Is Marketing Automation Necessary?

For whatever reason, SaaS companies have come to see marketing automation platforms (MAPs) as a critical component to the marketing tech stack.

Personally, I think at this point that they cause more problems than they solve and reinforce bad habits. A few examples:

• MAPs cause teams to have to spend a lot of time working through sync issues with the CRM and data discrepancies between platforms
• An excessive amount of time is spent on mapping out linear email sequences and journeys that ultimately become dated or hard to change
• MAPs focus a lot on lead scoring, creating lead score criteria, and triggering MQLs based on lead scores — all of which are quite dated

But if I don't have a marketing automation platform, how will I nurture my prospects and send MQLs to the Sales team to follow up on?

Let's break this down by leads (ebook download, webinar attendee, etc.), demo requests, and free trial signups.