Marketing automation — evil or misunderstood?

marketing automationWhen the subject of marketing automation comes up, many purists shake their head and talk about how robotic and impersonal it is.  Well — if you do it badly, that’s very true.

In that case — you really do make your potential customers feel like they’re just a number to you and that you treat everyone the same, with little regard to their specific needs.

But when you build the system with your customer in mind — it can be a wonderful experience for them and for you.

It all depends on if you build it once and put it on auto pilot or if you use it as a tool to serve up exactly what each visitor is looking for.

Automation allows you to create a user experience that puts the user in the driver’s seat. They can access the exact information they want, when they want it — and how they want it.  The key is to realize that different people are going to have different needs and you need to anticipate that as you build out the options.  Even more important — once you start getting visitors, you need to learn from where they go and don’t want to go.

It’s a given that every potential customer probably isn’t going to want exactly the same information.  As you watch and learn — you can create new paths and test the results.  At the end of the day, thanks to automation, you can create multiple paths, so each person can have a different experience, based on their own needs and interests.

That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

Recently, the folks at Marketo asked me to comment on the question “can big data lead to big love?” Check out the article and my comments.

If you’re using marketing automation to make it easy for you and only you, then it probably isn’t going to work so well.  But if you use it as a tool to serve your customers better — it can indeed lead to big love.

4 comments on “Marketing automation — evil or misunderstood?

  1. Mike Larkin says:

    Marketing Automation (MA) will allow you to communicate with your customer the way and when you customer wants. Developing MA strategy and executing with one of the many fine software packages will leverage you time and resources to help you explode your business.

    Developing the system right is very hard, but once it is done, you will have a marketing and sales system that will consistently produce profitable sales!

  2. I have yet to delve into the world of automation. For me, there is still something to be said about doing things personally by hand.

    I do agree that automation is used incorrectly. I think many people look at targeted automation as too much work. Too many people have that set it and forget it mentality.

  3. Kostas says:

    I think as long as people do not depend on automation it can be a good thing. I have seen many people set up automation and then just leave it to do its thing! That’s when it starts to go awry. If you keep a close eye on it then I think marketing automation can be a great tool.

  4. Valerie Dresner says:

    “Marketing automation is actually useful to gather data to bring the business into a major key of success. The advantage of marketing automation is actually good for your company, it provide your customer a better service. The disadvantage may be occurring due to peoples job. It will minimize the job of those employees. That’s happening eventually, some end up losing their job because of automation thing.

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