I’ve got a nagging feeling that marketing automation is giving today’s marketers a number of bad habits. Don’t get me wrong, I’m truly bought into the tangible benefits of automated platforms — communicating at the right time based on expressed and behavioural data, identifying quality leads and routing them appropriately to sales. And once the marketers have got to grips with the platform, they deliver greater efficiencies, speedier execution, more control and in-depth measurement.
But, at what cost?
We need to get back to the fundamentals of defining the creative and business requirements of a campaign. Only then do we develop creative concepts that will support these requirements and deliver the best piece of marketing communication possible, whilst at the same time defining the optimal contact strategy for implementation through marketing automation. It’s my belief that effective campaign execution can only be realised through a combination of left– and right-brain thinking.
So, if you find your automated campaigns are delivering less value for you over time, maybe it’s time to take a step back and breath some creativity back into your campaigns. You never know, it might just work…