My favourite expression from the unaware marketer is “oh but marketing automation will put me out of a job”. I can assure you, used correctly, it will not. However, if you continue to use a marketing automation platform like a brain, that is to say only use 10% of it, you could be out of a job for not producing the results you anticipated from your MA platform.
It amazed me in the recent annual report that Smart Insights on marketing automation in 2016 shared that 85% of respondents found that tracking a provable ROI from their automation platform was a challenge. Yet 65% said the main benefit of MA was its ability to identify better quality leads. There’s a link we’re missing here people.
What you could be achieving with your automation
The report by Smart Insights shared that a welcome series of emails or auto-response to registrations were the most commonly used email marketing automation techniques adopted in 2016. Upsell, nurturing and triggered campaigns were also popular, which is good. But again I ask the question, is this really ALL you are using your marketing automation for?
What about the targeting elements? The fact that you can create an advanced find marketing list on any of your CRM data values you wish and build a whole campaign tailored JUST for that audience? 30% of you don’t use targeting at all.
Many of you have started using landing pages for lead generation, in fact, a whopping 78% of you. But you don’t use rule-based personalisation of content or offers within your email marketing. Personalisation has been cited as one of the KEY elements to engaging and converting prospects in 2017.
The fact of the matter is, if you don’t adopt these features, your marketing will always be one step behind. Do you want to continue to be that overworked marketing manager that is always creating reactive marketing campaigns? Or do you want to be a proactive marketing specialist who can pre-empt when the goalposts are about to shift?
If you want your marketing to be able to engage with target audiences in real-time, you need to be using your marketing automation to its full potential.