Marketing automation valuable when customised effectively

Like any new tool, marketing automation takes time and training to be utilised effectively.

Digital Nation spoke to Racquel Collard, Head of Marking at ethernet cable provider 4Cabling, about the opportunities and challenges she has faced implementing four different marketing automation platforms.

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Collard says that automation tools can help marketing to scale, as well as driving better outcomes for customers.

“We've had different systems over time but what we're finding is things like Welcome Journeys, if they're really well structured, actually help establish the expectations on for parties on both sides,” says Collard.

“Since we've had marketing automation in place, we've made budget constantly. Whenever we tweak it, we find that we do get a little uptick again, and it's just, it's lots of little steps, but it definitely all adds to the whole.”

While all automation providers have journey templates, Collard says they almost always need customising.

“I've never been able to use one template out of the box ever,” she says.

“The initial training is usually quite overwhelming, because you're usually doing platform training, you're doing your integration and your onboarding with your consultants at the same time. They never have a process where you retrain later on and just go through any of the bits and pieces that you may have forgotten.”

According to Collard, without quality data, marketing automation tools add little value to organisations.

She says that there is often a disconnect between the marketing automation providers and business users.

“It's also a lot of businesses tend to waste a lot of time, money, and energy, because usually use a consultant to bring in an integration. So you've got your automation supplier, you've got your business unit or your IT people and then you've got a consultant sitting in the middle,” she says.

“Data integration is always the piece that makes or breaks you. It's lovely if you've got a fabulous looking marketing automation system, and it says it can do this, and it can do that, and it can do this. But if you don't have access to the data that triggers those journeys, then you're dead in the water anyways.”