While marketing automation is a great catalyst for marketing and sales teams to deliver better ROI to the business they’re supporting, it is one thing to have marketing automation software but implementing and using it effectively is a different story.

According to Bill McNamara, CEO at Marketing Decisions, marketers need to have the whole picture and the right support to get the right results from marketing automation technology.

“Unless you have the right knowledge and experience around bringing marketing automation to life and making it work, then you may as well be buying a sack of potatoes because in the end it is just a piece of software,” he said.

So how can marketer’s use automation software effectively to increase customer engagement and improve ROI?

McNamara shares the five things any marketer needs to know when embarking the automation journey.

Be willing to change, learn and improve

You need to be willing to change, learn and improve. You need to recognise you can do better and be willing to put the effort to make that happen. The success factor of marketing automation relies on recognising that there’s much more to this than just a bit of software. You need the software; but you also need the whole picture and the right support to get the whole thing working well end-to-end.

‘Batch and blast’ emailing is dead

It’s getting harder and harder for the traditional batch and blast email to deliver the results they previously used to deliver. Over the past couple of years since we’ve been supporting Eloqua clients, we’ve been sending out literally millions and millions of emails and we’ve seen it get harder and harder to get results this way. Back when we first started you could almost send any old email out, forget the subject line and the content of the email and it would get through to customers. But that is not the case anymore. Companies now have to work smarter. They have to have marketing processes supporting what they’re doing.

At the end of the day email is just a channel, one small component of a much bigger picture. Brands need to be able to stand out – it’s an overcrowded place to be in, trying to get your emails into that inbox and opened and actioned upon is tougher than ever.

It’s all about data

Marketing automation emphasises the importance of enriching your database. It’s about identifying what the key data points are to ensure that relevance to the people you’re targeting. Other important elements to consider include good segmentation, running micro campaigns – the opposite of the big batch and blast so you’re increasingly relevant to people.

Reach out to your customers in real-time

Marketing automation provides the great opportunity to plan ahead and schedule so you’re able to engage with customers in real-time, as they are interested. It creates the opportunity to engage at the point of heightened interest. For example, when somebody completes a form on your website you can automatically respond to that at the time they’re interested.

Download the full article The rise of marketing automation: beyond the ‘batch and blast’ email here

Marketing Decisions is a platinum sponsor of MAD Week 2014, Australia’s largest and diverse media festival. Join Bill and his team at the event to explore the strategies and tools needed to take marketers forward in the future.

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