Marketing automation is the latest concept sweeping the email marketing world and for good reason! Delivering automated email streams is always going to be far more relevant than simply blasting out the same emails to everyone. However there are new challenges that marketing automation presents. Take a look our list of common problems that can be faced with marketing automation and how to avoid them…
1. Static customer journeys don’t exist
Most marketing automation is designed around the concept of an email workflow that customers are sent through. This is fine for very simple workflows but how can you be sure your emails will be relevant to individuals in 2 weeks’ time? What if they buy something? What if they don’t respond to any of these emails? What if they visit your website several more times? The chances are in each of these scenarios delivering the same message to each of these groups at this point won’t be the most optimal thing to do.
Marketing automation does allow branching of paths based upon actions but it can get incredibly complicated as in reality there can be infinite paths someone can take.
2. Measurement
Marketing automation workflows are predominantly designed to change behaviour – whether that is to re-engage an inactive customer, encourage them to make another purchase or to simply obtain more information about them. Despite placing carefully designed call-to-actions, customers won’t always click them, therefore measurements have to look at the role of control cells, keeping portions of customers back from the emails to see how they naturally might go onto complete any actions.
3. Programmes that have an end date
Let’s say you have a 14 day education programme, during which you are providing the new customer with a series of tips. At day 15 this stops and all of a sudden they get treated as just another customer. However this should not be the case and this is where marketing automation can encourage isolated programmes rather than a continual delivery of the most appropriate treatment every single time.
4. Conflicting messages and frequency
One other area is the issue with if a customer falls into multiple automation programmes at the same time. Which one takes priority or do you send both? Doing so could lead to an increase in volume and conflicting messages and promotions.
When looking to implement marketing automation strategies think about these limitations and make sure you plan accordingly.
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