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Marketing Automation – Every component is as important as the next…

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With the World Cup now in full flow, a lot has been reported about the failure of the ‘bigger’ teams to perform on the greatest platform in world football. Current champions Spain had a team full of superstars, but their cohesion and ability to work as a single unit in this tournament has been severely lacking, and their rather pitiful elimination has been a testament to this. In the build up to the tournament huge expectation was placed upon Portugal but in their case, a single player was expected to carry the team and their own elimination is proof of the flawed theory behind this approach. If the other 10 players on the pitch are distinctly average, the superstar cannot shine. Although Argentina’s results partially disprove this theory, their lacklustre performances say otherwise, they too suffer from the same over-reliance as Portugal, and the narrow wins in the early stages have more than proved this to be the case.

These problems are easy to recognise for anyone who works with Marketing Automation technology, which in itself is subjected to similar scrutiny on a daily basis.

The typical structure of a Marketing Automation strategy can be mirrored in a team of players; each component maintaining a specific role or function. This ‘team’ of components is often reliant upon harmony within the system. If one component fails or its performance suffers then the whole process becomes less efficient at carrying out the task at hand. In a similar way to how footballers are broken up into defensive and offensive players, Marketing Automation campaigns are often broken into ‘key parts’ and ‘platform components’. Key parts are typically identified as ideas, content, design, time-frame and account managers, whereas platform components are recognised as data, emails, forms and landing pages. If an element from either of these two groups is missing or malfunctioning, then the entire campaign will fall flat on its face like a 6ft Premier League footballer and not function at all. Alternatively, if all items are present but the quality or functionality of components is questionable, the campaign will more than likely deliver results of poor quality.

After a Marketing Automation campaign, it’s important to analyse the results and ascertain where shortfalls have occurred and react accordingly, much like the maligned football manager would do with substitutes in game or with the teamsheet before the next. Alternatively, you may have a campaign in which you have all the parts present, operate as expected, but one in particular stands out above the rest. This ‘superstar’, eg the design of an email, may raise the quality of the system but is held back by the rest of the components which, at best, remain functional. Ultimately, such a campaign will likely fail to reach the heady heights of the leading component due to its over reliance upon a single asset/idea. Without the backing of the rest of the components to maintain high standards the quality of the campaign will likely be brought back down with a bump. When it comes to Marketing Automation consistency is essential for sustained success.

LBDGA

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