First things first; marketing automation is a platform designed to market on multiple channels (such as email, SMS, in-app, social, websites, the list goes on) and automates repetitive tasks (such as segmentation and reporting).
Marketing automation's recent prominence shouldn’t be remotely surprising. Leading platforms are tackling 1:1 personalization and operational efficiency in ways marketers only could dream of 10 years ago. For a more in-depth read on different marketing automation capabilities check our Beginner's Guide to MA.
So, you’ve decided to implement a new marketing automation platform. Here are 5 areas to consider before you jump into the project.
Get the right people on board early on
The necessary skill set for the implementation of Salesforce Marketing Cloud or similar platforms (see our post about Vendor Selection) will differ depending on functional requirements, IT complexity, desired level of automation and personalization, the list goes on… However, we always advocate for close collaboration between IT and marketing in the implementation phase.
Most modern platforms have low or no-code solutions out-of-the-box to suffice most use cases while up and running. But architects, developers, and system specialists should nonetheless be highly involved, at a minimum, in getting the data flow right from the beginning. In other words, don’t underestimate the importance of great data quality and availability, which will unlock and drive most of the customer experience. Which conveniently segway to my next point.
Inventory your data
Take the opportunity to map out all the data points you would like to use in your marketing. If you’re anything like me you’ll end up with a lengthy list of requirements… Other than being a great document for further data collection in the new tech stack, it will function as a checklist of what data sources from your organization’s tech stack you should connect to the MA platform.
Don’t go crazy and use your marketing cloud as a general-purpose data warehouse, but rather focus on relevant, high-quality data for easier maintenance, better performance, avoid unnecessary data duplication, and, of course, GDPR compliance. We typically see clients have good use of CRM data, web data, product & order data, to name a few.
Draw out the tech stack on a high level
The reason for this is twofold, it will be the foundation for the continued development of data flows, and will be central in communicating with less technical business users and management. A complementary table can be used to outline the different integrations and in what order they should be developed. Use these two documents as a basis for use case planning, to lay out what campaigns can be built with the data available for the different integration phases.
Get end-users involved
It is easier than one might think to forget about the end-users in a hectic, time-pressured project. However, there’s plenty of good reasons to begin the learning experience early on. A major reason is if the old software license is expiring and you're forced to migrate quickly, then you certainly want to hit the ground running with end-users that at least have a basic understanding of the platform.
It is also important because MA specialists might initially have a hard time understanding what capabilities the platform has to offer and thus designing and building use cases in suboptimal ways. Luckily, many of the largest vendors have excellent learning resources, such as Salesforce’s Trailhead.
Pay particular attention to discussions similar to “we have always done x in system y”, chances are that many workflows or activities are redundant, or can be done more efficiently with the new platform’s features. Remember, there’s likely a good reason you’re leaving the old platform behind.
Mind the content gap
This is not true for all companies, but many traditional organizations struggle to have the creative throughput and produce the amount of content needed for highly personalized campaigns in their new stack. Modularization of email campaigns, landing pages, and other channels enable faster optimization cycles. At the same time as resources will shift from time-consuming tasks like data management to campaign optimization. A consequence is the necessity of close collaboration with content creators and, more often than not, reimagine the content creation process.
While this looks like a daunting list, a lot of those pitfalls are easily avoided. At NoA, we helped companies with their marketing technology for years. From planning to implementation, maintenance and operation, even training. We are also proud partners to some of the leading digital marketing vendors including Google, Salesforce, and Bannerflow. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or if you want to learn more about our services.
Author: Emil Andersson of NoA Connect, Stockholm