Marketing Automation: Be Careful
June 9th, 2010 - Posted by Tim Freestone
Technology adoption entails the temptation to expect over-simplification. We want to streamline to the bone, taking anything that even seems excessive out of the equation. Slicing manual intervention completely, sometimes, appears to be the goal. And, this kind of thinking finds its way to the marketing department. Push-button marketing would be great, right? Just let the marketing happen on its own …
The only problem is that push-button marketing doesn’t always work.
Don’t get me wrong: there is a place for the inflexible, the templated, the boilerplate, the procedural. Not every marketing effort has to be people-intensive and high-touch. For every carefully crafted blog post, you may send an e-mail blast to tens of thousands of people. Rather than try to automate everything — or guide everything manually — the best approach is to find the right mix.
Set a goal to make your overall marketing program as effective as possible (rather than setting a goal to make it as automated as possible). Then, identify the components that will help you secure the desired impact. They may include automated components, such as e-mail marketing and scheduled tweets. But, you’ll also probably include some exclusive events, telemarketing outreach and webinars.
Automation pays dividends across the enterprise … and that includes the marketing department. Just keep in mind that it’s not an end in itself. Focus on marketing that drives ROI.
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