In the days leading up to digital sales and marketing, the term improvisation (or improv), often took the role of the savvy salesperson who was able to think quickly on their feet in a sales presentation, or the marketer who was able to think outside the box. Improv has many attributes, but can automation be one of them?

The Art of Improv

The value that improv provides is the element of surprise and delight. But this value isn’t based on random or arbitrary activity. It’s based on a few core elements that are second nature to the people who are able to deliver it.

• Listening for relevance:
  One of the key elements of improv in a comedy context is that one person needs to listen and truly understand where the other person is leading the dialogue. This is why marketing automation should never be a solo proposition. To be truly effective in improv, you must listen to other actors and determine their role and how you will interact with them. To create moments of improvisation you must first listen.
• Know Your Audience:
  In any field where communication is relied upon to provide value, listening and understanding who you’re speaking to are key. Have they experienced what you’ve experienced? Whether it’s a group of realtors or bodybuilders, what each group finds humorous will be unique. The connections we make with them must reflect our knowledge of who they are.
• Follow the flow:
  When you’re doing improv, it’s necessary that your story have a rhythm or a cadence. It’s in this flow of story that an audience will find connection. If you’ve ever been to an evening of improv, you’ll notice that there is a broader story being told. The flow of a story will ultimately engage you in meaningful ways. Breaking this pattern or flow will leave audiences feeling disconnected.
• Delight with a payoff:
  There are many times throughout an improvisational skit or comedy routine where there’s a moment of delight or a comedic payoff. It often leaves the audience even more engaged and connected to the story being told. This is one of the most important elements of improv. It’s the response that our amygdala reacts to. It’s the part of your brain that helps evaluate if something is memorable and full of delight.

Improv is part art and part science. It’s not something that can simply be calculated or easily produced. It comes with practice and a keen awareness of these elements. Now let’s take a look at each of these elements in the light of how we automate our marketing and communications.

Automating Improv

Automation continues to be seen as a calculated prescription of actions that are a result of someone’s choice. These seem in complete contrast to the ebb and flow of a improv comedy routine. Or are they? Let’s consider the factors of improv that we’ve highlighted and determine if there is a place in our marketing automation for them.

• Listening for relevance:
  One of the things that we often miss when developing our automation workflows is a close relationship with the other functions of our business that provide us with real-time feedback. Integrations become a key way for businesses to assess relevance throughout the entire product lifecycle. Are you working with other teams in your business? If you’re able to check for whether an email has been opened or a link has been clicked, what other actions/activities can provide feedback? Payment received? Order processed? Shipment delivered? Consider what notifications can be leveraged to help you make the most meaningful connection.
• Know Your Audience:
  This seems fairly intuitive. When someone clicks on a link, visits a page or fills out a form, it begins to indicate intent or motivation. Your audience is providing you with all manner of information that will help you learn more about them. Knowing this information gives you information with which to validate interest. Are you leveraging each marketing channel and function in your business to truly understand them?
• Follow the Flow:
  Consider flow akin to your buying journey. One of the real challenges of improv is the ability to combine all of these factors into a relevant story. The same is true of marketing automation. Follow your visitor/customer as they make decisions. As you do, be sure to provide value at each milestone. Allow their decisions and your value to steer them into opportunities for delight.
• Delight with a Payoff:
  We all know that with improv the payoff is the punchline or the big finish. As we consider marketing’s role in engaging our audience and maximizing resources with automation, we must use these tools to engage our audience, not simply move them through a funnel. Whether you are listening for keywords, monitoring for clicks, be intentional by identifying specific segments or customers to provide truly delight filled moments.

Many organizations are joining the marketing automation movement. They’re taking their simple, routine communications and moving them into an automation system. This is not altogether a bad thing. But the opportunity cost may be greater than anticipated if marketing teams don’t find improvisational ways to make automation a value added part of their marketing strategy. Here’s our chance to take the stage and make each interaction one they won’t soon forget.

This problem isn’t new. For over a decade, marketers have been trying to determine how to make our content stand apart. We’ve written from different perspectives, we’ve wrapped it in creative call-to-actions and tried to engage our audience explaining why our content is more unique and valuable than the other guys. So how do we stand apart? How does our content rise above the rest?

We need to think differently. We need to start being human. Let’s imagine that all the web’s content is represented by a city. What brings that city to life? It’s people. When we think of our hometown, we think in context of our personal relationships and experiences. We don’t think of the data (i.e. population or square miles). We think of the high school we went to and the crushes we had. We think of our first job and how tough the manager was. These stories provide the context for the city.

Principles to Humanize Marketing Automation

If we recognize that storytelling humanizes us and is a vital ingredient to our marketing efforts, how do we incorporate it into our marketing automation processes?

• Become a farmer: Many of the expectations placed on sales and marketing teams is about quantity vs. quality. Skills are often based on the ability to convert or win. These terms immediately describe an “us vs. them” mentality. This is not how we build relationships. In a post written by Sean Jackson, he describes the value of thinking like a farmer vs. a salesperson.
  

  “But the farmer has a major advantage over the hunter. While the hunters must go into new territories each day to stalk their prey, farmers stay in one place, planting new seeds and reaping the fruits of their efforts on the same ground they have toiled over already. In return, the land they till becomes infinitely more valuable because it can consistently reap a harvest without the hits and misses of hunting.”

  You’ve likely heard the phrase lead nurturing? It’s marketing speak for building relationships. It’s staying in one place, listening to your customers and adding value by meeting their needs at each stage of the buying journey. But we can’t accomplish this by trying to “hunt for sales”, this must be done by building trust over time, adding value at each step.

• The power of empathy: Many articles have been written about the power of empathy in business. To think like a customer means that we have walked in their shoes. This goes beyond understanding the buying journey or the customer need. When we have walked in our customers shoes, we connect with them on a personal level. We are far more understanding of their needs when we understand their story. Michael Hinshaw states this about the customer experience:
  

  “Several studies back up the fact that no matter who your customers are (B2B or B2C), there’s a high price to pay for delivering a poor customer experience. The thing is, customer experience is really based on how your customers feel. And one of the best ways to make them feel better about the experience is to listen them, understand their concerns, and deliver empathetic service across multiple touchpoints.”

  So delivering a positive customer experience is more than simply knowing what kind of product they use. It’s having knowledge about how and why they use it. If you sell shampoo, you need to know what kind of hair they have, why they chose the shampoo, then deliver value around the entire experience. What do they need before, during and after they shampoo their hair? This information helps create customer empathy. When we deliver this kind of content via our automation processes, it will show that we have listened and seek to provide real value along the way.

• Getting personal: In his latest book X: The Experience When Business Meets Design, Brian Solis outlines the importance of the customer experience. It’s going beyond the data. It’s about getting personal.
  

  “Big data provides great information about customers’ interests, personal and professional networks, location, and many other characteristics. But creating meaningful experiences requires us to get more personal than just mining data. One of my least favorite expressions is, “It’s not personal; it’s only business.”

  This is where the rubber meets the road. Data gives us a limited view of our customers. It shows us open rates, but doesn’t reveal intent. It shows us downloads, but doesn’t indicate purpose. We must take the additional step to “micro-mine” the data. How do we do that? We must be curious. We must gather valuable insights. What are your customers interests, values and opinions? “Data storytellers” (or analysts) have the unique ability to reveal information that do reveal incredibly accurate stories about our audience. Gathering and listening to these stories will help us further humanize our content and create experiences that are meaningful and personal.

The Tactics of Humanization

In order to humanize our marketing automation efforts we must critically look at each interaction during the customer experience as it relates to our communications and determine how we humanize it. Here are a few thoughts to get you started.

• Be Relational: This goes without saying. Create an experience where your customer sees you as a real live person, not a large organization or automated system. Use the proper tags (first name, etc.) from your automation system to relate to your audience. If your customers all have a specific kind of goldfish, then tell them that you are running a special for that kind of goldfish. Speak in an authentic personal tone. Business speak will get you a one way ticket to Irrelevant-ville.
• Segmentation: Another way to humanize our marketing automation is to use one of the most powerful tools in our automation toolbox, segmentation. When we cast a broad net with our marketing and communication, it robs us of our ability to be relevant. Take the time to segment your audience into very specific groups. This will allow you to create communications that are personal and relevant. When we can provide very targeted messages that relate to our customers on a personal level, it will feel human.
• Logical Campaign Flow: This can be tricky. Now that we have this shiny new automation system, it’s tempting to automate our every interaction. But proceed with caution. Remember what it feels like to be the customer. If they don’t answer your email, then sending them another one the next day, is not good relationship building practice. Step back and consider the buying journey. At what steps are decisions being made? When does it make sense to re-engage your audience? Take time to ask some of your existing customers about their journey.
• Consider the Entire Customer Experience: The best way to add value and relate to your customer is to acknowledge them not only before and during the sale, but after it as well. Too often our marketing efforts stop at the cash register. Don’t allow the dollar signs to get in the way of delivering exceptionally personal experience by following up. Are there other areas of the customer experience you can add value to? How did their experience with your product or service go? Were they satisfied?

This is not an easy task. It takes an immense amount of time to walk in the shoes of your customer. From the moment they discover the need, all the way through the moment their need is met, and beyond. But just as any relationship takes time to develop, so does automating your marketing. Marketing Automation is still relatively new. While the systems are vast, there is a simple philosophy that your team should adhere to before generating the campaigns, emails and landing pages that will capture your audience’s attention. It’s the philosophy of making every interaction human.

Although Mautic is still young, we’re amazed at the community that we’ve been surrounded by. As we seek to foster this growth, we thought we’d share some key themes for how to develop a vibrant, connected community.

Change Your Language

When we set out to develop Mautic, we started with an idea. We wanted to change the way people looked at marketing. We wanted to level the playing field for every business and help them connect with their audience in a meaningful way. But we knew it was going to take a special group of people who felt as connected to the vision as we did. This is true of any brand. But it had to begin by changing our language. How often do we talk about “converting leads”? Whether we like it or not, we are conditioned as marketers to consider our buyers as potential leads, instead of individuals who are part of a community. It may be semantics, but if your brand wants to build a true community, you will see them and describe them differently. It will also change the way you interact with them.

Would you rather be considered a lead or a guest? Disney has built a culture and a brand that seeks to interact with people in a different way. It permeates their brand and the language they use everyday. In the book Built To Last, Jim Collins describes the terminology that Disney uses to build the voice of the Disney brand.

• Employees are “cast members.”
• Customers are “guests.”
• A crowd is an “audience.”
• A work shift is a “performance.”
• A job is a “part.”
• A job description is a “script.”
• A uniform is a “costume.”
• The personnel department is “casting.”
• Being on duty is “onstage.”
• Being off duty is “backstage.”

These simple changes to their language reinforces the message they seek to communicate. It also greatly impacts the customer or “guest” experience. If you’re like Disney and your central message is “making people happy”, you will not call your guests, potential leads.

Make Community Sticky

In their book Made to Stick, the Heath brothers reveal the key elements to making ideas stick. These core tenets are vital to not only growing ideas, but communities as well. They are: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional and Stories.

• Simple: If your mother doesn’t understand your core message, start again. Your central value statement should be simple and easy to interpret.
• Unexpected: How do you get someone’s attention? You must be willing to do something that is out of the norm. How about giving away powerful software for free?
• Concrete: No business speak here. Your message must not mince words. You must say exactly what you mean, and mean exactly what you say.
• Credible: Does your message backup your value? How can people determine this? Are there reliable sources? Can your community test your product or service?
• Emotional: This often makes people in business feel uncomfortable. Research shows us again and again that we are driven by emotion or feelings. Don’t be afraid to get real.
• Stories: Who in your community uses your product or service? What are they using it for? Is it changing their life in some way? These stories will serve to further connect and fuel your community.

Mautic is filled with individuals who have gravitated to these principles. Leaders like Takuro Hishikawa in Japan, Rodrigo Demetrio in Brasil and even more in Europe, Thailand, the US and around the world. These individuals jump in and help others by equipping them with translated documentation. They gather their network to share common ideas and solutions. They take their free time to assist those who are trying to setup and troubleshoot. This is community.

Everyone who has contributed to Mautic has engaged and participated because they believe in one or more of these “sticky” principles. It connects them at a level that is deeper than simply intrinsic value. It’s a feeling.

Feelings and Idea Flow

In addition to the key elements above, when a community is developed, it must not remain stagnant. There is a flow that naturally comes from collaborating with others as we move toward the realization of a common ideal. In the book Social Physics, Alex Pentland highlights this with the concept of idea flow;

“Synchronization and uniformity of idea flow within a group is critical: When an overwhelming majority seem ready to adopt a new idea, this convinces even the skeptics to go along. A surprising finding is that when people are working together doing the same thing in synchrony with others— e.g., rowing together, dancing together — our bodies release endorphins, natural opiates that give a pleasant high as a reward for working together.”

It feels good to be part of a team that works together to realize a vision. This is not simply research. This is a physiological fact. When you feel connected to a community that is aligned around a common goal, your body engages. It gives you that sense of accomplishment, a sense that provides feedback in the form of emotional satisfaction.

The Right Kind of Community

We’ve highlighted some key elements to developing your community online. But we must be careful to grow the right kind of community. It is not simply a “group of people that share a similar characteristic”. This is more about facts and figures than principles and ideals. True community is a “feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.” This definition is what makes our communities sticky. Promoting this concept and designing an idea flow by helping each other achieve our goals, is what will truly connect us.

This translates directly to how we market and sell. When we recognize that sales creates customers and that community creates advocacy, it changes the way we interact. We will make efforts to connect with them using a different language, on a higher level and with a common purpose.

This approach works. Over the last year and a half Mautic has seen tremendous growth. We have used these principles to grow a simple idea into 10,000 communicators who have used Mautic and a community of over 4,500 individuals who consistently interact with and share the vision of a marketing solution that thinks differently.

As you seek to reach your audience and develop your brand, what are other principles you’ve discovered to help your community grow? Share them in the comments below!

Regardless of this change, it still must maintain the highest service quality. And unfortunately the data doesn’t lie.

81% of study participants are unsatisfied with their healthcare experience.

This represents an immense gap. Yet, it also represents an immense opportunity. Patients, like customers, are seeking to connect and find value. For decades, physicians and healthcare workers have been perceived as cold, calculated and insensitive. They rush from one appointment to the next, not taking the time to truly understand how patients feel. Both in the physical and emotional sense.

“There is a misperception among providers about how well they are truly meeting consumer expectations,” said Jeff Gourdji, co-lead of Prophet’s health care practice. “Although they acknowledge its importance, providers are finding it challenging to focus on patient experience in the face of so many competing priorities.” (source: Loyalty-360)

How many of us assume we are adding value at each step of the customer journey? Organizations and healthcare providers alike can track and close this gap. A well developed marketing strategy and effective automation solutions can monitor activity and create a more aligned patient experience.

Patient Experience

But it begins with a clear picture of where the patient experience begins and where it ends. Each physician, practice or provider must see the journey from the patients perspective. And it starts long before the doctor opens the exam room door.

When this journey has been mapped out, there are clear intersections where the “brand” connects with the patient. Consider what value you are providing at each step. Where do patients go for more information? What pages of your website are getting the most traction? The most bounces? “But you don’t understand, I’m measured on how quickly I can get patients in and out and there are other priorities I’m responsible for.” Yes, this is true of every business. It may seem too simplistic, but patients don’t care about the competing priorities. They are seeking value, or in this case, the appropriate amount of compassionate care.

“It seems important, then, for physicians to have neither too much nor too little compassion. Aristotle put this succinctly when he wrote that, as a virtue, compassion should be shown ‘to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time.’ He didn’t define how much compassion is right: We have to decide that for ourselves.” (source: New York Times)

The concept of marketing is making it’s way into the healthcare lexicon. Recently I received an email from my primary care office. It was unexpected, so I opened it. It was a gentle reminder to get my flu shot. Wow, that was a well timed email campaign as we enter the cold and flu season. A few months later, I receive another email. Again, not expected. What kind gentle healthcare reminder might I receive today? An announcement that my primary care office is now providing “cosmetic injections”.

Talk about not knowing your audience. Epic fail. Simple patient segmentation would have revealed who would likely desire this service, making the content relevant.

Compassion

So it seems that the healthcare industry has their work cut out for them. They are responsible for ensuring all these important metrics are tracked and improved. And while doing so, exhibit the appropriate amount of compassion (or value) at the right time.

As marketers, what can we learn from this challenge? We are in a service-based industry. We track and manage many marketing priorities as well. But there is one thing we can not miss. We must connect our product or service and add value at each step of the customer journey. How?

Gavin Francis sums it up quite well;

Compassion means “together-suffering” or “fellow-feeling” — a sense of identification we feel when imagining another’s pain. The word “patient” means “sufferer,” and at its most basic level the practice of medicine could be described as the attempt to ease mental and physical pain.

We must seek to understand and connect value to our audience. When we make this connection, we identify with the challenges they face. This is what marketing is all about.

Many businesses use the word free as a lure. They will offer their solution to us without initial cost, then convince us to pay after seeing the value of their solution. But is that truly free? We would argue these are trials, not free solutions.

“Free” Marketing Automation

Lately, we’ve seen many businesses offer “free marketing automation software”. But are they? Mautic is free and will be forever. But this is not a marketing concept. This is a philosophy.

When we set out to produce marketing software, we were compelled by our mission. To empower organizations by providing powerful communication tools to anyone who needed them. Free speech is a freedom we often take for granted. To provide a solution that empowers free speech is an incredibly powerful concept.

GNU Free Software Definition says:

We campaign for these freedoms because everyone deserves them. With these freedoms, the users (both individually and collectively) control the program and what it does for them. When users don’t control the program, we call it a “nonfree” or “proprietary” program. The nonfree program controls the users, and the developer controls the program; this makes the program an instrument of unjust power.

So while others offer “free” marketing automation tools, read the fine print. Because free for a month isn’t free. It’s bad marketing.

Authentic Marketing

We believe in the concept of authentic marketing. Authentic marketing is about value and values, it’s not about trickery. When we have something of value, we don’t need shady marketing to communicate it. Marketing should be the artful way we convey and connect individuals to that value. So for our marketing efforts to be effective, we must consider trust as a key element for connection. If we continue to use trickery, we diminish not only our brand, but our value proposition.

As marketers, let’s strive to be authentic in the way we communicate with buyers. We can’t be lured into traditional marketing schemas. Our values AND value must shine at every step of the customer journey. The Young Entrepreneur Council encourages us:

Don’t get trapped by marketing dogma. Think outside the box and be willing to take risks, so long as it’s in line with your philosophy. For instance, blog openly about the problems your company seeks to solve in the world and how you’re working to overcome them by fulfilling your mission.

Honesty, truth and conviction. When we communicate our values using these principles, it is authentic marketing. And the data shows it’s what customers are seeking. Let’s not disappoint them. It’s time we start using our creative voice to engage buyers in authentic conversations and communicate with our vision, not archaic marketing tricks that convey false promises.

“… human nature dictates that people have a hard time genuinely connecting with, being close to, or really trusting other humans who (pretend to) have no weaknesses, flaws, or mistakes.’ This is not only true of human connections; it’s true of our relationships with brands.

We encourage you to join our community. Because free is free. Forever.

The business is an interesting collection of talented individuals. They’re comprised of educators, strategists, programmers, artists, designers and more. The variety of talent gives them an advantage over their competition. But more importantly, their collaboration creates innovative solutions for their clients.

The solutions they produce are highly visual in nature. These large images help communicate strategy so that employees can understand the “big picture”. Associates can then have a dialogue with their peers about important, strategic issues. The visuals unlock understanding, that words so often, can not.

The Team

The outcome of these engagements were often riddled with “a-ha” moments. They are moments when an employee would stop and say “I get it!”. The visuals provided a much clearer picture than a presentation filled with bullet points. But the visual isn’t born out of thin air. It takes a close partnership between the business strategist and the creative artist.

The development of these visuals always begins with the problem. It starts with the team sitting down with the client and listening to the challenges they face. Each team member hears the problem from their own point of view. These unique perspectives add immense value to the solution. In today’s marketplace, the collaboration between marketing and software development teams will become invaluable. This partnership can spark innovation and will be more powerful when they work together. And as marketing continues to move online, development must have a seat at the table. They will play a vital role in growing the customer relationship.

The Collaboration

This partnership between the artist and the strategist is important. Even though their views are different, the goal of engaging associates is the same. Likewise, the collaboration between technology and marketing is critical. These two functions have operated in silos. They are focused on their own goals, without consideration for the other.

The collaboration between marketing and software development will become invaluable and more powerful when they work together.

The collective reset button needs pressed. Teams should tear down their silos and realign on the purpose and goals set out by the organization. What is that purpose and goal? Creating seamless user experiences that add value at every stage of the customer relationship. Media buyers used to operate in lock step with marketing, and many still do today. They work together to understand how customers buy products. But communication channels are changing. Digital is now how we reach and connect with our audiences. Many organizations must work to help teams come out of the dark ages. They must forge bridges of awareness and understanding.

The Approach

So what approach do we take when aligning marketing and development? Marketing automation is a perfect place to start. These two teams must converge to meet today’s customer demands. Just like the artist and the strategist, aligning around the common goal is where we start. People would always wonder how an artist and strategist could work together. With a common goal, these two different views always produced incredible results.

Let’s take a moment to reflect on the roles of marketing and software development. Although unique, they are two sides of the same coin. How does this collaboration work effectively?

• Listening: Strong developers and designers always begin by listening. Both these roles need a thorough understanding of the problem. This understanding is important before thinking through the problem and crafting the solution.
• Design: Any approach to solving a problem requires a big picture view. This view reveals all the elements that may impact the desired solution. Trusted marketers understand the entire customer experience and likewise, trusted developers are focused on creating structure and order in their code.
• Focus: Good marketing and design requires simplicity. There should be one single theme or idea. Great developers create beautiful code that works well with as little “extra” fluff as possible. This focus removes clutter and aligns our efforts.
• Vision: One of the most important elements that developers and marketers exhibit is vision. Marketing should take into account customer buying trends and consider feedback from their audience. Developers should also look ahead. Potential problems should be identified and resolved before they become an issue.

This approach, combined with a common goal, will create more meaningful value. And at the end of the day, that is what we want for our customers.

Marketing automation is becoming a more integrated way to do business in the digital age. It’s clear that these two roles not only have common ground, but approach their work in a similar way.

We are excited about the community of Mauticians that represent both marketing and development. It has, and will continue to, provide us with the ability to meet the needs of organizations around the world. It is in this special collaboration that we can provide tools to help you reach, engage and develop relationships with your audience.

I was traveling the other day and found myself at a restaurant seated next to a couple of gentlemen from the local car dealership. Normally I don’t find myself listening in on the conversations of those around me, but the restaurant was quiet, and I couldn’t help but follow along. It started slow, and as they continued, I gathered that one was the manager and the other was the GM. As they began to discuss the current state of the dealership, the conversation began to take an interesting turn.

The manager was talking about how challenging it was to keep team members from leaving the business. He was expressing frustration that some of the individuals that had left, were now back asking for their jobs back. And as they discussed the nature of their departure and return, the manager began talking about the culture of the business. “It’s not like it was when I was on the sales floor”, he chided. “When I was working the floor we did whatever it took to make the customer feel welcome.”

The day was cold, overcast and it had been raining, and as the manager continued, he said, “You know, on a day like today, our team would have been standing at the front door with umbrellas, waiting for customers to arrive. And when they would, we would be out there asking the customers what they wanted before they event stepped out of the car. And if they did, we’d have the umbrella handy to cover them as they walked into the dealership. Now, the sales team simply stands at the front door and hovers, waiting for them to walk up to the door.”

And if they did, we’d have the umbrella handy to cover them as they walked into the dealership.

He continued to express his disdain for the current sales team and how they have lost the hunger or drive to meet the needs of the customers who have come to their dealership. “It’s a different group.” he muttered.

Why Automation

I think it’s important for us to do a bit of a reset on the purpose of automation. It has only been a couple of years since automation has really taken off, and already, there are marketers that believe automation can replace the entire function of marketing. They are like the sales team in the story our manager talked about. They have quickly forgotten the art of marketing. They have forsaken the customer and believe that they already know exactly what the customer wants, and will wait for them to “make the right decision”.

Friends, marketing automation will not, and should not, replace your marketing team. It was developed to help you see your marketing environment in a more holistic way. It helps you take into account the location and potential needs of your customer and help you provide information and value to them in a quick and efficient manner.

Personal Automation

So let’s get back to our manager. When he was on the sales floor, he was always thinking about the customer. When the rain clouds were out, he was prepared with an umbrella, ready to meet their needs before they even asked. As marketers, we should always consider the needs of the customer based on their environment.

Where are your customers? What is their environment? Is it raining or is it sunny? Who are they with? Is it lunch time, are they hungry? The list goes on and on and on. These questions help us gain a critical view of our customers. When we see them in a way that is not a data point, but a person, seeking value, we will look at them and our marketing in a different light. Here is a great article on developing a value-based model for your business.

Time to Get the Umbrella

As you continue to seek the perfect automation tools to help you share your product or service to your audience, please take a long, hard look at your customer. They are the reason you are in business. Providing value to them goes beyond the sale. As we’ve discussed, you certainly want to maintain a healthy view of your goals, but if you don’t keep your customer front and center, your automation efforts will feel not feel personal. They will end up feeling like the car sales team that our manager talked about.

So stop staring out the window, get the umbrella, go out in the rain and put your feet into the shoes of your customer. Because when you do, your marketing efforts will feel less automated and will start to feel more personal.

We can also become too mired in the details of our journey. And if you have children, you know exactly what I’m talking about. “How many hours will it take to get here?” “I have to go to the bathroom.” “Why are we stopping?” “I’m hungry.” And on, and on it goes. These are indicators that they our precious cargo are more interested in the destination than the importance of the journey. Seeing the big picture can offer us a view that is holistic, and gives us insight that we might not otherwise consider. That is why this final post in our big picture series is focused on starting your marketing automation journey.

Big Picture

As marketers we can become so hyper-focused on specific goals, campaigns or initiatives, we forget the broader context with which they fall into. This big picture view is critical as we begin to understand how marketing automation fits within our business. It’s important to remember that our understanding of this view will enable us to make the right decisions on how to automate our processes and marketing tools.

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve highlighted broader systems that your organization needs to consider as you evaluate the big picture view of marketing. It begins at the business strategy level, then works it’s way down to your marketing scorecard and goals. As you determine the metrics you would like to impact, it is imperative that these blend into your customer touch-points and not override them. If our customer journey becomes secondary to your goals, we are missing the point. The customers’ journey to your business is the windshield of your marketing efforts. It should be clear and unobstructed.

The Roadmap

With that, let’s climb to a higher altitude and see the big picture landscape of our marketing automation journey. First and foremost, marketing automation is not a bolt-on solution. For automation to be truly successful, you must consider all of your marketing efforts en masse. Some think that a landing page with a compelling call-to-action is all their organization needs to integrate automation. But this is a shortsighted view. Consider our road trip. Let’s say it will require multiple days to get to get to our destination. If we plot our course without considering the climate, construction and traffic at each stop, we may miss alternative paths to help us get there in a more effective and efficient manner. What if it is quicker to go around the big city? What if construction is slowing traffic down?

This is true of your marketing automation journey. If we consider our customer touch-points and lay that context beside the omni channel approach, we will begin to see paths and connections that we may not have considered before. This is one of the key approaches to automation that often gets overlooked. The layering of channels and touch points is as vital to the creation of automated processes as content creation itself. If we don’t evaluate the intersections of the customer journey in connection with the channels we communicate through, our efforts will fall flat.

Start Your Marketing Automation Journey

So now that we have a map of our marketing automation journey, where do we go from here? This is a conversation that will be entirely unique to each organization. We are extremely excited to have assembled a community of developers, users and marketers that have plotted their own journey’s and have committed themselves to share what they’ve learned with you. Mautic is unique in that this community cares about your success. This is not a profit game. This is a journey of connection. You see, when you win, we all win. Here are a few thoughts to get your marketing automation journey started.

• Assemble your team: As we’ve noted in previous posts, your marketing efforts involve a number of teams. As Macy’s discovered, Macys.com was having a significant impact on in-store purchases. The online team learned they had to work with brick & mortar and understand how the customer searches and purchases.
  

  “We used have 2 separate silo’d budgets, we really now have one Marketing budget. And we look at the best way to spend that, what’s the best allocation, what’s the best media mix, whether it’s digital, offline, how do they work together to deliver…yeah of course the most sales, but really, that best customer experience.”

  For more information on Macy’s teamwork, click here.

• Understand your customer: This goes without saying. When you understand your customers needs, you will be more in tune to their purchase cadence. You will know more about their buying habits, how they seek your product or service out and what tools/communities they use to evaluate. This will help you deliver the right value at the right touchpoint.
• Determine the channels: The channels which you communicate and connect with your audience, will be incredibly important. If your customers are online, than connect with them there. If they are in your stores, connect with them there. If they are in both places at the same time, make the connection seamless. Don’t tackle every channel if your customers aren’t there and don’t automate what you don’t have the structure for.
• Automate with a goal: You should never automate without a set of goals you are seeking to achieve. Automation should further assist your audience/customer in meeting their need. It should never be self-serving. When you deliver value, your customers will remember. They will follow you because you care more about meeting their need than meeting their bottom line.
• Review and verify: This is as critical to the process of automation itself. Always be testing. Always be analyzing your audiences’ behavior and purchase cadence. This is an area that, as marketers, we need to become more adept at understanding the information that is being gathered with every click, every visit and every purchase.
• Adjust course if needed: Marketing automation is not a “set-it and forget it” proposition. It is a complex digital conversation that grants you access to the voice and cadence of your customer. Your customers change. They are constantly looking for value in every area of their life.

Remember, your marketing automation journey is more about relationship building than it is about channels, touch-points and data. With every piece of information you learn more about who your customers are, what their likes and dislikes are, and how they desire to be connected with. Our job is to listen, and trust that we’ve provided value at the right touch-point, through the right channel and at the right time.

For a full-size PDF of “Your Marketing Automation Journey” visual represented above, click here.

Before we get started I fully recognize that there are a number of different individuals from different industries who are reading this. So when we talk about communication channels, I want to be clear that the channels represented here, cover the basics of marketing communication. There will likely be other channels that are not included in this list, that are relevant to your industry that you will want to consider.

It is critical when we talk about automating our marketing channels, that we understand why we are automating, what we are automating and how we are automating. Each channel will have it’s own unique goals and approach related to the why, what and how. This will become apparent as we begin to unpack the different channels and how your customers are using them.

At a high level we’d like to outline the following channels;

• Social Media
• Google & SEO
• Corporate Website
• Customer Communication
• Mobile Applications
• Customer Communities
• Brick & Mortar
• Feedback

Understanding Omni Channel

As we look at the holistic customer journey, one of the terms that you will see is omni channel. This term simply indicates all the marketing channels along your customers journey to your organization. The typical sales funnel is being uprooted by new channels and processes everyday. Your customer may learn about your product or service by walking down the street, seeing a Facebook post and browsing Instagram, among a variety of other ways. Understanding this will help you see your communications differently.

Let’s remember that as you evaluate all of these different channels, consider how automation can assist you in connecting with your audience, gathering data about your customer, but more importantly bringing value to them. This omni channel approach should help you see your marketing differently. It’s time we begin looking at marketing not as campaigns or headlines, but as value creation.

“It’s time we begin looking at marketing not as campaigns or headlines, but as value creation.”

Now that we’ve defined our communication channels, we need to determine how each channel fits into the broader goals of our strategy. As we discussed in the scorecard post, what are the critical metrics that you are trying to move and what are the levers (or channels) that will help you move them?

This activity should be done with each channel. Remember, engage your team! As you begin to outline which metrics are impacted by which channel, you will begin to see how each channel can be utilized to gain the traction you’re looking for.

For starters

Let’s take a look at a quick example. Imagine one of the metrics on your scorecard is to increase awareness, and add leads to your CRM system at a trade show. As we review all of the channels you are currently communicating through, there are definitely a few that would be relevant. Social Media, Google & SEO, and your corporate website. These channels could all be used to drive awareness (among others) for your involvement at the show. The key is to now review all of customer touch-points and see if there may be an opportunity to drive awareness through them as well.

Now let’s consider how automation could help us achieve this goal. Here are just a few ideas to get you started;

• Prizes: Determine a “conference only” prize that when visitors visit a website landing page, they will automatically be entered in the drawing. Then share the landing page on social media to gather more leads. Be sure to note they must be present to win.
• Deliver: Bring value to your customers from the booth. What can you deliver at the conference? Think about your product or service. Are there things you can do to help them overcome their challenges in small doses? Be sure to scan their conference card in order to receive it.
• Promote: Determine what the conference #hashtag is and begin developing blog posts prior to the conference related to the topics that will be highlighted. Share these posts via social media and include the conference #hashtag and then direct visitors to visit the booth. You can gather their contact information and provide the value you positioned in your marketing efforts.

This example represents the front end of the customer buying journey. It is a relationship generator. What happens when you get that email address is critical. If you truly want to develop a deeper customer relationship, don’t keep asking for the sale, add value. When you add value, the process of marketing automation will feel invisible and you’ll develop trust.

Over the last week or so we’ve covered a large area with a couple of high altitude posts. First we outlined customer touchpoints. Then we discussed the scorecard. And then we highlighted the initial stages of automation. In our final post of the series, we will be reviewing the entire cycle in a visual that will assist you in continuing the dialogue with your colleagues.

Is there a specific example you would like us to cover? Comment below and we can provide a case study that is specific to your needs.