Marketing automation is not one-size-fits-all. It’s one-size-fits-one. Each company has its own set of goals and objectives, and uses different processes and strategies to accomplish them.

In the old days (we’re talking 10-15 years ago), marketers had one digital property (their website) and one channel (email) to manage. This meant that legacy marketing automation systems only had to connect to a website and send emails to be considered functional. Modern businesses require much more than this to thrive.

Now, we live in an instantaneous, omnichannel world, where consumers are very particular about how and where they interact with brands. Companies need to deliver exceptional brand experiences that take modern consumer preferences into account. And to deliver this, companies need a modern marketing automation platform that has the tools to create a seamless customer experience across channels.

But what makes a marketing automation system truly modern? Here are the three most important characteristics of a modern marketing automation platform:

It has the flexibility to connect to anything in your stack

The average enterprise today uses 91 marketing cloud services. This translates to marketing data being spread out among systems and marketing not having a clear way to centralize and analyze their data. For companies trying to create that seamless customer experience we discussed above, enabling a free-flow of data into a centralized hub for analysis is essential.

If companies don’t have all their data in one place, attribution reporting can be nearly impossible. And understanding which events and experiences impact your sales cycle is the best way to optimize your campaigns going forward.

It enables multi-channel communications

Email isn’t the only channel for marketers to deliver a message anymore. US consumers in 2017 spend 5 hours per day on their mobile devices looking for content, opening apps, reading email, browsing social media and checking their texts. This common spread already includes 5 different channels that each person interacts with on a daily basis.

With that said, it’s not enough for marketers to only send emails to their audience. Marketers have to adjust their Go-To-Market strategy to fit the demands of the modern day buyer. Some people prefer social media messages, some prefer texts, and some still prefer email, so it’s important to cover your bases and reach these consumers where they want to be reached. A modern marketing automation platform enables marketers to deliver a message using any channel (or multiple channels) they want, all from a single campaign.

It supports your Account-Based Marketing initiatives

Companies today have all different mixes of sales strategies. Some lay it out by territory, some organize it by company size, and some have lists of target companies to prospect and go after. But most companies have a mix of all three, and your marketing automation system should be able to support whatever strategy you decide to implement.

That’s why modern marketing automation platforms have to be able to support ABM initiatives through their core offering. The last thing companies need during a strategy shift is to be required to pay thousands of dollars to upgrade your plan. When ABM is native to your marketing automation platform (or your platform can integrate directly with any ABM technology), your marketing department will be ready to support any new sales initiative from the get-go.

Mautic is an open marketing automation suite, enabling companies of all sizes to unify all their digital properties and channels to create an exceptional brand experience. And we’ve been nominated for ‘Best Marketing Automation Suite’ in the 2017 CMS Critic Awards! Click here to show your support and vote for Mautic.