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.

Have you ever sat down at your favorite Mexican restaurant and been so hungry that you can’t decide what to order?  From chicken enchiladas and rellenos to carne asada and shrimp ceviche, it all looks so good that you sit there…stumped.  The wait staff may have to make several extra trips because you are distracted by the choices and can’t decide.

Now think about this scenario in the context of setting up a multi-week, multi-step marketing automation campaign.  Sounds familiar, right?  You have so many decisions and moving parts to control that getting started can be overwhelming.

We suggest answering these four simple questions beforehand to make structuring your first few marketing automation campaigns a little easier…a little more digestible, if you will.

1.       Who are your leads and what is their source?  Answering this question will help determine their initial interests and how you first communicate with them.  For example, leads from outbound calling efforts should probably be segmented and receive different communications than those generated via an affiliate email program.
2.       What would you say in a 1:1 conversation – why should these leads care about your communications?  Are you offering them something of value such as a special offer, educational material, free assessment, etc?
3.       How can you support your campaign?  Content rules as a way to interact with leads so audit your existing content and determine what is relevant or can be repurposed.  White papers, case studies, testimonials, webinars and videos – you probably have more than you think!
4.       What do you want to accomplish?  Are you qualifying leads to hand off to sales or are you driving them to an online demo?  It makes sense to identify your end-goal at the beginning of the campaign because you can review every step to see if it logically supports the overall objective.

Armed with the answers to the above questions, the next step is to actually hit the whiteboard, Visio or old-fashioned pen and paper to map out the decision-tree and possible outcomes.  The few minutes that spent answering these four questions will have a huge pay-off as you become familiar with developing and structuring your marketing automation campaigns.  Be prepared for delicious results!