In the latest release of Mautic we’ve placed some focus on campaign functionality and the API. Your online brand experience has hundreds, likely thousands of handoffs being made each and every day. Information that is passed through campaign actions and shared through API’s is vital to engaging your audience in a meaningful customer journey. From critical notifications to releasing information at specific times and so much more, all of these elements ensure that your customers are feeling supported at each step.

To support you in maintaining these vital connections, here are the highlights of Mautic 2.10.0;

Campaign functionality

• • Company fields update via import and forms: You can now update fields on the company entity via forms and through imports. A new import button has been added to the company page. In addition, a new section called “Company fields” is available to map contact imports to. Similarly when adding a form field to a form, new company fields are available to map to. (Github link)

• • New Webhook campaign action: A new action has been added “send a webhook”. This enables you to send specified information to a specified URL as part of a campaign. (Github link)
  • Custom timeframe campaign condition: A new date function has been added where you can specify as part of a campaign condition, a custom number of days/weeks/month before or after a date associated with a custom field.(Github link)

• • Timestamp updates on contact field through a campaign: You can now update a timestamp field on the contact through a campaign using custom functions such as NOW, TODAY, YESTERDAY and TOMORROW. There is also a NULL function that is now available which when added as a contact field update as part of a campaign will clear out the existing value in the specified field for the contact. (Github link)
  • Internal notifications as part of campaign: A new action has been added to campaigns – ‘send email to user’ will allow an email notification to be sent to a user, contact’s owner or any To, Cc, Bcc email addresses as a campaign action. (Github link)

• Additional Campaign actions to;
  • Post to Facebook and Google Analytics: There is a new setting added in the configuration section under Tracking Settings. You can add your Facebook pixel ID or your GA id. Using this, information about a contact can be sent as part of a campaign when a contact visits a landing page so that this can be used for Facebook or GA paid campaigns to better filter data and generate target audiences. (Github link)
  • Show Focus Items: A new action has been added to a campaign after the page visit decision – to show a focus item. (Github link)

API and Integration Improvements

• API improvements – A number of significant improvements have been made to the API to enable data around contact activities to be more easily accessible. The following new data points are now available:
  • All events table: (Github link)
  • Form submission data: (Github link)
  • Webinar data from Citrix: (Github link)
• Bi-directional updates for Null values for all CRM integrations: Mautic now supports the ability to bi-directionally sync data where there are NULL values in fields, irrespective of the specified direction of sync. This means, if there is a blank value in a field that has been mapped as part of the plugin, if the value is missing in either system, it will be updated even if the system that has the value is not the system of record for this field. This has been created for the following CRM integrations – Salesforce, Hubspot, ConnectWise, Zoho, MSDynamics, SugarCRM. The feature is configurable by the user. (Github link)
• Keeping unsubscribes in sync: Unsubscribe information from supported CRM systems is now available to map as part of configuring the plugin. This is done so that subscription statuses can be kept in sync between CRM systems and Mautic. This is available for the following CRMs – Salesforce, Hubspot, ConnectWise, Zoho, MSDynamics, SugarCRM. (Github link)

UI/UX Improvements

• • Audit log and integration tabs added to contact for additional visibility: Two new tabs are available on the contact page to provide you with better visibility into updates made to the contact – Integrations and Audit log. (Github link 1 and link 2)
  • Clickable stats on emails, contacts card view: The stats labels on the email record are now clickable, enabling you to easily navigate to the list of underlying contacts. (Stats will show total metrics whereas the underlying list will show unique contacts – which means the numbers may not match.) Also, a list of contacts that have been sent the email will now be visible in a new tab called ‘contacts’ on the email detail page. (Github link 1 and link 2)
  • Apply buttons added to landing page, email, campaign builder: The Mautic builder continues to improve. Now applying changes to any of these elements is made easier with the addition of the Apply button. This enables you to save your changes before closing it.

• Tooltips added to improve usability: An additional six tooltips have been added to improve the user experience, making Mautic even more user friendly.

The customer journey is maintained not only by your people, but by the technology you use to support it. We trust that the tools in this latest release will assist your business, creating a lasting impression that will result in a relationship not simply a transaction. A huge thank you to our entire community for developing, testing and improving Mautic!

For more detailed information on this release, you can find the release notes here. If you have any questions, please be sure to reach out to us via the Community Forums, Slack or our social channels (Facebook & Twitter) and the community will do their best to help.

Marketing automation saves lives

If you’re using a CRM then you’re well on your way to doing something incredible with marketing automation. You can read a quick tutorial on the topic of marketing automation here where we dive into more details and specifics but for now let’s look at how you can take your customer relations management knowledge and apply marketing automation to your setup to improve your life. Yes, it will improve your life.

Starting with the familiar CRM

For many, the CRM is a catch-all used to collect data and information about all types of individuals. You may have brand-new leads that have filled out a form on your website, existing contacts from an address book you’ve imported at some point in the past, maybe you’ve entered every business card you’ve ever received into your CRM, or finally you add all existing customers to your system. All of these are fairly common ways that businesses use a CRM. But there’s a problem here. When your sales team (or you) go into your CRM to find new business or stay in touch with existing customers…well it’s a mess. Everything is mixed in, and even if you’re one of the studious that create proper lists you’re still left with doing an enormous amount of work. You create your emails and you send them to your lead lists. You enter updated information when you learn something new about your leads or customers, and you spend hours upon hours trying to figure out which of your leads are the ones you need to contact that are actually interested in purchasing something.

All of these task have one very important thing in common; they all take time, lots and lots of time. And for most of us time is the one thing we simply don’t have enough of. This is where the true power of marketing automation comes in. Marketing automation is a process where you can save time by handling a number of repetitive tasks and actions automatically based on lead actions and scheduled events.

A key thing to keep in mind when performing marketing automation is the simple truth that automated marketing can still be personal. Simply because you’re scheduling points of contact (emails, social media messages etc…) does not mean you are no longer making a personal contact. Read more on personalization in marketing automation here.

So how does marketing automation work with a CRM?

Marketing automation starts by tracking every lead, or visitor, to your website, or other online locations (in fact, you can even use marketing automation for in-store tracking but that’s a different post). This tracking happens similar to Google Analytics tracking just the basic information on each lead, what pages they visit and how long they stay for. Easy enough to understand. Marketing automation is the bridge you use to carry your potential leads safely to your CRM. Refining, setting speeds, organizing traffic, until finally each lead has been nurtured along the bridge safely into your CRM and ready to be your customer.

Landing Pages

Next, your marketing automation software should let you create beautiful landing pages where you can collect more information from your leads. Read here for more information about key things to consider when creating a landing page. These landing pages should live on your own domain and in your own website as this keeps the user flow consistent, bring a sense of familiarity and comfort that they have not been sent off to some third-party location. These landing pages typically contain a call-to-action, for example a form you want the visitor to fill out in order to download a specific PDF, or maybe an infographic or slideshow. This is a key piece of the puzzle. You have to provide value to your leads. They are giving up personal information (be that an email address or social media handle), and you must give them something of value in return.

Build Profiles

Once you have collected their information your marketing automation system will compile a comprehensive lead profile on each visitor. This is where things get exciting. Your lead profiles let you quickly see social media messages your visitor has posted, their public profiles, their history of interactions with your site and tons of other useful information.

Drip Marketing Campaign

These known leads can now be added to specific drip marketing campaigns. We won’t go into the details of drip marketing here but you can read this article to learn more about implementing and creating drip marketing campaigns and workflows. Through these campaigns you will send relevant information to your leads and based on their responses take different actions as a result. But of course you don’t have to do this manually for each lead. Your marketing automation has these paths, decisions, and actions all defined ready to be executed either as a result of the lead’s actions or alternatively on a scheduled timeframe you specify (e.g. send this email 3 days after a successful form submission).

Are you starting to see what’s happening? Marketing automation allows you to lead nurture your potential leads along the sales cycle without your direct involvement and time. Not only are you nurturing leads but you are generating new leads. And as these leads complete various actions (either through a campaign you’ve defined or simply through your website) you have the opportunity to assign points or a weight to each thing. Your leads are now being weighted for you based on the criteria you define.

Convert Leads to Sales

The last step in this marketing automation workflow is to convert these leads to customers. As they have accrued points and built their profiles you can define triggers that will fire at various stages. Ultimately this is where your CRM will come back into the picture. When a lead reaches a specific level that you have determined to be your qualified lead level you can have your marketing automation system automatically send this lead into your CRM. And now you see something brilliant. Your CRM has now turned into a hub full of high-quality, ready to contact leads. You know they’re qualified because they have been nurtured along the sales cycle automatically through your marketing automation.

Marketing automation can save hundreds of hours for both your sales and your marketing teams. Lead management, lead nurturing, lead generation and customer management has never been easier. You’ll find you have more time to do the things you love and the quality of your personal contacts with leads will improve drastically. Don’t waste your time contacting every unqualified visitor to your website, use marketing automation to save time and improve your business.

Returning to the CRM

Your CRM will still play an important role in your organization, but it will now play the correct role. Don’t use it as a random catch-all for every lead and every cold call. Manage leads in marketing automation, create landing pages to collect more information, use drip marketing to nurture them and give them valuable information, and then, when they are qualified, send them to your CRM. Marketing automation and CRM work hand in hand. Use them both and use them well.