Business-to-business marketers need to take advantage of beneficial tools such as marketing automation and CRM software if they want to keep pace with the evolving marketing landscape. Keeping up with the latest technology solutions is essential for B2B marketers who want to stay ahead of their competitors, says Chris Chariton.

"As online and email marketing become more sophisticated, continually looking for new ways to produce greater results from your marketing efforts becomes more important," Chariton writes on MarketingProfs. "Technology can definitely help in that regard."

Chariton said smart marketers in the B2B sector will invest in marketing automation software to help bring in new customers and ensure the correct message is delivered on a consistent basis. This should help put more customers in the sales pipeline and enable businesses to reach the correct audience at the right time.

Marketers also need to allocate more resources to social media strategies, continue shifting money to online activities and focus more on crafting great content.

According to a Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs study, B2B marketers spent more than a quarter of their marketing budget on content marketing in 2011. Marketing automation can help get a better hold on making sure these content emails hit their targets.

Small business marketing departments are consistently looking for the best way to market to a large amount of people and bring in a great return on investment. Deborah Anne Gibbs writes on Business 2 Community that marketing automation can help marketers put more subscribers in the sales pipeline and help leverage the power of social media.

"Marketing automation software provides a comprehensive overview of marketing campaigns," she said, adding that ROI is the key benefit. "MA platforms host creative assets and automatically launch campaigns based on CRM segmentation or prospects’ digital behavior. They record the traffic from various communications channels, including social media, and also score leads."

Gibbs said using marketing automation with social media is both smart and trendy, as it improves ROI, gives better information on prospects and helps companies reach more buyers and engage new prospects.

Kim Roman of Software Advice said small business marketing professionals looking to convince their bosses to buy marketing automation should present a solid business plan, touch on how goals will be met and present sound data for support.

When looking at new technology for a small business marketing email program, things can get confusing for those who haven't worked with these programs before. In order to help small businesses improve their marketing strategies, Kyle Porter of SalesLoft explained the differences between marketing automation and sales intelligence for Business to Community's whiteboard Fridays series.

Porter explains in a video that marketing automaton tells marketers who is interested in them, while sales intelligence works to uncover and understand whether a prospect is correct for a particular company.

"This is the difference: Sales intelligence answers the question, should you be interested in these prospects? Marketing automation answers the question, are those prospects interested in you?" Porter said. "A company who is interested in you as well as right up your wheel house in terms of the prospects that you like to sell to and that you’re best at selling with."

American Express' Open Forum blog said with marketing automation, small businesses can essentially teach their platform how to think and follow up with customers based on how it is believed they will respond.

Small business marketing departments need to keep an eye on what else is happening in their local area, and one Boise, Idaho-based firm, Balihoo, said marketing automation software is becoming a bigger trend, giving local businesses national brand-like attention.

"Local marketing is quickly emerging as one of the biggest opportunities in the shifting marketing landscape, delivering impressive results for national brands who rely on reaching consumers at the point of final preference and purchase," said Shane Vaughan, vice president of marketing for Balihoo.

As this continues to happen, Vaughn said marketers need to prepare their campaigns in the ecosystem of new media and social channels to deliver a great product to subscribers and a good return on investment from the marketing budget.

Balihoo said recommendations for the year include continued localization of marketing, bringing back marketing analytics for local businesses and better content marketing for smaller businesses as well.

A report from October 2011 from the CMO Council titled "Localize to Optimize" said 30 percent of small business marketing professionals have embraced marketing automation software and 27 percent are still evaluating them. This shows that businesses are starting to make their move toward high tech campaigns.

Small businesses are always on the hunt for better ways to get clients in the sales pipeline, and growth strategist Ryan Caligiuri said there are some good ways to generate leads that can be very efficient for businesses.

In a special for Toronto's The Globe and Mail, Caligiuri said businesses should always focus on tactics that will bring back a good return on investment, such as marketing automation and CRM software. He also said money should be spent on tactics that will allow people to start connecting and creating relationships with those in the marketpalce.

"Rather than stick up an image advertisement, focus on tactics where you can offer direction to participants and kick-start relationships," Caligiuri said. "Such tactics could include direct-response advertising, special events, seminars or webinars."

Many small business marketers have found that mixing up their strategies and using a variety of tactics will net them the best return on their investment. However, versatility may not be enough, as marketers need to make sure they are frequently testing their campaigns to ensure they are getting the positive results they expect.

Entrepreneur.com said marketing businesses need to take advantage of social sharing buttons by asking themselves if they would share a link or email before creating it, and making sure they express themselves and their opinions clearly to generate conversation.

Great CRM software or marketing automation can only go so far without a well-built email marketing database, and email marketing expert Tal Nathan writes on ClickZ that lists face challenges such as spam complaints, undeliverable addresses and more every day. He said there are ways marketing executives can grow lists sensibly and see success.

Nathan said businesses should frequently use their website to have sign up opportunities for email, capture email addresses in the real world and at call centers, find people who will refer friends and leverage social media to enhance their lists.

"As an email marketer, you've probably been required to promote your company's Facebook fan page," Nathan said. "It's a great idea, and it's time that your social media counterpart reciprocates with kindness. In addition to featuring your email registration prominently on your fan page, you can also ask them to periodically post an appeal to sign up, whether out of the goodness of their hearts or in return for some benefit."

The Small Company Blog said small business marketing professionals should remember to be ethical as well when growing a list, by doing things such as trading knowledge for contact information, encouraging emails to be passed along and assigning someone to clear inactive recipients from the list.

For businesses having trouble putting leads into the sales pipeline, marketing auitomation software may be a key piece of software to have. Amie Marse, founder of ContentEqualsMoney.com, said automation, when done well, can help plug holes in a company's lead cycle.

"It can be scary to let a system run your client interaction," she writes. "However, nobody has the resources or the time to give each new lead this type of attention. If you do – your problems are much bigger than your sales funnel."

Marse said that at the end of the day, each company's marketing head will make the calls on what a program does for them, but it is helpful to have the program as backup to allow companies more freedom to work on other areas of their business.

MarketingSherpa's 2011 Marketing Benchmark Report said 54 percent of CMOs have started or completed their implementation of automation software and another 17 plan on doing so soon. Marketing professionals should take note of other trends that are becoming more popular and see if marketing automation makes sense for their own business.