This year we had the pleasure of sponsoring the Agillic Summit 2019. We sent a group of highly skilled professionals to soak up the most important trends within marketing automation and here’s the 10 points they’ve zoomed in on.
Think big, start small
Starting small was a key message transcending every single case. The advantage of starting small is that you are getting valuable experience within a small area you can easily manage, without getting overwhelmed. As your knowledge of marketing automation grows so can your ambitions. E.g. start off with small classical flows like” welcome”,” win back” or ”abandoned basket.”
High reach vs. high relevance
A marketer working with marketing automation will most likely run into the dilemma of high reach vs. high relevance. The traditional campaigns will typically follow a yearly cycle spanning from events as Black Friday to spring sale ensuring the business a high reach. However, large scale campaigns do not embrace relevance. It’s basically the same message delivered at the same time to a large group of people. Marketing automation can create the relevance that consumers love but there will be a transitional period in which the results stemming from marketing automation cannot compensate for the loss of revenue from the campaigns. So how do you solve the dilemma? You do both. You dig in and you slowly create more and more results from the high relevance initiatives so that you over time can deliver the coveted high relevance at scale.
Understand which resources you need
Running campaigns does not require the same skill set as running e.g. triggered marketing automation. Split up your team, educate them, or recruit new profiles but be aware of this factor if you want to maximise your performance.
Know thy performance measures
Everybody loves a winner. So does your management. Be sure to define your performance measures so that you can prove your success. Your successes will give you the leverage to do more.
The art of connecting marketing automation to physical stores
Most retailers and B2Bs have physical shops and services in addition to the digital touch points. However, it can be difficult to include the physical stores in the digital communication. The best cases showed an ability to drive traffic to the shops as well as the digital call to actions.” Book a meeting with an expert” or” See this product live at our store” could be the kind of messages that include the physical locations.
Challenge traditional marketing automation
Who said that you should only use your marketing automation on your B2C customers? Maybe it makes more sense to apply it to your suppliers. The boundaries of marketing automation are opening up and we are seeing a lot of fascinating ways of applying it. Interflora is e.g. handling both senders and receivers of flowers partnering up with local florists. FCK football club is now more than a football club, they are a media house producing content and handling both fans and media via marketing automation flows. The key point is to discover the potential, to see the possibilities of communication at scale in a clever, personalised and triggered manner.
Be human
Don’t think like a business influencing potential customers. Think like a human communicating to another human. It is authentic and provides a human touch that makes your messages more compelling.
Use personalisation in both owned and paid media
The integration to Google Ads allows you to control your audiences. E.g. you can avoid chasing the customers who’ve already brought your product and instead coordinate look alike audiences. Stop wasting acquisition money and work smarter!
You cannot manage, what you don’t understand
Management needs to get involved in the marketing automation process to understand what is happening in the machine room and the strategic foundation.
Context and content still king and queen
Yeah, nothing new here. Great content and the right context are still at the centre of great marketing automation. Keep testing which kind of content your customers like and be innovative. It does not matter that you have a lot of great flows if you only use them to send out boring, repetitive messages.
Read an updated version of this article in Danish here.
Let’s talk marketing automation, call us.
Inputs from:
Mads-Peter Jakobsen
Business Director, Digital Strategy and Experience, Partner @ Pentia
Call me +45 2810 3347
Per A. Knudsen
Senior Strategist @ Pentia
Call me +45 6035 3377
Christina Hauge Engel
Marketing Automation Specialist, Sitecore MVP & Junior Partner @ Pentia
Call me +45 5373 6184
Naja Årosin Laursen
User Experience Architect & Junior Partner @ Pentia
Call me +45 2219 0771