Two preconditions for marketing automation …

What if a robot took care of all your marketing campaigns? Dream, reality or nightmare? Marketing automation is gaining ground in a digital world where Big Data is the ultimate weapon in the quest for a heightened customer experience. Jonas Verhaeghe (HappiFish) gives his view on the matter.

Just imagine setting up an entire marketing campaign with just a few mouse clicks and then simply leaning back as you reap the rewards. Let’s be honest here: who wouldn’t dream of mounting a marketing campaign in the blink of an eye? Unfortunately the reality is slightly more complicated. Jonas Verhaeghe (HappiFish) stopped by during a seminar organised by Stima to give us his take on the phenomenon. In his opinion, marketing automation should be viewed as an additional aid for marketing departments.
 

A specific objective in mind 

There is no ready-made solution eliminating the need for companies to manage their own marketing campaigns. Marketing automation is not a new technique but rather a kind of cockpit enabling marketing managers to pool numerous aids, to manage them efficiently or even put the entire process on auto pilot.
In this case it is important to know beforehand what the company is trying to achieve through this marketing technique. With Big Data, the marketer can focus on multiple customer segments and have consumers move from one segment to the next when their lives or their relationship to the product changes.

"It's a kind of cockpit enabling marketing managers to pool numerous aids."

Two preconditions

Marketing automation relieves you of certain repetitive tasks, provides assistance in the detection of human error and helps you send different messages to recipients who will actually benefit from them. In order to automate your marketing campaigns several key conditions must be met. We’ve singled out these two:

• The database must contain as much information as possible and be updated on a regular basis. A mother who gave birth ten years ago is no longer interested in a mailing for baby articles.
• The message must be relevant to the consumer. It is no longer enough to reach potential customers or create customer loyalty. You need to capture their attention, add value to your message and finally motivate him to buy your product.

           
Numerous advantages

The drawbacks of marketing automation are usually the result of bad management, a flawed campaign structure or insufficient follow-up in terms of consumer experience with the product or service. Conversely, if the marketing manager devotes enough attention to these aspects then marketing automation offers numerous advantages. Apart from saving time, it also enables you to process much larger data volumes than you could ever handle manually. Thanks to this efficient management you can also generate more and better leads. And finally, marketing automation also helps you define your target groups with greater accuracy and makes it easier to tap into segments with few consumers. When the message is adapted to the consumer in question, that consumer will always receive communication or offers that meet(s) his or her expectations.
 
While marketing automation is not a panacea, it is still an important tool if you want to breathe (new) life into your customer experience in a world that is growing more digital by the minute and that uses a growing variety of channels.