Marketing automation is a hot topic, and one that deserves the attention it is receiving.  After all, it truly is changing the way marketers communicate with leads, clients and partners.  I sometimes become obsessed with the way marketing automation works in the context of the B2B sales cycle, although plenty of businesses (including some of our customers) are using it successfully for B2C marketing.

As with any new technology, marketing automation still provides the occasional, “D’oh!” moment.  One such favorite moment occurred on a recent visit to Pittsburgh, when a friend shared the amusing story of how her boyfriend received several emails in June from a florist (he’d used previously) that encouraged him to, “remember Mary with flowers on Father’s Day.”

Pretty hilarious, considering Mary is a female and not celebrating Father’s Day. Unless the florist is uber-PC and assumes all genders are celebrating Father’s Day, I think they had a little marketing automation “oopsie.”  Rather than focus on the negative, however, the more useful exercise is to think about the things the florist did right in terms of their database segmentation and email strategy…

1.    Be Specific.  Depending on how you segment your database, you can develop very relevant email messages that target events, holidays, geography, vertical markets, job titles, etc. Given the above florist example, the strategy of sending Father’s Day reminder emails during the month of June was sound.
2.    Get Personal.  When done properly, dynamic field insertion can make communications more personal.  Seeing your name or company in an email feels better than seeing “Greetings” or “Your Business.”  The more information you capture in your database, the more choices you’ll have for separating names and customizing content.
3.    Target Behavior.  In the case of the florist, they targeted customers who had bought flowers from them previously.  This strategy of analyzing past behavior or buying patterns to encourage future actions is very smart.  If it worked in the past, it should work in the future.
4.    Add Value. The florist also included a special offer for returning customers, as an incentive. Rewarding current customers and offering something valuable for their time or business reinforces brand loyalty, promotes retention and keeps recipients engaged.

Unfortunately, all of these positive aspects don’t erase the fact that the email was sent to people who didn’t qualify for this campaign. I’d guess the problem stemmed (get it – stemmed) from the contact database lacking thorough gender information – or – an error in the segmentation strategy that neglected to exclude any prior recipients who are female.  I imagine the florist has a very large and robust database so maybe a small subset of data should have been tested before launching the national campaign.

Again, kudos to the florist for having the right idea about sending automated email communications and implementing a marketing automation strategy that makes sense.  Have you received any automated emails that missed the mark?  Send us a tweet about them.