An interesting report from B2B Marketing says that 46% of marketeers feel that their Marketing Automation potential is limited by their lack of resource. I could well believe this, for companies that are using Marketing Automation, and as the article points out it is really important to demonstrate ROI to increase investment.

However, I meet B2B marketers at organisations every day.  Some from small organisations and some from the biggest B2B organisations in the world. Many of those that I meet do not have a resource issue - the problem is they do not even know what marketing automation is or what it does. I think there is a real lack of knowledge at the moment as to what marketing automation is and the potential it has.

Marketing automation is also not a particularly easy thing to implement. That's why there are new consultancies being set up every week to help organisations understand how to do it effectively. Maybe it's time for these under-resourced marketeers to hire one of these consultancies in the short term and at the same time get the consultancy to help you demonstrate ROI to the chiefs.

For everyone else not yet using marketing automation, at the very least you should start to understand it and get your head around it even if you are not ready to use it.  Oracle have a nice download to bring you up to speed.