1. More and Better Marketing Automation

The forward-thinking B-to-B marketing consultancy SiriusDecisions estimates that, while only 8–12 percent of B-to-B marketing organizations had installed a marketing automation platform as of 2010, that percentage will rise to 50 percent by 2015. The consultancy also identifies several important developments in marketing automation functionality that are likely to come on the scene, making our lead-generation lives easier. These include the following:

• Integration with social media monitoring tools

• Support for multiple concurrent scoring methods, which will allow such sophisticated analysis as measuring a single customer’s interest in multiple products

• More powerful predictive capabilities