For April’s First Wednesday we invited digital marketing experts from Whitespace to speak about marketing automation (MA). Stuart McPherson, Digital Marketer, and Sarah Johnson, Head of Digital Marketing, explained that marketing automation uses technology to help organisations automatically deliver relevant, personalised communications through digital channels. MA platforms have a wide range of capabilities. For instance, they can help you automate follow-up emails based on users’ actions, or create dynamic web content that changes depending on who is logged on to your site.

It might sound like it’s all about computers and machinery but ultimately MA is about building better relationships with people. The software can improve your data collection, giving you greater insight into who your customers are and how they interact with you. It also makes it easier for you to put this audience data to good use, as it makes it possible to tailor the user experience automatically. This personalisation is vital to nurturing prospects and converting them into regular customers.

The technology also helps you to analyse whether what you’re doing works and identify room for improvement. Crucially, it allows marketers to illustrate their value. By bringing all your marketing tactics together in one place MA enables you to quantify activity, measure impact and calculate ROI more efficiently and accurately.

Marketing automation, however, is not a ‘press and go’ software. It takes time to understand, to prepare for and to find the right platform. In this blog we share Stuart and Sarah’s advice on taking your first steps into marketing automation:

Plan

Time spent planning is crucial as MA will magnify, not solve, any inefficient processes you might have. To make it work you’ll need a comprehensive strategy that integrates the right processes, people, content and data. So, before launching a MA campaign you should answer some key questions:

• What are your goals?
• What strategy will help you reach these goals?
• Who should lead on the project?
• How will you measure success?

Research

There are a range of MA platforms available to you.  Marketo, Pardot and Hubspot are often referred to as the leaders in marketing automation software. These are big platforms with powerful functionality and they come with a big price tag to match. Mailchimp, Instapage and Leadius are three cheaper options. They lack some of the capabilities of the bigger platforms but can be a nice introduction to the world of MA. Before making your decision use free trials to find out the pros and cons of each platform and determine suitability for your needs.

Start small

Don’t be overzealous in your ambitions. Whilst MA offers a lot of tempting features it is also a large investment in terms of money and time. Rather than paying out for software you don’t need, begin by experimenting with one or two MA features. For example, you could test out the automatic email function in Mail Chimp, see what results you get from that and go from there.

And remember, if you need help identifying your audiences or planning a marketing approach we’re here to help. Give us a call or send us an email – we’d love to hear from you.

The First Wednesday discussion continues next month when we’ll explore augmented reality with Trevor Jones and David Oaxly of CreativTek. First Wednesdays are exclusively available to Culture Republic Partners. Get in touch if you’d like to find out more about these events or our partnership offer.