Daniel Burstein

Vendor Selection: A 5-step process for choosing a marketing automation solution or agency

February 3rd, 2015

How do you move 18 to 20 segments of customers through the learning process of a complex sale? Mitch Zlotnik, President, and Seth Pauley, Vice President, both of Audimute Acoustic Panels, used marketing automation to educate customers with content on a large buying decision.

To learn the process they used to find the right marketing automation solution and agency to help create this low-touch ecommerce operation, I interviewed Mitch and Seth.

“We’ve been rapidly growing for the last eight years. We’ve found a good partner selection helps you grow your business. A poor selection extracts resources from your business, creates problems that hinder growth,” Seth said.

 

Mitch and Seth discussed their “Five Q” Technology or Agency Selection Process:

  • Qualified (at 3:39 and 7:40 in the video interview)
  • Quantified (at 5:52)
  • Quick (at 5:05)
  • Quill (at 8:30)
  • Quality (at 8:39)

“One of the best questions you can ask a vendor is: ‘Who is your ideal customer?’” Seth said.

“They’ll tell you: ‘Everyone. I can certainly meet your needs.’ Right? Everyone tells you that,” he said.

“So press a little farther, ‘OK, who’s successful? Who’s successful?’ Let me disqualify myself from you so you save my time and save your time right away if we can. What do I need to know, what do you need to know about me and we can see if I fit your profile,” Seth advised.

 

You can follow Daniel Burstein, Director of Editorial Content, MECLABS Institute on Twitter at @DanielBurstein.

 

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Daniel Burstein

About Daniel Burstein

Daniel Burstein, Senior Director of Editorial Content, MECLABS. Daniel oversees all content and marketing coming from the MarketingExperiments and MarketingSherpa brands while helping to shape the editorial direction for MECLABS – digging for actionable information while serving as an advocate for the audience. Daniel is also a speaker and moderator at live events and on webinars. Previously, he was the main writer powering MarketingExperiments publishing engine – from Web clinics to Research Journals to the blog. Prior to joining the team, Daniel was Vice President of MindPulse Communications – a boutique communications consultancy specializing in IT clients such as IBM, VMware, and BEA Systems. Daniel has 18 years of experience in copywriting, editing, internal communications, sales enablement and field marketing communications.

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