The 12 Pillars of Email and Marketing Automation

The 12 Pillars of Email and Marketing Automation

In partnership with

PART 2OF A 3-PART

SERIES

2

In partnership withWWW.DIGITALDOUGHNUT.COMTEL: +44 (0)207 193 4600© DIGITAL DOUGHNUT 2017

MARKETING AUTOMATIONFEBRUARY 2017

About Digital DoughnutDigital Doughnut connects the global marketing community both on and offline. Members of the community gain access to skills and resources, the latest thinking on key marketing topics, crucial insights and best practice learnings that enable them to make better business decisions. Digital Doughnut both leverages and provides value to the community by tapping into the collective intelligence of the network to create high-value content that’s based on actual market conditions and informed by practitioners’ experience.

About dotmailer

dotmailer is the email marketing platform of the dotdigital Group PLC (LSE: DOTD). It enables companies to use transactional and behavioral data to design, test and send powerful email campaigns. Established in 1999, dotmailer is a global company with more than 200 employees and a portfolio of B2C and B2B clients across 150 countries.

The contents of this report are the exclusive copyright of Digital Doughnut, findings in this report can be used for non commercial purpose as long as Digital Doughnut is attributed as the source under the Creative Commons Attribution – Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International licence.

Summary of contents 3Introduction 4Highlights 5Survey methodology 6Overview of results 8

Segmentation 11

Lead nurturing 14

Marketing automation and 16 driving ecommerce revenues

Skills required for automation 19

The value of email The pressure of content creation on teams

Attitudes to email Can automation sound impersonal?

Proving the ROI of email Use of data

Personalisation in email Legal issues in automation

5678

Contents

2What we cover in the previous report, and next report in the series

WWW.DIGITALDOUGHNUT.COMTEL: +44 (0)207 193 4600© DIGITAL DOUGHNUT 2017


In partnership with

3

Summary of contentsChapter 5

Segmentation• Segmentation has two drivers:

o It allows a business to differentiate and specify the messages it wishes to communicateo It creates an environment where insight can be more easily drawn from the data

• Benefits of segmentation:o Makes messages relevant and prevents over-messaging o Behaviour modelling o Granular analysis

Chapter 6

Lead nurturing• On some counts, 79% of marketing leads never convert to sales• There are four valid ambitions for a lead-nurturing email:

o Education o Connection o Making relevant offers o Re-engagement

Chapter 7

Marketing automation and driving ecommerce revenues• At every stage of the ecommerce journey there are opportunities for enhancing the relationship

between the brand and the buyer• Drive acquisition and initial engagement• Onsite personalisation and targeting• Manage cart abandonment• Upsell• Post-transactional relationship• Build analytics and data

Chapter 8

Skills required for automation• Modern marketing teams are changing quickly. There are a whole host of new skills and functions

required to work with the technology, data and new channels that are becoming available. This is true across marketing as a whole and never more true for email teams

• Function-based changes• Approach-based changes• The operational environment is different • Team management processes and KPIs are different



In partnership with

4

Introduction

The 12 Pillars of Email and Marketing Automation, published by Digital Doughnut in partnership with dotmailer, is being serialised as three shorter reports all released in early 2017.

We hope you enjoyed the first part of the series, which focused largely on email which is very much its own discipline, as well as being a central part of successful marketing automation.

This second instalment focuses on the second set of pillars we have identified, namely segmentation; lead nurturing; marketing automation and driving ecommerce revenues; and skills required for marketing automation. There is no doubt that we are in an age of increasing automation in marketing. Over the last few years, survey after survey has indicated that well-planned automation has a huge impact in driving business revenues.

At the same time, there has been a trend for other research to suggest that email is falling out of favour. This survey shows this is not the case.

The aim of these three reports is to investigate business attitudes to both email and the broader picture of automation. It also aims to take key topics and create practical guides outlining what organisations need to consider about both these topics.

The report series is designed to be a hybrid, containing

both primary research and guidance on best practice. We reveal the results of research recently conducted by Digital Doughnut for dotmailer. The survey was marketed to an audience of 87,000 members of the Digital Doughnut community with more than 600 respondents in 75 countries.

Around two-thirds of these respondents (65%) were ‘C’ Level or business directors. The size and seniority of the survey sample indicate that this has produced an excellent snapshot of current attitudes to email and automation. The results of the research show that email is vital to business success, with more than three-quarters of the audience (77%) saying it is an important part of their marketing strategy.

Within automation there are some obvious and widely accepted key drivers: personalisation, segmentation and content marketing all have enormous support.

Respondents recognise marketing automation’s role in both lead nurturing and driving ecommerce revenues.

Although the survey data is central to this report, the main goal is to give guidance across a range of topics that are the foundations of email and marketing automation.

We hope you enjoy reading this series and look forward to your feedback.

By 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationship without talking to a human. Source: Gartner Research

Relevant emails drive 18 times more revenue than broadcast emails.Source: Jupiter Research

Personalised emails improve click-through rates by 14%, and conversion rates by 10%. Source: Aberdeen Group



In partnership with

5

Highlights

email and automation are central to driving modern marketing and successful businesses

80% believe marketing

automation is a central part of lead nurturing.

Email is an important tool

for 77%.

Segmentation, lead nurturing,

personalisation and driving ecommerce revenues are the top benefits offered by

automation.

84% feel

that marketing automation drives

better segmentation.93% believe that segmentation is

important.



In partnership with

6

Survey methodologyParticipants by seniority

KEYl C Levell Directorl Managerl Other

30%

35%20%

15%

The survey was conducted through the Digital Doughnut community in the second half of 2016. It consisted of 12 key themes. For each theme there was a statement (sometimes provocative) that we asked the audience to react to and a question about how important that topic was to their business. Marketing for the survey was via email and newsletter to a target audience of 87,000 recipients and was conducted in two waves. This produced 625 participants from 75 countries.

Seniority breakdownIn keeping with the seniority levels of the Digital Doughnut community, these survey results are the opinions of a predominantly senior audience. Almost two thirds (65%) of those replying are ‘C’ level or Directors.

Regional breakdownThe map on the following page shows the global breakdown of respondents, with the proportion of participants from each major region.

The best represented countries were the United Kingdom (22% of the total sample) and the United States (17%).

7



Survey methodology

Asia

13%

MiddleEast

1%

North America

22%

LatinAmerica

5%Australasia

7%Africa

4%

Europe

48%

Regional breakdown



In partnership with

8

Overview of results

The aim of the survey was to understand audience attitudes to 12 specific topics about email and automation. Those reactions are shown at the start of their relevant chapters below.

Reactions to the core topic statementsLooking at the results on a comparative basis, it is clear that the potential of automation is recognised. Segmentation (84%), lead nurturing (80%), personalisation (77%) and driving ecommerce revenues (72%) are the top four areas where the audience agreed that benefits are offered by automation.

It is refreshing to see that the audience’s confidence in their capability appears to be growing. Where other surveys have shown that people are under-confident of their businesses’ skills to cope with the technology and skills required for automation – the number that agreed in this survey was ‘only’ 39%. (Obviously, this is still a substantial minority, and one that needs addressing.)

There are many statistics that show how effective email can be at driving revenues. It is, therefore, a surprise that only 60% of the audience agreed that the ROI of email was easy to prove. There are a couple of reasons why this might be the case:

• Email is often used as an integrated part of another process and thus its benefits are wrapped up in other platforms’ achievements

• Much of the email sent has no specific link to commerce and thus the link to ROI is more difficult to measure

But there is also a sense of a general lack of confidence in email itself. Only 53% agreed that customers like getting email from them. One might also point out that nearly half the audience (49%) agreed that automation may produce communications that seem impersonal. Perhaps this lack of confidence is partly driven by the fact that audiences are becoming ever more aware and vocal.

Segmentation (84%), lead nurturing (80%), personalisation (77%) and driving ecommerce revenues (72%) are the four areas where the audience agreed that automation offers most benefits.

The results clearly show that email and automation are increasingly valued tools in the marketer’s armoury. The sentiment about email itself and the possibilities of automation is overwhelmingly positive. Even the old fear – that automation required skills that business found hard to support – appears to be no longer an issue.

Looking at the results

on a comparative basis, the potential

of automation is clearly

recognised.

9



Overview of results

General findings

Marketing automation drives insight by allowing users to create more accurate segmentation of their audiences

Marketing automation is a good tool to use in a lead-nurturing programme

Marketing automation helps you deliver personalised communications

Marketing automation is a driver of e-commerce revenues

Email is a high-value marketing communication channel

Marketing automation puts heavy pressure on the content creation functions within a business

It’s easy to prove the ROI of email campaigns

Your customers and potential customers like receiving emails from you

Marketing automation relies on large amounts of data to make it effective

Automated communications can seem impersonal to audiences

Marketing automation relies on technology and skills that you do not currently have in your business

Legal issues around data make you less likely to choose email as a communications tool

84%

80%

77%

72%

68%

64%

60%

53%

52%

13%

17%

15%

26%

20%

28%

18%

39%

28%

39% 31% 30%

49% 27% 24%

12%

8%

22%

8%

20%

52%32%16%

3

3

8%

2

KEY l Agree l Neutral l Disagree

10



Importance

Is segmenting your audience important for you?

Is increasing the levels of personalisation an important aim for you?

Is content creation an important part of your marketing mix?

Is audience reaction likely to influence the tools you choose to use to communicate?

Is email an important part of your marketing strategy?

Does the collection and use of data feature highly on your marketing priority list?

Are customer views of this sort likely to change the way you communicate?

Is the ROI of email something that’s important for your business?

Is it important for you to automate interactions in an e-commerce action?

Do you use technology to nurture leads?

Are legal issues a consideration in your marketing planning?

Are these capability gaps key priorities within your business?

93%

93%

89%

88%

77%

75%

75%

71%

70%

68%

68%

45%

6%

5%

9%

11%

18%

21%

21%

20%

21%

22%

22%

44% 11%

10%

5%

1

2

2

1

4

4

9%

9%

10%

KEY l Important l Neutral l Don’t talk about it

What’s important to marketersWhen it comes to email communication and marketing automation, there are three topics that are clearly important to marketers. Both segmentation and personalisation are high priority and, for each, 93% said it was an important topic in their organisation.

Content creation is also seen as being a vital part of the marketing mix, with 89% saying it’s important and less than 2% saying that they didn’t talk about it within the business.

It’s also refreshing that capability gaps are not seen as key priorities by the majority, as in-house skills have been a major worry for many businesses over the last decade.

Overview of results



In partnership with

11 5Segmentation

Effective segmentation is a prerequisite for effective marketing and a key benefit of marketing automation. This chapter lists out the different kinds of segmentation available to marketers and explores how businesses can use this fundamental tactic to improve their marketing effectiveness.

“Marketing automation drives insight by allowing users to create more accurate segmentation of their audiences”

Is segmenting your audience important for you?

Agree

Disagree

Neutral

84%

13%

Agree

Disagree

Neutral

93%

6%

The overwhelming

majority of marketers (84%)

believe that marketing automation drive insight and better

segmentation.

Segmentation is a cornerstone of

marketing for virtually every business surveyed. Only 1% of respondents

said it wasn’t important.

3%

1%

12



Marketing segmentation enables businesses to target their products or services more effectively, by identifying the different requirements and interests of different groups of prospects and customers.

The fundamental importance of segmentation as a linchpin of marketing and key benefit of marketing automation is reflected by the survey results. An overwhelming 93% of survey respondents said that segmenting their audience was important for them. Additionally, the core statement that marketers were most likely to agree with was that ‘marketing automation drives insight by allowing users to create more accurate segmentation of their audiences’. Some 84% of respondents agreed with this, versus only 3% who disagreed.

The research shows that a huge majority of marketers recognise that the ‘spray and pray’ approach to marketing, the antithesis of a customer-centric philosophy based on segmentation, isn’t a viable way to grow a business.

Segmentation is very closely linked to the concepts of nurturing and personalisation. In one sense, it is another face of the same core thinking. Segmentation has two drivers:

• It allows a business to differentiate and specify the messages it wishes to communicate

• It creates an environment where insight can be more easily drawn from the data

Where personalisation is seen, in the first instance, as a benefit for the audience, segmentation can generally be viewed as a benefit for the business. As such, it drives several benefits for the organisation.

Benefits of segmentationMakes messages relevant and prevents over-messaging – one of the common uses for segmentation is to help structure the logic flows in an automation process in order to deliver targeted messaging.

Segments can and should be created around messages, e.g. ‘has been sent’, ‘has opened’ and ‘has clicked’. This will allow emailing teams to exclude or include subsets of the data in future emails.

Segmentation CHAPTER 5

Behaviour modelling – breaking audiences into segments allows a brand to map user journeys more accurately. At the same time, it allows that brand to draw true insight from those journeys. Segmentation at this scale also provides a fertile environment for predictive analysis.

Granular analysis – segmentation also drives insight of cohorts and clusters for more detailed analysis. In effect, segmentation is about breaking up an audience into smaller groups that share at least one characteristic. An examination of those groups will give a business an enormous opportunity to drive insight and additional value, both internally and for the customers who are being profiled in this way.

It should be noted that segments aren’t personas, not least because someone can be a member of more than one segment. In fact, one of the better uses of segmentation is using overlapping segments to generate better insight or relevance. (Overlapping involves bringing two segments together to produce a third view. For instance, you might overlap geography and seniority to see who is a director and based in London to decide whom you will invite to a networking dinner.)

13



Segmentation CHAPTER 5

Possible areas of segmentationThere are a large number of potential areas based on which you might segment your data. The art is selecting those that will either drive most insight to your business and/or that you think you can best use to differentiate your messaging.

Geography

Age

Gender

Persona

Organisation type

Industry

Job function

Seniority level

Past purchases

Purchase interests

Buying frequency

Purchase cycle

Content topic

Content format

Interest level

Education level

Change in content engagement level

Change in buying behaviour

Stage in the sales cycle

Email type

Reaction to email

Behaviour online

Satisfaction index

Customers who refer

Customers who haven’t reviewed

In-store vs. webstore visitors

Shopping cart abandonment

Form abandonment

Usage

Segmentation, like personalisation, is something that is best started at a simple level. Organisations should never underestimate how much value can be found in combining relatively simple data sets. The keys to good segmentation (and using it to drive value and ROI within the organisation) are as follows:

• Ask the right questions• Develop in-depth insight over time• Don’t try to combine too many data sets• Ask ‘so what’ for every insight that is

generated through segmentation – if it doesn’t in some way influence the actions of the business, it’s worthless insight

• Don’t get carried away with creating ever smaller segments (unless they are driving good insight!)

Segmentation, like personalisation, is something that is

best started at a simple level. Organisations should never underestimate how much value can be found

in combining relatively simple data sets.



In partnership with

14

Automation and lead nurturing 6It is widely recognised that automation can aid lead nurturing, with 80% agreeing that it’s a good tool to use. However, it’s also clear that a large number are not using automation in this way, with only 68% saying that technology is important to them in nurturing leads.

“Marketing automation is a good tool to use in a lead nurturing programme”

Do you use technology to nurture leads?

Agree

Disagree

Neutral

80%

3%

17%

It’s important

Neutral

We don’t talk about it

68%

22%

10%

80% agree that marketing automation

is a good tool for lead nurturing.

32% are neutral or don’t talk about using technology to nurture leads.

15



CHAPTER 6Automation and lead nurturing

According to MarketingSherpa, 79% of marketing leads never convert to sales. Lack of lead nurturing (or poor lead nurturing) is an oft-cited cause. On the other hand, leads that are nurtured lead to a 47% increasein order value (The Annuitas Group). Lead nurturing is the process that addresses those of your leads that are qualified, but are not currently ready to purchase.

Nurturing through email can be seen as a development of good habits with regard to communicating with potential audiences. The assumption is that you already know something about the audience, and they about you. This means that whilst there is an enormous opportunity in nurturing – particularly by email – there are potential risks involved as well.

There are four valid ambitions for a lead-nurturing email:

1. Education – These are emails that talk to the context and/or market that you occupy. They should not be ‘salesy’ or even closely aligned with your products. Instead, they should aim to grow the recipients’ knowledge in usable ways. To do this, they should be driven by knowledge of those recipients – it is important to target the education as much as possible.

2. Connection – It is a valid nurturing thought process to encourage potential future customers to connect with your brand through other useful channels. The more they know about you, the more likely they are to think about you when the time comes for buying, thus encouraging the sign-up to social, newsletters, blogs etc. can be invaluable – both for you and them.

3. Making relevant offers – The crucial word here is relevant. Offers that are based on their previous behaviour that take into account a genuine understanding of what they were trying to achieve or that show a real awareness of who they are will work. Those that don’t, will be seen, at best, as marketing. At worst, they will be annoying and will wither relationships.

4. Re-engagement – This is one of the key objectives of any lead-generation programme. It’s essential to remember that engagement is something that is done almost entirely on their terms. It is not something a brand can enforce. With that in mind, re-engagement emails and messaging have to be very largely driven by listening first.

Any nurturing message is likely to include some mixture of these ambitions in varying percentages. But it is

helpful for communications teams to establish which is their prime ambition at any given time.

Against this list of ambitions, there are a number of factors in a nurturing programme that will help bolster success. Nurturing messages should be:

1. Trustworthy – Above all else, nurturing messages have to be seen to be trustworthy, and the brand behind them worthy of continued attention. This is driven by setting expectations in the initial interactions, being consistent, doing what you say you will do and being sure to be (and not just say you are) customer-centric.

2. Relevant – Messages that fail the relevance test – especially in the context of a nurturing programme – are caustic to the brand/recipient relationship. This is all about saying the right thing to the right person at the right time. Failure to achieve this leads to recipients believing you don’t care about them and, at the very minimum, emotionally opting out of the relationship.

3. Multichannel – Inconsistent messaging across many channels can be very destructive in a lead-nurturing programme. Wherever possible (and accepting that this is a big challenge to many organisations), nurturing should be seen as a multichannel exercise.

4. Strategic & measured – All messages in a programme are part of a strategic objective of converting the lead to customer. Nurturing is a thought process that builds upon a steady drip feed of value and good behaviour that ensures at any given moment the recipient thinks well of the brand. As a result, short-term thinking can be very damaging.

The one really consistent theme in considering a nurturing programme is that of personalisation. This is dealt with in another chapter of this report. However, it should never be far from marketing thinking, as it is the absolute bedrock of lead nurturing.

Nurturing is a thought

process that builds upon a steady drip

feed of value and good behaviour that ensures at

any given moment the recipient thinks well

of the brand.



In partnership with

16 7Automation and ecommerce revenues

Marketers recognise that automated email campaigns play an increasingly vital role in helping online retailers maximise their revenues through more effective use of tactics such as cross-selling and upselling. Integration of marketing automation and ecommerce technology is required to ensure that personalisation is based on the right data in real-time.

“Marketing automation is a driver of ecommerce revenues”

Is it important for you to automate interactions in an ecommerce platform?

Agree

Disagree

Neutral

72%

26%

It’s important

Neutral


70%

21%

9%

Almost three-quarters of survey respondents (72%) say that marketing automation helps drive sales for the

business.

The importance of automated

ecommerce platform interactions is recognised

by 70% of marketers surveyed.

2%

17



The integral role played by marketing automation in a successful digital business is underscored by our survey of marketers, which found widespread agreement (72%) that this practice is a driver of ecommerce revenues.

Correspondingly, more than two thirds of marketers surveyed (70%) agree that it is important for their business to automate interactions in an ecommerce action.

It is encouraging that marketers understand that they can maximise their success with automated marketing techniques such as triggered emails in response to certain actions and milestones. Translating this understanding into success means recognising that marketing automation isn’t a stand-alone discipline and that many of the activities described in other chapters are its natural bedfellows. Segmentation, nurturing and good use of data all play their part in this process.

Automation and ecommerce revenues CHAPTER 7

There is a huge role for automation in helping to drive revenues from those potential customers or customers who have, for example, reached the website, signed up for emails or already made a purchase.

At every stage of the ecommerce journey, there are opportunities for enhancing the relationship between the brand and the buyer.

Drive acquisition and initial engagement

The use of automation becomes essential as online retailers approach large-scale operations. The success in this phase comes from combining volume with effective conversions.

To do this, marketers need a combination of great data (and use of data) and tools that allow them to target, personalise and create relevant communications. As with so much

of marketing automation, the machines will do a lot – but real success comes from a rigorous focus on the customer and from marketing teams putting themselves in those customers’ shoes.

On-site personalisation and targeting

Good use of data also drives effective on-site engagement. Once a visitor has been brought into the sales environment online, success is driven by understanding why that person is there.

This demands recognition of the final response driver that brought them onto the site, but also of previous interactions between the brand and the individual.

Key to success for ecommerce marketers wishing to deliver with their email marketing strategies is the ability to integrate their marketing automation and email technology with their chosen ecommerce platform.

Integration here can help with acquisition and upselling through better personalisation and targeting. Access to live data means that companies can respond in real-time and reap the benefits all year round, especially during peak shopping periods such as holiday seasons and bumper sales days such as Black Friday.

At every stage of the

ecommerce journey, there are opportunities

for enhancing the relationship between

the brand and the buyer.

18



Manage cart abandonmentThe management of shopping cart abandonment has proved to be a key driver of incremental ecommerce revenues. Saving and reacting to what people have put into their basket delivers several key things:

• An opportunity to go back to the user to try and reinvigorate the sale

• Data about the user’s intentions and the beginning of a conversation with that user

• It creates the opportunity to make offers and sweetener deals

• It also acts as an invaluable UX indicator (e.g. many people put things into baskets to find out add-on costs such as postage)

To deliver these benefits and to drive those revenues really does require the integration of a range of marketing automation functions.

Cross-sell and upsellCustomers and brands are now very used to the ‘people who bought x, also bought y’ approach to upsell first pioneered by Amazon. It now feels, in some ways, like a hygiene factor in ecommerce – no retailer would miss out on an equivalent approach. There are also those who take the bundle approach: ‘buying an electronic device? Have some batteries as well’. In many ways, these tactics replicate what goes on in any offline retail situation.

But upsell in online sales has the potential to be much more sophisticated. Where customers’ activities are captured, recognised and referred to in future interactions, there is the opportunity to develop some very intricate and successful upsell tactics in order to increase average order value.

Beauty brand ELEMIS, which specialises in anti-ageing skincare products, is a good example of a brand that has reaped tangible benefits from marketing automation as a result of the integration of its ecommerce platform Magento with dotmailer.

Its post-purchase programme, which involves following up on transactions to prompt customers to make further purchases, has resulted in email campaigns with 50% higher open rates than general newsletters.1

Apartment decor etailer Dormify is another good case study of a company successfully using marketing automation.

Its welcome programme features a three-part series of emails delivered to new website visitors who provide an email address. The first, including a dynamic coupon code and tailored content depending on where the subscriber signs up, generated 22% of Dormify’s total email revenue in 2015.2

Post-transactional relationshipEvery merchant knows that it is easier to sell to an existing customer than to convert a new one.

Retaining customers should be a core focus for any business. Marketing automation plays its role in this by ensuring (when done well) that the post-transactional messaging is excellent. It should recognise individual preferences, the product the customers have bought and their history with the brand.

Post-transactional communications are an excellent opportunity for brands to move beyond ‘sales’ mode and into ‘give value’ mode, thus setting up the next round of revenue from that customer.

Build analytics and dataThroughout this report, the marriage of data and automation is inescapable. Analytics and automation allow brands to build and react to customer demographics and profiles. The next generation of tools are offering exciting potential in predictive analytics, for example starting to understand micro-niches and what they are likely to do. This will continue to refine the ability to say the right thing at the right time, to focus marketing effort and to continue to build online revenues.

1. https://www.dotmailer.com/media/24039/elemis_case-study_web.pdf

2. https://www.dotmailer.com/media/24038/dormify-case-study_web.pdf

Automation and ecommerce revenues CHAPTER 7

Retaining customers

should be a core focus for any

business.



In partnership with

19 8Skills required for automation

Marketing automation requires skillsets, processes and technology that many businesses are not currently equipped for. This chapter looks at the underlying drivers of this evolution and the types of roles and business practices that are consequently becoming more prominent.

“Marketing automation relies on technology and skills that you do not currently have in your business”

Are these capability gaps key priorities within your business?

Agree

Disagree

Neutral

39%

30%

31%

It’s important

Neutral


45%

44%

11%

Respondents are divided when it

comes to whether their businesses have the requisite technology

and skills.

45% of the audience agree that

it’s important to address these capability gaps relating to skills and

technology.

20



Modern marketing teams are changing quickly. There are a whole host of new skills and functions required to work with the technology, data and new channels that are becoming available. This is true across marketing as a whole, and has never been more true for email teams.

We surveyed marketers as to whether they agreed that marketing automation relies on technology and skills that they do not currently have in their business. The results were somewhat polarised: 39% of respondents agreed with this statement, but 30% disagreed.

There is also a split in terms of whether companies are prioritising these capabilities. Just under half of respondents (45%) said they were ‘important’, but a similar proportion (44%) said they were neutral, perhaps because the required skills and technologies are already in place and, therefore, not a priority.

More concerning is the fact that 11% of respondents simply ‘don’t talk about it’, suggesting that these companies are burying their heads in the sand when it comes to skilling up their teams and employing the right technology.

While the survey data suggests different levels of marketing automation maturity, it is important for all organisations to understand the drivers of change, so they can be better prepared to address any capability gaps their organisations may be facing.

There are three key areas of change:

1. Marketing moves from campaigns to conversations – Structured broadcast campaigns are unlikely to achieve the relevance demanded by the modern consumer. The increase in opportunities for a consumer to ‘talk back’ at a brand, and the increasing likelihood that this talk-back is heard and valued by other consumers, will force brands to adopt a more conversational stance.

2. Fast-reacting and responsive – The search for relevance for the consumer –

Skills required for automation CHAPTER 8

These companies

are burying their heads in the sand when it comes to skilling up their

teams.

and trust from the consumer – will shorten the planning time available for marketing communications. This will mean that, increasingly, marketing success will be measured as much by timeliness and responsiveness as by creativity (although, of course, the killer combination will continue to be timeliness and creativity).

3. Customer-driven – The rise of ‘word of mouth’ through social channels and the increasing demand for personal relevance in marketing communications put the customer in the driving seat. What they believe and what they want to hear will drive their response. Brand marketing that is out of sync with customer sentiment is unlikely to do well.

There are a number of skills that are required in a marketing team using automation. Many of these are familiar, but there are some that are new or have gained importance in the world of automation. These can be divided into function-based changes and approach-based changes.

Function-based changesFunction changes affect what people do. In some cases, the title may be familiar, but the roles encompassed by those titles are changing quickly.

21



StrategyThe role of the strategist has existed as long as there have been marketing campaigns. There is still a requirement to ensure that the campaign matches the commercial objectives of the organisation. But there is a growing need to ensure that strategy is created and managed across a broad set of departments and tools. Internal integration is a key part of using technology effectively. In a modern marketing team, the strategist will be looking at:• Strategy of the campaign itself• Integration strategy (other channels, departments and

tools)• Focus on the outcomes

Technologists and data scientistsTraditional marketing teams are being joined by a whole new breed of staff. Many of these do not come from a marketing background at all. Instead, they have science and IT backgrounds and play an increasingly important role, working between the traditional marketing teams and the tools and technology resources those teams are starting to use. Their role is crucial and may include:• Data administration • Insight development• Creating viable segments• Understanding interactions• Technology management

QA and testingIn a world of technology-driven marketing, and particularly of automation, the role of sign-off and quality assurance is changing rapidly. The processes that produce communication require testing processes that are much more akin to traditional software testing than has ever been the case beforehand. Modern marketing teams require a blend of the programmatic testing used by IT teams and the traditional human checks that have been typical of marketers.

Traditional rolesThe traditional roles within a marketing team remain broadly familiar. Project management, design and copywriting itself are functions that probably exist in most marketing teams. The difference for these people is how they go about their tasks and a whole new range of approach-based skills.

Approach-based changesApproach-based skills describe how team members are working. New marketing drives a different set of thought processes of this type.

AgilityCustomer-centricity places demands on teams that tend to negate drawn-out marketing planning cycles. Instead, they have to become reactive and responsive in ways that challenge old-fashioned structures and teams.

This, in turn, requires a new set of approach-based skills that focus on speed of reaction and dialogue.

This presents a management challenge, a need for a new mindset and a demand for appropriate reactions that were unknown 15 years ago.

Growth of the hybridMarketing teams working across functions and in a fast-paced environment increasingly require team members who have a collection of skills. The rise of the hybrid marketer – someone who has good working knowledge across a number of different skillsets – is a recent approach-based phenomenon. It will become impossible to service marketing needs at the speed required when teams do not have members who are aware of the implications of decisions across a number of different functional areas.

Collaboration and integrationThe operational environment is different – there should be no ‘stand-alone’ activities. Marketing activity will become increasingly cross-fertilised across the channels. (For example: what happens on the website is important to the social channel and vice versa, experiential marketing is innately tied into the follow-up through digital channels, etc.)

Team management processes and KPIs are different. Under these conditions, teams have to be more collaborative rather than less so. This guides management from a tendency to tell their teams what to do, to an approach that lays out what has to be achieved and allows the teams to work within a broader remit. As a manager asks the team to take more responsibility for the effectiveness of the team as a whole, personal KPIs need to be changed to reflect these demands.

Skills required for automation CHAPTER 8

There is a need for

a new mindset and a demand for

appropriate reactions that were unknown

15 years ago.

[email protected]

digitaldoughnut.com

+44 (0)207 193 4600

Digital DoughnutShoreditch Building35 Kingsland RoadLondon, E2 8AA

© DIGITAL DOUGHNUT 2017

The 12 Pillars of Email and Marketing Automation

Data & Analytics

Transcript of The 12 Pillars of Email and Marketing Automation