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New technology has driven marketing into becoming entirely digital, and companies must therefore implement new digital marketing tools to stay in the game. One new digital marketing tool that has received a lot of attention by marketers is marketing automation (MA). This is because it can create and deliver personalised content and generate new leads, without much human interaction. This is extremely useful for B2B companies, as one of the main challenges experienced in this business model is to generate leads. Prior research has focused mostly on understanding the concept of MA, and how it works. Only one model exists that explains how to implement MA and what resources and competencies are required for this process. Moreover, there is currently no research on MA in Norway. This marks the purpose of this study, which is to examine the readiness of the Norwegian maritime industry for implementation of MA. To fulfil this purpose, a qualitative case study approach was chosen for this thesis. This involved running a multiple case study on four international Norwegian maritime equipment suppliers located in Møre & Romsdal. Data was collected through running six semistructured interviews from the case companies. Questions were formulated to best capture their marketing strategies, goals, activities, resources, and competencies. This study contributes to the literature by identifying the level of readiness for implementation of MA in the Norwegian maritime industry. The results showed that the Norwegian maritime industry found it challenging to exploit the potential in digital marketing, and that few of the required resources and competencies for implementing MA were identified. This study therefore concludes that the Norwegian maritime industry displays a low level of readiness for implementation of MA. Key Words: Digital Marketing, Marketing Automation, Content Marketing, Technology Adoption, Norway, Maritime Industry, Business-to-Business, International Business |
