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Article on the Why marketing automation is the future of digital for brands

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Pedro Casimiro
Pedro Casimiro

Marketing automation sits at the heart of digital communication by integrating customer experience across all brand touchpoints. It addresses challenges like inability to track customer journeys across channels and deliver personalized communications. Marketing automation solutions do this by tracking customer behavior across channels, creating communication journeys based on personas, and delivering personalized digital assets like emails based on triggers and past customer behavior. This provides customers with relevant communications across all channels in an automated, rule-based manner. Marketing automation is a long-term investment that is important for brands to remain relevant to customers in the digital world.

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  PEDRO  MIGUEL  CASIMIRO         www.tmcentre.co.za   Source:  http://www.financialexpress.com/industry/why-­‐marketing-­‐automation-­‐is-­‐the-­‐ future-­‐of-­‐digital-­‐for-­‐brands/519718/       Why  Marketing  Automation  Is  The  Future  Of  Digital  For  Brands     Marketing  automation  sits  at  the  heart  of  digital  communication  and  integrates  customer   experience  across  all  brand  touch  points.  In  2012,  Gartner  predicted  that  CMOs  would  be   spending  more  on  technology  as  compared  to  CIOs  by  2017.  Well,  2017  has  arrived!  And  it’s   time  to  prove  that  Gartner’s  forecast  was  indeed  correct.     Let  me  start  by  sharing  a  short  story.  I  have  a  credit  card,  and  for  the  past  ten  years,  every   month  I  receive  an  email  asking  whether  I  would  like  to  avail  myself  of  an  equated  monthly   installment  (EMI).  I  have  never  done  that  in  all  these  years,  and  I  am  not  likely  to  in  the  next   ten  years  either.  This  communication  from  the  brand  seems  like  a  waste  of  a  consumer   engagement  opportunity;  my  credit  card  company  has  access  to  information  like  where  I   travel,  my  preference  of  hotels,  where  I  shop  and  what  I  eat,  which  provides  them  with  rich   brand  data  to  create  more  relevant  conversational  opportunities.     Or,  take  the  example  of  a  retail  store  whose  loyalty  card  I  hold.  Every  season  I  get  a  standard   email  communication  from  them,  which  probably  goes  to  their  entire  database  of  several   million  cardholders.  The  retail  chain  has  a  tremendous  amount  of  information  on  my  buying   preferences.  So,  why  can’t  I  get  a  personalized  email  that  displays  products  based  on  my  past   buying  behaviour,  or  my  website  browsing  behaviour?     And  this  is  the  case  for  most  brands.  Here’s  where  the  power  of  marketing  automation  comes   in.  In  our  era  of  attention  deficits,  it’s  incredibly  important  to  be  relevant  to  the  consumer   and  deliver  a  brand  message  in  the  short  window  of  opportunity  that  digital  communications   provides,  whether  via  email  or  SMS  or  web  banner.     Digital  marketing  has  so  far  worked  in  silos  and  given  rise  to  multiple  consumer  touch  points:   social  networks,  search  engines,  email,  SMS,  app  notifications  and  websites.  However,  there   are  two  key  challenges  that  a  brand  encounters:     -­‐ Inability  to  track  a  customer  journey  (at  a  single-­‐customer  granularity)  across  various   touch  points,  to  ensure  that  the  customer  sees  consistent  brand  communication.   -­‐ The  true  power  of  digital  is  the  ability  to  talk  to  a  customer  as  an  individual  rather   than  using  a  one-­‐size-­‐fits-­‐all  approach.  How  do  I  ensure  that  the  communication  my   customer  sees  is  based  on  her  past  behaviour?  This  could  be  purchase  behaviour,  or   browsing  behaviour  when  he  or  she  is  on  my  website  (for  example,  which  pages   they’ve  visited,  and  therefore  what  they  might  be  interested  in).  With  engagement   behaviour,  tracking  the  ad  they  clicked  on  informs  how  a  brand  could  continue  the   same  conversation  across  other  digital  channels  with  that  customer.     Marketing  automation  solutions  help  address  this  issue,  as  they  enable  a  brand  to  track   customer  behaviour  across  multiple  channels,  create  customer  communication  journeys   based  on  customer  persona,  and  build  digital  assets  (emails,  SMS,  etc.).  And  then  these  digital   assets  get  delivered  to  the  customer  based  on  certain  triggers  and  rendered  on  the   customer’s  browser  (or  app  or  SMS  window),  depending  on  past  behaviour.  Thus,  every   customer  gets  personalized  and  relevant  communications  across  all  channels.  And  this  
  PEDRO  MIGUEL  CASIMIRO         www.tmcentre.co.za   happens  in  an  automated,  rule-­‐based  manner.  Marketing  automation  sits  at  the  heart  of   digital  communication.  It  integrates  customer  experience  across  all  brand  touch  points,  from   websites  to  landing  pages,  email,  SMS,  app  notifications  and  ads  on  social  networking  sites.     Once  a  marketing  automation  solution  has  been  set  up,  it’s  a  plug-­‐and-­‐play  for  the  digital   marketing  team  to  use  this  solution  to  create  customer  communications.  A  typical  marketing   automation  team  will  comprise  a  campaign  manager  (a  digital  strategist),  a  technologist  who   creates  HTML  or  manages  databases,  and  data  analysts  who  analyse  the  outcome  of   campaigns  and  recommend  further  optimization.     It’s  also  important  to  realize  that  a  marketing  automation  solution  is  a  long-­‐term  investment   by  the  brand.  Therefore,  it’s  very  important  to  choose  a  solution  provider  with  the  ability  to   scale  up  the  solution  and  keep  up  with  the  fast  pace  of  change  as  social  networks  and  digital   marketing  evolve.    

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Article on the Why marketing automation is the future of digital for brands

  • 1.   PEDRO  MIGUEL  CASIMIRO         www.tmcentre.co.za   Source:  http://www.financialexpress.com/industry/why-­‐marketing-­‐automation-­‐is-­‐the-­‐ future-­‐of-­‐digital-­‐for-­‐brands/519718/       Why  Marketing  Automation  Is  The  Future  Of  Digital  For  Brands     Marketing  automation  sits  at  the  heart  of  digital  communication  and  integrates  customer   experience  across  all  brand  touch  points.  In  2012,  Gartner  predicted  that  CMOs  would  be   spending  more  on  technology  as  compared  to  CIOs  by  2017.  Well,  2017  has  arrived!  And  it’s   time  to  prove  that  Gartner’s  forecast  was  indeed  correct.     Let  me  start  by  sharing  a  short  story.  I  have  a  credit  card,  and  for  the  past  ten  years,  every   month  I  receive  an  email  asking  whether  I  would  like  to  avail  myself  of  an  equated  monthly   installment  (EMI).  I  have  never  done  that  in  all  these  years,  and  I  am  not  likely  to  in  the  next   ten  years  either.  This  communication  from  the  brand  seems  like  a  waste  of  a  consumer   engagement  opportunity;  my  credit  card  company  has  access  to  information  like  where  I   travel,  my  preference  of  hotels,  where  I  shop  and  what  I  eat,  which  provides  them  with  rich   brand  data  to  create  more  relevant  conversational  opportunities.     Or,  take  the  example  of  a  retail  store  whose  loyalty  card  I  hold.  Every  season  I  get  a  standard   email  communication  from  them,  which  probably  goes  to  their  entire  database  of  several   million  cardholders.  The  retail  chain  has  a  tremendous  amount  of  information  on  my  buying   preferences.  So,  why  can’t  I  get  a  personalized  email  that  displays  products  based  on  my  past   buying  behaviour,  or  my  website  browsing  behaviour?     And  this  is  the  case  for  most  brands.  Here’s  where  the  power  of  marketing  automation  comes   in.  In  our  era  of  attention  deficits,  it’s  incredibly  important  to  be  relevant  to  the  consumer   and  deliver  a  brand  message  in  the  short  window  of  opportunity  that  digital  communications   provides,  whether  via  email  or  SMS  or  web  banner.     Digital  marketing  has  so  far  worked  in  silos  and  given  rise  to  multiple  consumer  touch  points:   social  networks,  search  engines,  email,  SMS,  app  notifications  and  websites.  However,  there   are  two  key  challenges  that  a  brand  encounters:     -­‐ Inability  to  track  a  customer  journey  (at  a  single-­‐customer  granularity)  across  various   touch  points,  to  ensure  that  the  customer  sees  consistent  brand  communication.   -­‐ The  true  power  of  digital  is  the  ability  to  talk  to  a  customer  as  an  individual  rather   than  using  a  one-­‐size-­‐fits-­‐all  approach.  How  do  I  ensure  that  the  communication  my   customer  sees  is  based  on  her  past  behaviour?  This  could  be  purchase  behaviour,  or   browsing  behaviour  when  he  or  she  is  on  my  website  (for  example,  which  pages   they’ve  visited,  and  therefore  what  they  might  be  interested  in).  With  engagement   behaviour,  tracking  the  ad  they  clicked  on  informs  how  a  brand  could  continue  the   same  conversation  across  other  digital  channels  with  that  customer.     Marketing  automation  solutions  help  address  this  issue,  as  they  enable  a  brand  to  track   customer  behaviour  across  multiple  channels,  create  customer  communication  journeys   based  on  customer  persona,  and  build  digital  assets  (emails,  SMS,  etc.).  And  then  these  digital   assets  get  delivered  to  the  customer  based  on  certain  triggers  and  rendered  on  the   customer’s  browser  (or  app  or  SMS  window),  depending  on  past  behaviour.  Thus,  every   customer  gets  personalized  and  relevant  communications  across  all  channels.  And  this  
  • 2.   PEDRO  MIGUEL  CASIMIRO         www.tmcentre.co.za   happens  in  an  automated,  rule-­‐based  manner.  Marketing  automation  sits  at  the  heart  of   digital  communication.  It  integrates  customer  experience  across  all  brand  touch  points,  from   websites  to  landing  pages,  email,  SMS,  app  notifications  and  ads  on  social  networking  sites.     Once  a  marketing  automation  solution  has  been  set  up,  it’s  a  plug-­‐and-­‐play  for  the  digital   marketing  team  to  use  this  solution  to  create  customer  communications.  A  typical  marketing   automation  team  will  comprise  a  campaign  manager  (a  digital  strategist),  a  technologist  who   creates  HTML  or  manages  databases,  and  data  analysts  who  analyse  the  outcome  of   campaigns  and  recommend  further  optimization.     It’s  also  important  to  realize  that  a  marketing  automation  solution  is  a  long-­‐term  investment   by  the  brand.  Therefore,  it’s  very  important  to  choose  a  solution  provider  with  the  ability  to   scale  up  the  solution  and  keep  up  with  the  fast  pace  of  change  as  social  networks  and  digital   marketing  evolve.