace and in the lead generation stages than what’s really relevant.”