“You don’t go to the hardware store to buy a shovel, you go because you need to dig a hole.” Is how Michael Berger, then VP of Product Marketing at Marketo told us back in 2015.

Deploying Marketing Automation software is much more complicated than just digging a hole, but the analogy still fits. What is the business problem that you are trying to solve relative to your marketing and which product helps you meet those needs in the most efficient manner?

Once you identify the switching costs to move to Marketo are justified, the next step is to plan for the migration. In a 2020 Marketo User Group we talked with 4 Marketing Leaders about their migration strategy towards moving to a new Marketing Automation platform. Watch the Marketo Migration panel discussion. While it’s easy to look at the feature sets and the list price on the software itself, there are additional factors to consider when evaluating a marketing automation plan. Here are some additional factors to consider into the equation:

• What is the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) including labor costs, optional features, or training for your internal team?
• What other tools are connected to Marketing Automation in your entire technology stack such as your CRM? How will the new system change the data those systems receive?
• What is the breakeven point for the existing marketing automation platform versus the new system?
• What is the incremental value of the improvements created by adopting the new marketing automation platform?