This document discusses marketing automation and how it can be applied to both B2B and B2C contexts. Marketing automation can help reduce costs, increase effective communication, and target customers and prospects with different messages tailored to their stage in the buyer's journey or customer lifecycle. It works along both the lead lifecycle for B2B and customer lifecycle for B2C. The document recommends starting small with marketing automation, focusing first on easy tasks before building more complex campaigns, and having goals beyond just increased sales.