Marketing Automation: WHAT is it and HOW it works

Imagine with me that you’re putting together a marketing campaign for president, but you want to send out some more personalized information and connect with potential voters based on voter name and districts - to connect with people without needing a lot of staffers or contacts in a community. This exact thing happened back in 2012 (twenty-twelve) with Obama and changed the game when it came to elections, as well as in the business world, when their marketing team implemented Marketing Automation. 

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In this episode:

• we will break down the term “marketing automation” into prime factors
• we will watch a meme and a part of the movie to help you understand the essence of marketing and marketing automation
• I will go deeper into the marketing automation process using the example of the abandoned cart automation

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Marketing automation. Anyone who works or has any connection with digital businesses has heard this term at least once. What marketing automation really is, and what are the real benefits it can bring to your business? More about that in a second.

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At the beginning, let's try to explain the meaning of Marketing Automation. Let’s first start with the first part of the phrase, the big one: Marketing. 

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I have been professionally involved in the marketing field for nearly two decades. During this time, not once or twice, I asked myself this philosophical question: what actually is marketing? There are many definitions. Personally, I’ve had a favorite one and even something to help explain marketing for several years and I am happy to share it. If any of my students or trainees are watching or listening to this episode, you’ll certainly know what I'm talking about. The marketing mechanism is wonderfully presented in this picture, the meme I "borrowed" from the Internet.

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The key element, kind of homework that needs to be done before starting advanced activities, is identifying the target group.

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Then we try to reach a defined group through a proper communication channel.

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The message should be tailored to the persona and meet their expectations and  persuade them to take a specific action by containing a call to action. 

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It's nice if you manage to trigger this particular action, and more than perfect if the reaction to the received message is related to a purchasing decision. See, I said it's easy.

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Let's move on to the second part of the phrase “marketing automation”. What exactly is automation? We could define it as a process consisting in partial or complete limitation of human work using appropriate devices or special software.

Automation has recently become a very fashionable word, and many of us associate it with harnessing technology to repetitive activities so that more than a human can do at the same time.

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If this is how we understand marketing automation, then we could compare it to a gun randomly shooting messages like bullets at our clients' windows.

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I’m pretty sure that many times when visiting an ecommerce website, you have been attacked with layers of pop-ups, one after the other or a sequence of e-mails in several hours or even minutes intervals right after you left the page. You had the opportunity to see for yourself what an incorrect implementation of marketing automation technology looks like.

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To show you how the correct implementations work, I will use  "Minority Report" film as an example. Tom Cruse as the main character is walking through a mall and is identified by special cameras as a specific user. Based on the information the system has gathered about him, it presents products or offers that are more likely of interest. Since the system in the movie identifies him as a man, it displays a Guinness ad. Due to the fact that he  spent his last holiday in Aruba, the system recommends that spending next holiday in Hawaii. When the main character visits one of the stores he has shopped in in the past, the virtual seller refers to this activity, asking about the level of satisfaction with the product purchased at that time.

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I hope you are slowly catching on to what's going on in marketing automation. So let's reach for a slightly more extensive definition presented by biggest expert on top of experts, the smartest of the wise men, a real treasury of knowledge on the Internet - Wikipedia.

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Marketing automation is conducting marketing activities with the use of special software and tools to improve sales processes. It aims to increase the effectiveness of the campaign by automatically collecting and processing information about potential customers and sending them an appropriate, personalized marketing message.

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This definition is of course correct, but let's be honest - how long is that going to stay in your memory?

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After you finish listening to or watching this episode, I would rather like you to remember and know how you can consciously use marketing automation tech, and not remember some wiki definition.

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So let's try to break it down and define the concept of marketing automation based on its use. 

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The task of marketing automation is to reach the right person with the right message through the right channel to achieve a specific goal. It can be obtaining more customer data, generating leads, pushing to a purchase, or upselling a product or service.

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Let me show you using an abandoned cart automation as an example.

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Let’s Imagine that a customer lands on your ecommerce website, add a product or two to the cart, but for some reason decides not to complete the order and leaves the website. Do you think this is a missed opportunity? With a little help of a rescuing abandoned carts automation, you can send that potential, would-be customer a message, reminding them about the products that are still waiting in their cart. According to permission marketing, the condition is obtaining contact consent in advance.

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The key for the automation to take place is to transfer this event activity to the automation system, which can trigger the automation and deliver a message. By event, this means any action performed on your website by the user, in this specific case we’re targeting the adding a product to the cart. The next step in creating the automation is determining the time necessary to make a purchase, for example, the time your customer needs to go from the product side of the cart to finalize their transaction. Without going into too many details, this time will vary depending on the specifics or your business.

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After the defined time, your automation system will verify whether the customer has made a purchase or not. If they have not completed the transaction, they will receive appropriate communication to encourage them to return.

An e-mail message is only be the beginning of automation related to saving an abandoned cart. In order to get the best, and at the same time, most positive consumer response to the communication sent, a relevant message should also be sent via SMS, web push notification, though a the mobile application, and even during the visit on the website. It all depends on what channels you are currently using to communicate with your users and those which you have consent.

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The more you know about your customer the better it is to deliver personalized communication. With Marketing Automation, you will be able to track your customer journey and see how much it takes on average for the customer to complete the transaction, what information they need to complete the purchase, and which of your marketing activities lead to the highest conversion.

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Automation allows you to focus on the right audience, better respond to their needs, meet expectations, and increase the conversion rate, just like in the case of an abandoned cart.

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Are you using a marketing automation tool? Let us know in the comments how you are using or understand marketing automation.