Author: Natasha Websdale

The Future of AI in Marketing Automation

How is AI going to shape the future of our marketing automation campaigns? From the latest announcements from leading platforms in the industry, to how AI could revolutionise lead scoring, Mike Maynard and Hannah Wehrly explore the latest news and developments in marketing automation. They also look at predictions on how marketing automation is expected to grow in the coming years and the role automation plays in customer retention and growth.

Listen to the podcast now via the links below:

• The Marketing Automation Moment on Apple Podcasts
• The Marketing Automation Moment on Spotify
• The Marketing Automation Moment on napierb2b.com

Transcript: Marketing Automation Moment Episode Ten - The Future of AI in Marketing Automation

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Hannah Kelly

Hannah: Welcome to the Market Automation Moment Podcast. I'm Hannah Kelly.

Mike: And I'm Mike Maynard. This is Napier's podcast to tell you about the latest news from the world of marketing automation.

Hannah: Welcome to the Marketing Automation Moment podcast. This week we talk about the growth in spending market automation, the new Einstein co pilot from Salesforce, act on AI, predictive lead scoring. And we talk about how marketing automation can be used to keep in touch with customers after they make a purchase. Welcome back to another episode of modern automation moment. Mike, it's great to be back.

Mike: It's great to be back with you, Hannah. It's been a little while and I think we've got a lot to catch up on.

Hannah: Yes, we have a lot of exciting updates to catch on actually, because it's been a really interesting last month in the market automation landscape. So I'm gonna dive right in. And we've talked about some figures before, but I've actually come across some reports from a marketer and allied market research. And they had some really big figures in there about the future of the mahr tech spending industry. So they believe that there will be a growth from 15 point 31 million USD in 2020, to 27 point 11 billion in 2024. For the martec spent, I mean, a lot of this is going to be through the driver, the growth and the craze of AI tools. But I think this is spectacular that the way the industry is pointing is that the spending is going to increase. And so the advantages to marketers is just going to be amazing.

Mike: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think one of the interesting things they're saying is that actually, you know, around 2023 is going to be a low point in marketing spend growth, and people are going to actually see their budgets increased by a greater percentage over the next couple of years. So it's quite exciting. I think a lot of that, obviously, is people trying to buy AI tools and see how they work. We're still to some extent in a experimental phase. But clearly, there's a lot of people getting benefits from AI, and that's going to drive more investment.

Hannah: Absolutely. And I mean, the next thing we're about to talk about Mike is really going to reinforce this, and this is Dreamforce. So this was Salesforce, his yearly conference, which actually took place last month in September. And not surprisingly, AI was a really big key topic. And the most exciting thing that they've released is a new generation of Einstein. So the Einstein one platform. Now I have to say, I'm a big fan of the cartoon character, it really sells me on the platform. But actually, the capabilities as well is really quite amazing. So they've actually introduced the Einstein copilot, which is basically an AI and system, which is built into the user experience of every Salesforce application. So it can help draft customer code, it can provide a sales recommended steps to close deals faster, propose copy for emails, I mean, the possibilities are limitless. What do you think about it?

Mike: Well, I think you know, me, I have to make a snarky comment. And it'd be great if the people who were responsible for the user experience of Salesforce were, you know, as talented as some of the cartoonists because, you know, we all know Salesforce is a real challenge to us. And I guess this is what they're trying to address. Einstein is actually going to be there to help Salesforce users do the things they want to do, and hopefully overcome some of the challenges you've got around the user interface user experience.

Hannah: I think as well, you know, Mike, you've mentioned this before, but eventually in the future AI is going to disappear and disappear into the sense not that it won't be around anymore. But that will become such a seamless integration, people won't know what's AI and what's not. It really feels like this Einstein platform is the first step to really making that a reality.

Mike: Yeah, I mean, I think it's still, you know, it's being promoted as something separate. And it's still this, this shiny kind of thing. But certainly my view is more and more AI will be embedded into products. And, you know, to some extent, we won't actually know we're using AI, the product will just work better, it'll work more efficiently. I mean, if you look at, you know, the the claim for Einstein, they cite several customers that are using it. And this is their quotes to improve productivity, drive revenue and create personalised experiences. That sounds like you Salesforce. So you know, there's everything that Salesforce should be doing anyway. And I think having this Einstein layer outside is a first step. As we move forward, I think what we'll see is more and more the AI will just be embedded within the product. And we won't be talking about it so much. It won't be this, this new shiny thing, it will be the entry ticket, everyone will have to have aI within their system.

Hannah: That's a really good point, Mike, and you know me I'm very enthusiastic. I like to look ahead, but I think that it's such a valid point, because at the moment and I mean, when we were looking around for the news The things and updates to talk about in this podcast, everything because AI focused everything's about AI is this really shiny new thing. But eventually, you know, that platform won't be separate. And as you said, it'll just be something that set up from the start from the get go based on these market automation platforms.

Mike: Yeah, I mean, I think we still have this this concern that as more and more AI is deployed, the opportunity to generate higher and higher volumes of communications, particularly emails are going to increase. I mean, I don't know whether we're going to see a situation where, you know, all these personalised AI messages begin to swamp our inboxes. I mean, my email inbox is busy enough as it is. And clearly, it's gonna be very hard for spam filters, or, you know, the prioritisation filters to actually select our AI generated content versus personal emails. So it's gonna be interesting to see what happens that and I'm really hoping that what we don't see is we don't see the value of marketing automation, and email marketing decrease, because everybody's overusing it. And that clearly is one of the concerns. And one of the potential downsides of AI. I mean, AI has got downsides as well as upsides.

Hannah: That's a really good point, Mike. And it is the upsides versus the downsides. Because one of the key things they're setting Einstein platform in is this generative AI, but as you said, actually, is that not as positive as it could be? It's really going to be interesting to watch and see kind of how it unfolds.

Mike: For sure, and I mean, I'm sure everyone has had experiences like I've had, where we've received emails that are AI generated. And she kind of No, because what they're doing is they're taking a line of description from the website, it doesn't feel real. And I think generative AI is still got a little way to go to write those absolutely compelling emails, if you just want to tick a box and get a marketing email out, then fine. I mean, generative AI does a decent job. But the reality is, is that those stunning emails that really grab attention, there still tend to be human written. And it's gonna be interesting to see how AI manages to close that gap with creativity, and doing things different than actually grab attention.

Hannah: Absolutely. So I want to move on just a little bit. So still AI focused? Of course it is. But Salesforce also announced a Slack AI. So this is an AI programme that's going to enhance the slack platform. So it's all about making the more admin and the more manual tasks more automated. So it's going to enable users to search for answers, it's going to enable them to have fresh summaries. I mean, it seems like a really simple thing, but I think it's actually going to be quite effective. As a company, we don't use Slack. But we know a lot of companies that do so what do you think, do you think just this simple kind of integration is actually going to be really beneficial?

Mike: Do you know I mean, a lot of the hype at the moment is all about generative AI and creating stuff with AI. I think one of the, you know, incredible powers of AI is summaries. And I know I mean companies that are very into Slack, it's impossible to keep up with that flow of information that's going through. And so people, you know, if they've been away on holiday, they really have been left out. And rather than having to go back and read, you know, 1000s of slack messages, to have aI summarise, what's happened, I think is incredibly powerful. We're gonna see it all over the place. I mean, I know that, for example, Mikekrosoft, in a different area talked about when you record a team's meeting, they're gonna bring in AI to be able to summarise that meeting and potentially give you action items. I think as marketers, we're going to start seeing this AI, do sort of that summary, and action point work for us very, very soon. And across all sorts of platforms, that's going to work. So it's not just Salesforce driving that. But I think, you know, if we look at Mikekrosoft and Google, they'll also be providing similar platforms. And hopefully, that's going to save a little bit of pain when it comes to writing meeting minutes. I'd certainly be up for that.

Hannah: Me too. Me too. I think the key point there, Mike is, you know, as marketers, we do get really sidetracked by the shiny items by the really exciting things with the in depth analysis and how they can support the data. But actually, that more admin side is going to help me faster and quicker than that marketing and and that generative AI within the platforms at the moment.

Mike: Definitely. So let's move on. What's the next shiny item you found in the news?

Hannah: Well, the next shiny item is a bit of a controversial one, Mike, because, you know, we've spoken about this before, but I'm a big fan of lead scoring. It's not that you don't like lead scoring, but you're not as into the benefits of it, I would say and act on has actually released an AI predictive lead score, which is basically a feature that's going to work within their act on platform to help marketers narrow the marketing funnel and really hone in on the strongest leads. What do you think about this? Do you think it's beneficial, or is it going to offer more problems than what it's worth?

Mike: It's really interesting. So, I mean, I'm not completely against lead scoring, I think one of the challenges that people have with lead scoring is that you need a fairly high volume of prospects and customers to make it work. So if you're looking at clients that we work with that have, you know, very small number of customers, for example, you know, we've got clients that sell, you know, high value capital equipment, they don't sell, you know, 1000s, or hundreds. So, you know, some of them even have one major customer. Yeah, doing predictive lead scoring on that is almost impossible, because the data is so limited. And certainly AI learning based upon a small number of very high value customers, it's going to take a long time to learn and that AI is then going to lag, the customer behaviour. So AI has got issues when you've got low volume, when you look at moving into some of our clients that have high numbers of customers, then they're I think that's where AI lead scoring is going to be really good. I mean, one of the things that interests me is, I see people generate lead scoring algorithms, and that their rating, you know, what drives people to be a customer. And honestly, they're probably writing the things they think are important, and perhaps even the things they spent a long time generating, you know. So if you spend a lot of time creating white papers, you probably score those very highly, the great thing about AI is it's going to take away some of that bias. And it's actually going to score based upon what really drives people to become customers. Now, of course, you've got to get that data on what actually happened, and how that links to someone becoming a customer. And again, in b2b, that can be very difficult because the purchaser can be different from the person who's actually the decision maker. And we all know that attribution is one of these hugely challenging problems. But I do think it makes sense to introduce AI. And I do think it can have some significant benefits, as I say, particularly around really getting to the bottom of what does correlate with someone becoming a customer, rather than what we think is important as marketers,

Hannah: I absolutely love that. Mike, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said it takes away the bias. I mean, as a marketer myself, you know, I spend forever on blogs. And I'm like, Well, if someone reads a blog, it's got to be important, right. But that's not necessarily the journey they're actually taking. That's important. So I think that's such a valuable point, because it will really help with identifying and digging down and especially in the tech industry as well, is what's actually important, and what's actually driving the people to make the decisions.

Mike: Yeah, for sure. And to some extent, you actually don't need AI because you can measure it and use maths, the AI is going to try and pattern match a bit more quickly. So that can potentially generate results sooner. I mean, the other thing I noticed was, you know, whilst act on made a big thing about the lead scoring, they to also announce at the same time that they've got generative AI to create emails. So, you know, again, that's going to be interesting, because what you potentially be doing is running your run AI looking at what was driving leads in the past, but then having a completely different email strategy, because it's easier to generate personalised emails, because you've got aI within the platform. So I think if you look at what's you know, what's happening, it's gonna be hard to get really good results on lead scoring all the time, because you're always dealing with historic data. And most people develop, expand and improve their marketing campaigns. But for sure, particularly if you have a large number of customers, AI is going to be a key part of actually scoring and prioritising leads.

Hannah: Yeah, absolutely agree. That's a really insightful thoughts. Thanks, Mike. So I'm weary of time. So I do want to move on to our insightful Tip of the Week. And we've spent a lot of time previously talking about how we can use market automation for lead nurturing, and for gaining new leads for the customer journeys. But what I'm really interested in talking about today is about keeping in touch with existing customers. And I think sometimes market is gonna get in the trap of like, okay, great, we've got the customer, we don't need to do anything to them anymore. We don't need to nurture them. But in my opinion, I actually think nurturing existing customers is so valuable to accompany. And so I'd like to get your thoughts on how beneficial is it to use your marketing automation platform to really nurture those existing customers? And how do you draw the line between staying in touch and annoying them?

Mike: Yeah, this is really interesting. I mean, I was introduced to this when I was learning about drip marketing at university. And I remember our drip marketing lecture. He said, If you're selling a car to consumers, only one question you have to ask. And, you know, we tried to guess the question. He eventually said, look, it's how long do you want to keep the car for? And apparently, that's a very accurate thing. When you ask a consumer, how long they expect to keep a car for. They normally give an accurate prediction, of course, what you need to do as a marketer, once you've sold the car is to be talking to them when they're picking their next car, whether that's in three years or five. previous time or whenever. And so I think we forget how important it is when we make that sale, to think about the next sale. And so with marketing, in b2b, it's absolutely the same, you know, quite often we're working with customers who, you know, perhaps have multiple projects running, certainly, we'll have a new project at some point in the future. And what we need to do is we need to engage them to help them in the period where we're waiting for that next project. And that can be all sorts of things that can be providing information to help them use the products that they've actually chosen, you know, great example would be in some of our seMikekonductor companies, people purchase evaluation boards, these complex boards to let engineers understand how to use a seMikekonductor product. Why are marketers not emailing those engineers, to help them get up to speed more quickly, and improve that experience of using one of your products. And equally as they move through the design, we also know there'll be choosing other products. So you know, it's the same thing, if you look at, you know, someone doing a factory automation project, quite clearly, there's a big deployment of products into the factory to upgrade, but then it's all sorts of things around maintenance, that gives you opportunities to go and sell in more services, or indeed, sometimes more products. And I think as marketers, we need to, you know, forget about we market sell, and we're done. And actually think about a much longer relationship with a customer, I think about the customer over their whole lifetime, rather than over one purchase journey.

Hannah: I really like that Mikek. And I think what I would add to that as well is that within the market automation platforms themselves is this sort of communication doesn't need to be hard. It can be really easy. It's it's automations, you can set up a year in advance, you know, oh, we are customer has been this engineers. When we've asked for six months, let's do a check in. It's not something that you necessarily have to think about every day. But having those automations set up for success from the start is really important and being successful.

Mike: definitely agree. I mean, you do an amazing thing, for example, on anniversaries of clients working with us sending them birthday cakes and things like that. So, you know, very simple things can actually make a really big difference.

Hannah: Absolutely. Well, thanks so much for your time again today, Mike, it's been a really interesting conversation.

Mike: Thanks, Hannah. And hopefully we'll talk to our listeners again on the next episode of The Marketing Automation moment.

Hannah: Thanks for listening to the marketing automation moment podcast.

Mike: Don't forget to subscribe in your favourite podcast application, and we'll see you next time.

by Natasha Websdale

Generating Value with Simple Automations

Surveys can provide great insight into marketing impact, but as Mike and Hannah reflect on recent survey findings, correlation does not always mean causation. They also discuss the importance of ensuring the basics of automation are in place and the simple automations' that can generate significant value.

Marketing automation platforms are often the key to marketing strategies, so keeping them organised is vital; Hannah shares some top tips during the insightful tip of the week.

Listen to the podcast now via the links below:

• The Marketing Automation Moment on Apple Podcasts
• The Marketing Automation Moment on Spotify
• The Marketing Automation Moment on napierb2b.com

Transcript: Marketing Automation Moment Episode Eight - Generating Value with Simple Automations

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Hannah Kelly

Hannah: Welcome to the Marketing Automation Moment Podcast. I'm Hannah Kelly.

Mike: And I'm Mike Maynard. This is Napier's podcast to tell you about the latest news from the world of marketing automation.

Hannah: Welcome to the Marketing Automation Moment the podcast from Napier.

Mike: In this episode, we talk about two reports on surveys that have been conducted recently,

Hannah: six underused market automation emails.

Mike: And then Hannah tries to organise everybody's marketing automation platform.

Hannah: Well, welcome back to another episode. Mike. It's great to be here.

Mike: It's great to talk to you this morning Hannah.

Hannah: Yeah, I think we've got some really interesting topics to cover today.

So I'm just going to jump straight in. I think one of the most interesting things we've come across in the last month or so actually, was that Salesforce has released a state of marketing report for 2023. Now, it had some good insights. I mean, we even wrote about it on our blog. So we know that there's been some good insights in there. But I know when we were discussing internally, Mike, you had a few views that Salesforce was perhaps tricking people into view and a certain perception of these results. So for example, often the difference is relatively small between the top and poor performers. So it's not necessarily the case that if you do something that top performers are doing, that's going to be successful for your marketing. I mean, you actually picked out an example referring to the analysed marketing performance in real time results. Did you want to share some further insights on this?

Mike: Well, I think it's really interesting. I mean, these reports are useful. So I don't want to suggest that I don't agree that the reports are worthwhile, or that they're not beneficial. But there's some things to bear in mind. I mean, you work with me, Hannah, you may have heard me say correlation is not causation before. And of course, none of these reports really establish whether any links that you see, between people being able to do something, and getting better results is actually caused by that, or whether people who get better results are actually just better at doing everything anyway. So it doesn't necessarily mean that if you do something, it will generate better results. It does mean, on average, people get better results generally do that thing. So there's a good chance, but it's not always the case. I mean, the famous example that when I was learning statistics years and years ago, was that you saw that the number of electric power stations electric power capacity in the UK, was growing almost exactly at the same rate as car usage was in the UK, which kind of suggested that cars were running on electricity, which clearly back when I was younger, was not the case. Now that might be changing. But I think there's a lot of these things where two things correlate, but they're not necessarily a cause. So being able to analyse marketing performance in real time, I mean, Salesforce push that it's obviously one of the things that Salesforce helped people to do. But the reality is, is that actually 61% of poor performers can analyse marketing performance in real time. So the fact you're analysing marketing performance in real time doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be a good performer. And I think people need to read into these reports a little more in depth, I'm pretty sure if you're a good performer, real time results are going to help. But it doesn't necessarily mean that if you do this one thing, analyse in real time, you'll magically get great performance for your campaigns. And I think that's what we've got to try and get away from. And clearly, you know, what, what companies like Salesforce are doing is they're creating these surveys to generate interest and demand for their product. So they're actually going to potentially push these results that sometimes might not be completely accurate.

Hannah: It's definitely an interesting perspective by them, I agree. I think, you know, one of the key points from this report is that marketers are shifting to maximise value from their existing tools. So basically, Salesforce is trying to create a more demand for them automation systems and everything they can do.

Mike: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think some of the things that are in the report are quite clearly data that you can rely on. I mean, they had a good sized sample. And it's very clear that, you know, one of the key priorities marketers have at the moment is to get more value from existing tools, rather than to necessarily go out and buy more tools. Now, obviously, we've had a few years of martech craziness where everyone's been spending like mad. So probably, is the time to look at are we making best use of our tools, and maybe even to rationalise the tools that people use? So I think that's, you know, that's a really useful finding.

Hannah: And I personally think it's a great area to be in because, you know, we work with clients and prospects we speak to when we often feel frustrated when they're not using their tools to their full potential. So if this is the focus, then I'm completely on board of it.

Mike: Yeah, I mean, we've all seen the client who's running email campaigns on Marketo. They're spending hundreds of 1000s of dollars a year on Marketo and, frankly, getting little more value than they would get if maybe they ran a campaign on MailChimp. So I think actually making use of tools is really important. And people when they buy these tools, they look at all these capabilities. The reality is, is most companies double down on a few capabilities that really make the difference to their campaigns. And I think, you know, really understanding what makes a difference. And then using those capabilities is the most important thing rather than trying to tick all the boxes.

Hannah: Definitely. So we are a bit survey tastic. Today, Mike, but there was another survey that I wanted to talk about with you. And this was actually by Insightly who surveyed nearly 200, B2B marketing leaders. And actually, they found that five out of 10 say that optimization of the overall automation strategy is the most important thing to them, and that they want to improve their customer journey and increase revenue. So similar results to Salesforce is state of marketing report. But it was interesting to see the focus to improve the customer journey, because I feel that a lot of the work for the customer journey actually has to be completed offline, in the more strategy areas before it can be implemented and marked automation platforms, rather than something you can just build from scratch and you can implement straight away. What do you think?

Mike: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, Hannah. I mean, to me, this, this comes back to, you know, the finding we talked about from Salesforce, people want to get more value from the tools. And actually, if you're using a market automation tool, to build clear customer journeys, and to focus on measurable results, and in particular revenue, are both going to help you get more value out of your tools. So I think it ties in very closely. But I totally agree, it shouldn't just be something you think about. From a marketing automation point of view, you should actually be thinking holistically across all your activities.

Hannah: Absolutely. And I think there's some great opportunities to increase the revenue with your opportunities within Marketo Meishan platforms like lead nurturing, is such a simple yet effective tactic to really increase the speed through the funnel.

Mike: Oh, yeah, I mean, I think looking at where people are falling off on a customer journey, so you build your customer journey model, you see how people progress through. And you'll very often see points where people just disappear, they don't continue the journey. We've talked about this in previous episodes. And doing that analysis is really important, because identifying where people leave the journey gives you the opportunity to fix that problem. The people that leave and don't continue the customer journey, they're never going to buy anything, they're not going to get to the end of the journey. So really looking at that and optimising the journey is going to make a huge difference. It's one of the most basic and straightforward things you need to be doing with marketing automation.

Hannah: Definitely. And I think that relates really nicely to Article I saw a martec Recently, and they were talking about the top six automation workflows that need to be used within market automation systems. It was quite consumer ecommerce focused. But I think they made a good point that it's obvious that people are still forgetting the basics, and that there are some workflows that need to be implemented to be successful. What do you think?

Mike: Yeah, I mean, I think you're right, when you say that people miss the basics, quite often, there's some very simple automations you can do, that are gonna, you know, really generate a lot of value. So you know, some of the things that the article talked about. And this is, as you say, it's more consumer in E commerce is, you know, sending post purchase emails, or sending account creation and welcome emails, sending abandoned cart emails, I mean, everybody knows that these are the basic things you should be doing. But not everybody is doing them. And they're not very sexy. I mean, they're not very exciting. I think a lot of this does relate to B2B. So even where B2B companies are not doing e commerce and not selling off their website, there are still opportunities to do these kinds of simple, straightforward emails, you know, you've probably got a newsletter, and you probably should send a welcome email when people sign up for the newsletter. And in fact, I think probably if we look at Napier, we're maybe not actually the best at doing that as well. So perhaps that's something we should do too.

Hannah: Absolutely. I think there's always areas to improve. And that's how you always get better.

Mike: Absolutely. I mean, you know that there are other things as well, you know, the the article talks about when people are browsing and abandoned before you get to a goal in terms of a journey through the website. And that can be really important. I mean, interestingly, though, I think the one thing you shouldn't do is to really try and compensate for poor customer journey or poor customer experience, by then sending emails. I mean, I recently tried to buy something online. And I received four follow up emails that were asking me about, you know, how can we help you complete your purchase because I abandoned the cart. The reason I abandoned the cart was the whole user experience was terrible. The amount of data they needed was awful. And I went elsewhere because it was just easy. And so I think again, as marketers, we shouldn't look at one solution, and think that one solution is the only way to fix problems. So you shouldn't just look at marketing automation as a magic solution to fix issues when people drop off the customer journey, you should also look at the reasons why they're dropping off. And whether that's caused by, you know, bad user experience lack of information.

Hannah: Definitely and could you give an example, maybe Mike about how your journey could have been improved in that example, that'd be really interesting to hear for our listeners.

Mike: I mean, this one was really simple, you know, what I was trying to check out, you know, if you're trying to buy something online, as a consumer, you probably just want to give your address, your email and your name. And that's it. And there was this massive, long form, they wanted to know, loads of information. And it was just too painful. To be quite honest. There was also a lot of upsell there as well, in terms of, you know, would you like to buy this? Like, he's like, No, I just want to buy this. And it's difficult enough as it is. So I think, nobody, it almost felt like nobody at that company, had been through the process of like buying on the website for the first time. And they hadn't realised what a pain it was, it may be a fantastic experience once you're signed up. But unfortunately, as a consumer, I'll never know, because I actually went to one of their competitors.

Hannah: I think the key thing you just said there, Mike is a customer buying the first time. And I think that's such a crucial thing to think about, because there are customers who be in different stages. And so their journey does need to reflect that.

Mike: Absolutely. And we see it in B2B as well, it's, you know, how are you giving, looking at the experience for someone who's new to a website, or is not very familiar with your brand, versus someone who's, you know, really experienced, and there's different things you can do, you can on one hand, not really promotes registration, or newsletters and gathering data. And that's not great, because it's not really very effective. But on the other hand, if you over promote to people who already registered, that's going to become annoying. And so you need to really think about the journeys. And you think about the journeys in the context of the individual personas that you've got.

Hannah: Absolutely. Now, I'm just going to take us off to our insightful Tip of the Week, Mike. And this week, I really wanted to talk about what is the one thing you wish you had known when setting up a market automation platform. So for me, my thing is that organisation is key. So you will thank yourself later, if you spend the time setting up the formats and the processes or folders that are easy to read emails that are easy to find. What are your views?

Mike: I'm shocked that someone like you is keen on organisation, you are the most organised person I know. But you're absolutely right. We quite often see clients who have put campaigns into marketing automation system, they've had no naming convention, there's all sorts of names, then you try and find a particular campaign. And it's not too difficult when you've got maybe five campaigns. But when you've been running for a while you've got 50, it becomes almost impossible. And so quite often we see clients having to go back and implement a folder structure or implement naming conventions. And I totally agree that actually thinking about how you're going to structure things, how you're going to name things, that is probably one of the most important things to make your system easy to use in the future.

Hannah: Absolutely. I mean, I have become a bit of a terror, if you like poor Natasha and Holly who I work with, but our SharpSpring platform is set to all our folders, it's all organised as key. And I think that what clients need to remember is, sometimes they don't account for growth. So they start off with four email campaigns. And that could be like that way for six months. But eventually they are going to grow them out automation platform, the business is going to grow. And so they've got to account for that time in the future, and make sure that they're set up properly to be efficient.

Mike: Yeah, and I think understanding you know, what determines a folder structure versus what determines the name. So quite often you might have in a large organisation, you might have folders structured around different divisions that's very common, or indeed different geographies and then different divisions. Whereas the naming convention might do things like identify the date of the campaign, and allow you to sort an order of date. So I think it's important to think about that. And I mean, anyone who's, who's interested in that I'm sure, they can send you an email after listening to the show, and you're helping them out with your opinions.

Hannah: Absolutely. I'm always happy to share an opinion. Well, it's been another great conversation. Mike, thanks so much for joining me today.

Mike: Well, thanks so much, Hannah. It's been really interesting, and I look forward to talking to you again.

Hannah: Thanks for listening to the Marketing Automation Moment podcast.

Mike: Don't forget to subscribe in your favourite podcast application, and we'll see you next time.

by Natasha Websdale

How Should You Optimise Marketing Strategy?

Find out the role dynamic content plays in B2B marketing, how to build strategy into marketing automation programs and the benefits and limitations of using polls to collect data.

Mike and Hannah also share how to leverage marketing automation to successfully support face-to-face events.

Listen to the podcast now via the links below:

• The Marketing Automation Moment on Apple Podcasts
• The Marketing Automation Moment on Spotify
• The Marketing Automation Moment on napierb2b.com

Transcript: Marketing Automation Moment Episode Seven - How Should you Optimise Strategy?

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Hannah Kelly

Hannah: Welcome to the Marketing Automation Moment Podcast. I'm Hannah Kelly.

Mike: And I'm Mike Maynard. This is Napier's podcast to tell you about the latest news from the world of marketing automation.

Hannah: Welcome to the Marketing Automation Moment. Today we talk about dynamic content.

Mike: Marketing automation strategy.

Hannah: A survey that shows B2B marketing leaders are focused on optimising strategy.

Mike: And give some tips on how to use marketing automation to make your events more effective.

Hannah: Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of marketing automation moment. It's great to be back, Mike, isn't it?

Mike: It's great to talk to you again, Hannah. I mean, it's been a little while I know you've been incredibly busy. And you're off on holiday as well, next week.

Hannah: I am indeed a nice couple of weeks in Italy.

Mike: I hope you enjoy that. And I'm looking forward to getting another episode recorded when you get back.

Hannah: Absolutely.

Mike: So, what have you seen in the news today about marketing automation?

Hannah: Well, I came across an interesting article on the robotics and automation news site, actually. And it was really talking about dynamic content, and the different ways you could approach it to enhance your results of market automation. And it's quite interesting, because the article in itself, to be honest, is quite basic. It talks about personalization, it talks about the kind of simple things you can do to make things more engaging. But what I want to have a chat about really is about dynamic content, and the different things we can do for dynamic content and market automation systems.

Mike: So I guess here, what you're talking about is not just changing a little bit of text dynamically, but actually putting in, you know, for example, something completely different, like a video or a picture or, you know, some other engaging content on the landing page. Is that what you're thinking about?

Hannah: Absolutely, Mike? Yes. So I'm thinking, you know, if we've got a landing page, and we add something as a poll, for example, what sort of information is that going to be able to provide marketers? And realistically, as well as visitors going to interact with this engaging content?

Mike: Well, I mean, a couple of really good questions there, you know, do you get information that's useful from polls, I mean, a lot of marketers use informal poll information. So sometimes it's the best data you've got, it may not be, you know, mathematically or scientifically accurate, but it's the best data you've got. So I think this sort of thing is useful. The problem is, as we know, a lot of our B2B audiences aren't really engaged with things like polls, they don't want to do that, particularly very technical people. And so I think what dynamic content gives you the opportunity is to run things like this, where you know that a proportion of your audience, and maybe, for example, you might think that the purchasing proportional purchasing segment would be much more interested in engaging in a poll than an engineering segment. So you can place that content just visible to the people who are likely to engage with it. And I think that's a good idea. I mean, there are lots of challenges in terms of doing that, when you look at a lot of, you know, B2B campaigns and some of the limitations around those.

Hannah: So it's been a bit more Mike, what do you mean about the limitations regarding dynamic content?

Mike: Well, I think we're really different from consumer marketing, there's a lot you can do with consumer marketing, because you have, you know, huge volumes, in terms of your audience size. Quite often, when we're looking at campaigns, they're very, very focused, and you know, Account Based Marketing is, it's certainly a thing, right. And, you know, there people can be targeting a small number, or even maybe even one account. So the numbers are quite small in B2B. And actually, what that means is, it can be quite difficult a to generate multiple different pieces of content that can be placed on the landing page, and then be to get enough volume where you're looking for interaction, like for example, in polls. So although it sounds very attractive, sometimes it can actually be somewhat cost and time prohibitive. And it also can be difficult to get sufficient audience size as well.

Hannah: As a really interesting point, my can actually I was listening to our other podcast marketing B2B technology. And we recently had SendinBlue on and and he was talking about how actually, we can take inspiration from b2c campaigns for B2B. But obviously, it's a really good point, because these are these limitations. And so we have to recognise that we are in the B2B industry. And so it might not necessarily be the best path, of course, for companies with dynamic content.

Mike: Yeah, I think sometimes it's just more difficult. And often, you know, in B2B, we sometimes always want to invent new stuff. And if you're looking to dynamically insert content into a landing page, you might be better looking at what you've already got, rather than trying to create something new for that particular campaign. So I think there's there's opportunities to do this and marketers should be thinking about, you know, should they be customising things like landing pages for different audiences, and if they should be customising it, how can they do it? But also we have to remember that sometimes It's not practical to make everything personalised and everything customised in our industry, just because of the balance between the relatively low volume and the relatively high cost of content creation.

Hannah: Absolutely. And I think this links on quite nicely to our next point, because we have to consider these things when we build a strategy for our market automation. So I actually came across an interesting blog, which talks about how strategy fits in with market automation platforms. Did you see it?

Mike: Yeah, I did that. I mean, I thought this was was really interesting. They're talking about, you know, using strategy right from the start before you even get a marketing automation system. And, and that was one of the things I thought was was, was fascinating, because actually, most people in B2B now have some sort of marketing automation solution. And I'm not sure that the strategy is around picking a platform. And let's be honest, most of the platforms can do most of the things you need. I think it's much more interesting when you look at how you can use strategy to create better campaigns.

Hannah: Absolutely. And I mean, I came across this stat that actually 51% of marketers are looking to increase spending on market automation this year. So can you give a couple of examples of where strategy really comes into what you need to implement on the platform?

Mike: So I think it's really interesting. You know, we see people who still use marketing automation tools, you know, much like a kind of souped up email system. And actually, I think what strategy should do is it should be looking at what you're trying to achieve with different segments of your audience. And one of the points that was made in the first article, you mentioned, was actually that it's really important to understand that buyers journey, and we talk about this a lot, we bang on about buyers journey a lot at Napier. But I think sometimes what you've got to think about in strategy is think more than a single campaign. And think how your campaigns can combine together to actually help your prospects move through that buyers journey, and getting those campaigns to work together, that generates synergies that absolutely are going to make your marketing automation campaigns more effective.

Hannah: I fully agree, Mike, I am a big fan, as you know, on the personas and the customer journey, and the stuff we do here at Napier with our marketing automation platform, I would be lost about it, it makes my life so much easier that we have our workflows and our content down to our personas. It's so valuable.

Mike: Yeah, and you do a lot of this, you do a lot of looking at, you know what we're trying to do with particular personas and moving them from step to step. And I think that that's a great example of what people should do. I think one of the challenges you have is particularly when you have a large enterprises, you have lots of kind of siloed groups that are all trying to run their own campaigns. And sometimes that means those campaigns don't necessarily work together. And one of the things that we as an agency can do is actually start helping people ensure that, you know, campaign that one particular team is running is at least somewhat synergistic with what other teams are running.

Hannah: Absolutely. I mean, I was helping out one of our account managers the other day with the development of a plan, and we were talking about the different email sequences that had to be implemented. And sometimes it's not a lot of work. It's just a slight tweak, but he's accepting that they do need slightly different messaging to be able to resonate with them. I think

Mike: That's a great example, Henry love that, you know, it's amazing how many people spend so much time on a sequence of emails, making sure that they flow nicely from one to another, which is obviously important, but then they completely forget that the next sequence should really flow from the previous one, because they deal with those two sequences separately. So I think that's a really important point. I love that.

Hannah: It's brilliant. So moving on, Mike, again, just focus on some stats around the market automation. You know, I love a good stat. I came across a survey from Insightly and they did a survey of 200 B2B marketing leaders. And I think it matches of what we're saying. But they found that five out of 10 of these leaders said that optimization of their overall automation strategy would be a primary goal for this year. And that actually, the areas they're looking to utilise the most are email marketing, social media, content management, and landing pages. None of this surprises me, Does it surprise you?

Mike: We did sound a bit like a laundry list of the main automation tools. You know, I think it's not surprising. I mean, if I'm a B2B marketer, I've got a marketing automation system. You know, I'm surprised of the 13% that are not worried about optimising the customer journeys. It seems to me like everybody should be looking to get their marketing automation system working as efficiently as possible. And clearly, one thing it does say, though, and I'm being a bit facetious about the features, but, you know, you point out that it's those core features of marketing automation that people really need to focus on. And I think that's interesting because what it's saying is, what we need as marketers is we need those core features, but almost the dole things to be optimised and improved and made easier to use, rather than necessarily market automation vendors trying to find, you know, little niche features that maybe don't appeal to a lot of users. What do you think?

Hannah: Yeah, I agree. I think I'm actually pleasantly surprised, because two years ago, we would have had a chat about this. And market automation was still this huge, nobody knows what's happening. Nobody knows how to use it. And actually, this gives me hope that they need these core features, but they know they need it. So they know they're going to use it to be able to be successful in their campaigns.

Mike: I totally agree. You're, you're absolutely right. And I think that learning that you've identified over the last couple of years, to some extent, has been driven by a sort of strategic imperative for businesses, as people work from home during the pandemic, quite clearly, you know, things like face to face sales visits just disappeared. And so marketing automation became very, very important. And organisations, they had to learn, they had to understand and I think the pressure that, you know, pandemic produced, although there was lots and lots of negatives, I mean, one of the positives is, is that a lot of businesses have actually improved their marketing automation game, don't you think? That's right.

Hannah: Absolutely. And I mean, actually, Mike, you wrote a blog about this, about a month or so ago about this change that actually sales have got to rely more heavily on marketing to be successful, because things like sales meetings, that they're not as popular as they used to be. And actually marked automation is becoming crucial to dry people through the customer journey, because sales is, it's not as important as it once was. But a lot of customers and visitors are now building their own customer journey through the systems and the content that they read in.

Mike: Yeah, absolutely. Right. I mean, you know, analysts like Gartner have shown that more and more, this customer journey is what they call self directed. So the prospects are actually driving the journey. They're not talking to the supplier. And I think this is, you know, a bit of a legacy, again, of the pandemic, where we went from a position where face to face was, you know, sometimes almost the default, it felt to face to face disappearing completely. And clearly, you know, face to face is coming back now. And we're seeing trade shows return. And we're seeing certainly some positivity around conferences, and that's nice. But I still think that feeling amongst buyers and decision makers, that they should be in control of their customer journey. That's a change of approach that I don't think it's going away. And marketers have got to realise that they need to support their prospects in driving that customer journey, rather than trying to dictate a customer journey, because it's just not going to work in the future.

Hannah: I absolutely agree. And it'd be really interesting to see how that pans out throughout the rest of the year.

Mike: Yeah, I mean, I think it's not just this year, it's going forward. But you know, with more and more data available digitally, it's inevitable that people are going to feel like they want to be in control. They don't need to contact salespeople. I mean, I don't for a minute, think the sales function is going away. Clearly, salespeople are going to remain very, very important. It may be that organisations have fewer salespeople, and those salespeople actually responsible for many more sales, some of which they don't get involved in, because it's driven through an online engagement, which is primarily marketing. I mean, in fact, I talked to one clients a little while ago, and they said, you know, five years out, maybe we only have 10%, of the sales force that we have today, because of the move to digitalization. I mean, I think that's a little bit aggressive. But it was certainly interesting to see clients already thinking about, you know, really quite dramatic changes in the balance between sales and marketing. And this increased importance of marketing.

Hannah: Definitely. So I want to go back to something you mentioned a little while ago, Mike. And that was the return of trade shows and conferences, because we know face to face is back. But for insightful tip of the week. This episode, I want to talk about how to use market automation successfully with events. So can you share what you think the secret is to utilise in your market automation platform to help you be successful when you're going to a trade show or conference? Any kind of face to face events like that?

Mike: That's a great question. And I think, you know, it's really simple. We see a lot of companies doing effective outreach prior to events. So they're activating their database, they're encouraging them to meet at events, it's relatively straightforward. They're sending emails out, they then come back from the event, and they don't really nurture those leads. And the reason for that is that people tend to leave that kind of lead nurturing, post event engagement to after the trade show or after the conference. And the reality is, is they just don't get campaigns created after the conference. And I appreciate it's difficult. I mean, I've done trade shows a run to trade shows is fraught. But if you want your marketing automation to be effective, you've got to build the follow up nurture, prior to the event, that's the only way you're going to do it. Because unless it's ready to go immediately after the event, your emails are going to be late, they're not going to resonate as effectively with your audience. And also, you're going to be stressed, following up the event and tidying up all sorts of other loose ends. And you're probably actually not going to get that nurturing flow done. So, you know, to me, the secret is preparation. And if you can prepare, and get that, that campaign ready, you can then just drop the leads in straight after the event. There's no stress, and people will get that nurturing flow. What do you think?

Hannah: I couldn't agree more, Mike, I have learned the hard way, how important it is to get everything prepped before you go, because there is nothing, you're more thankful for them. When you get back from a trade show. And you're tired. You know, this is really important that you can just press a button on the system, and your leads are being nurtured.

Mike: Yeah, and you've done it really well. And I think one of the things you do well, is actually you realise you don't have to reinvent the wheel. So sometimes you can take existing content, and with relatively small modifications to, for example, an email sequence, create a new email sequence that works for the latest trade show. You don't have to sit down with a blank sheet and start from scratch. And I think that's something that you know, you've really bought into, and it makes that preparing in advance much less stressful.

Hannah: Absolutely do not need to make it complex. And the easier you can make it for yourself, actually, the more successful you'll be.

Mike: That's a great insight. I love that.

Hannah: Well, thank you so much for your time today, Mike. It's been another fantastic discussion.

Mike: No, thank you, Hannah. It's been great. And I look forward to talking to you again on the market automation moment.

Hannah: Thanks for listening to the marketing automation moment podcast.

Mike: Don't forget to subscribe in your favourite podcast application, and we'll see you next time.

by Natasha Websdale

How are Marketing Automation Platforms Using AI?

How are marketing automation platforms using AI? Mike and Hannah address how artificial intelligence will shape the future of marketing automation platforms, and the limitations the systems face with integrations with tools such as ChatGPT.

Listen to the podcast now via the links below:

• The Marketing Automation Moment on Apple Podcasts
• The Marketing Automation Moment on Spotify
• The Marketing Automation Moment on napierb2b.com

Transcript: Marketing Automation Moment Episode Six - How are Marketing Automation Platforms Using AI?

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Hannah Kelly

Hannah: Welcome to the marketing automation moment Podcast. I'm Hannah Kelly.

Mike: And I'm Mike Maynard. This is Napier's podcast to tell you about the latest news from the world of marketing automation.

Hannah: Welcome to the marketing automation moment Podcast. I'm Hannah:.

Mike: And I might mean out.

Hannah: This week, we talk about marketing automation platforms using AI, MailChimp getting hacked, how many people are replacing marketing automation systems?

Mike: And we give you tips on how to get the most from your marketing automation system.

Hannah: Hi, Mike, it's great to see you. And it's good to be back for another episode of The Marketing Automation moment.

Mike: Hi, Hannah. Well, it's gonna be fun. I think there's been quite a lot happened in the world of marketing automation. A lot of it around, I guess, AI?

Hannah: Yes, definitely. And I really want to talk about what I think is the buzzword or 2023 so far, and that's chat. GPT. I mean, this seems to have blown. A lot of marketers minds. It's all over LinkedIn. It's all over Twitter. Everywhere you look, you're looking at reference to chat GPT. So it was really interested to come across that an E commerce focus market automation platform, called bloomreach, had actually made an integration with chat GPT. For me, this is moving quite quickly, you know, chat GPT has only been around a couple of months. And suddenly there's integrations. What does this mean for the market automation landscape?

Mike: Yeah, well, I think people have seen chat GPT has hit mainstream media and everyone's got really excited. I'm actually, you know, what you need to do is understand the background and chat GPT is based on this artificial intelligence model. That is actually GPT. Three. Not surprisingly, there's been previous versions of GPT. This is just the latest one. And so I think, you know, people are getting really excited about this, but it has been somewhat of an evolution to get to this point. And interestingly, you know, bloomreach, talk about integrating chat GPT. I mean, I'm interested in whether it's actually the chat client that they're integrating, or whether it's just the model. It sounds from what they're saying, like they've literally just put chat GPT as part of the product, and then allowing people to type in and say, writer sales email for me, which obviously chat GPT does and does very well. But it's a little bit formulaic, isn't it?

Hannah: Yeah, definitely. And I mean, it's interesting, because the way they've looked at the integration, or the way they're promoting the integration is really around the content aspects of subject lines, headlines, Google Ad headlines within the actual platform itself. But, and I know he won't mind saying this. But we actually had a chat a couple of weeks ago, didn't we, Mike, we have one of our directors, Ian, and he was mentioned how excited he'd got about chat GPT. But when he actually looked into it a little bit further, he realised that there was perhaps some issues on just relying on an AI platform like this, to build kind of the emails and the Google ads and the things needed for social media campaigns.

Mike: Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, you know, it's one of those things. And if you're older, like me, you will know when I say I'm as excited about chat GPT as I was when I first saw the programme, Eliza, which was an AI programme, or at least a pseudo AI programme written back in the 1960s. So, you know, it's very exciting, it can do a lot of things, but it's not a complete solution. We were testing out a tool that was using the same model as chat GPT, to write headlines for Google ads. And actually, you know, within the company, we found a couple of problems. Number one, it didn't seem very good at writing headlines that fitted within the maximum character limits. So you'd have to go and edit anyway. And secondly, and this gives away, you know how healthy I am. We were testing it by getting it to write ads for Milky Bar, which is a white chocolate bar available in the UK. And I think the American listeners will know about this, one of the greatest fleets in the world, clearly, but contains lots of things that could cause problems with people with allergies. So it's not gluten free. It's obviously got milk products in etc, etc. and chat GPT just decided to write all these headlines about how it's allergen free, which is kind of scary, I think, you know, if you look at what was said. So Sam Altman runs the company open AI that basically created the GPT model and chat GPT. And someone asked him about the errors that chat GPT makes, which, you know, been pretty well documented. And his answer was, we don't understand we didn't try and build chat GPT to be right. We've tried to build it to repeat what you know, other people have said on the internet. So I think it's important to understand that whilst it can help and accelerate today, it's not quite at the stage where it's going to replace people completely.

Hannah: That's such an interesting point, Mike, about what it's been built for to replicate what's already been done on the internet, rather than to be this innovation tool for something original. And I think that's definitely something that marketers need to keep in mind. It's using data that's been used before. It's Not this innovative tool that's going to provide all these original ideas to make the campaigns more successful, it might save you time. But with regards to actually getting these new outlooks and these new formats, it's not the tool for that.

Mike: No, for sure, it definitely hasn't got to the point where it's got sort of innovation insight in the way that we use it when talking about humans.

Hannah: Definitely. And I think the mention of data really links on well to our next point, and I was actually quite shocked to see this, you might not be as shocked, Mike, but I saw an article recently that the email marketing platform MailChimp has actually been hacked for the second time in six months. To me, that was quite shocking, because I actually had a conversation with a client the other day where they were like, you know, is our data safe? Or market automation platforms? You know, what happens if it fails? What happens if it goes down? And we were sat in this call being like, No, don't worry, these platforms know how to protect data, like we can do backups, it's all okay. And then I see this, and I'm like, oh, is data not as safe as we think it is? Yeah, I

Mike: think it's, it's a really interesting question. And it's a problem that probably should be in the discussions for IT people about the cloud, because it's really hard to, you know, say, yes, you can trust cloud based services. But equally, I think it's important to look at what happens. So this was an attack that appeared to be targeted around some specific accounts, they accessed 133 accounts, which is not good. But it's 133, out of what MailChimp claimer millions of customers worldwide. So a very, very small percentage. And obviously, it's been addressed, I do think it was a little bit of a concern that MailChimp weren't completely open with this. And actually, one of the customers who was hacked, kind of revealed that this has happened. But at the end of the day, you know, one of the biggest jobs of any marketing automation platform is data security. And you've got to figure that, if your target, putting the data with the experts is probably more likely to make the data safe than trying to manage it yourself. I mean, MailChimp has got far more resources to apply to data security around marketing data than probably any customer, don't you think?

Hannah: Yeah, definitely, I think you make a good point, because we can't protect our data, as well as perhaps, you know, a platform like MailChimp, which has these massive IT departments can. So there is an aspect of really putting a faith in the system when you sign up with them. And I think, you know, customers are aware of that. And obviously, it's not ideal that this has happened. But if it is going to happen, as you said, it's only a small amount of accounts, and it's not like millions of people have been compromised.

Mike: Yeah, but I totally agree with you. I mean, it's concerning, you don't want these breaches to happen. And certainly, you know, as you pointed out, it was the second time in six months, you know, so, so MailChimp, I know you're working really hard. But guys, you've got to step it up.

Hannah: Definitely agreed. So this relates nicely on to how are marketers choosing the right market automation platforms. And we've spoken a bit in our last podcast, Mike about demos, and what marketers should be asking in their demos. But I actually came across a report from Martex. It was a Mar tech replacement survey actually revealed that in 2020 to 23% of respondents actually replaced their mark automation solution with a different platform. So they weren't happy with what they were getting from this platform. And they actually went out and got a new solution. What do you think it could be that Why are marketers making these mistakes and not choosing the right platform from the get go?

Mike: That's a great question. I think there's a couple of answers to that. I mean, one is changing a platform doesn't necessarily mean you made a mistake. There could be other reasons, things could have changed, new products could have come online. The other thing is, I think we need to understand, you know a bit more about the audience. And the reality is, is that very large companies are not changing their marketing automation platforms. Frequently, they're making investments and they're really betting for 10 years or more, because of the cost of switching from one platform to another. You have companies using marketing automation that might have 10s of 1000s of landing pages or you know, 1000s of forms. When you look at, you know, a large enterprise with multilingual landing pages and forms and lots of products. They're not the people who are churning very quickly, this is definitely smaller and midsize companies. And I think there's a lot of reasons behind that. And probably most of the reason, you know might be down to the fact that actually these companies are learning about marketing automation, developing their skills and then realising they need something different once they've got more knowledge.

Hannah: That's a definitely less cynical point of view, then my view might I make you make some really interesting points because we've talked about this before as well but there are different levels of the market automation system. So if you are starting out with some think simple like MailChimp, for example, as you mentioned, when you grow your skills, and your company grows, and you realise you need something bigger and better, then you are going to see a switch smart automation platform. So that's a real fantastic point. And definitely more positive spin of actually the companies are growing. So it's more of a positive than a negative thing. Yeah,

Mike: and I also think I mean, if you look at the data actually said that the percentage changing in 22 was down a bit versus 2021. So you know, maybe people are actually settling a bit more, obviously, two data points. It's difficult to draw too much for conclusion. But there was a big jump, for example, in the number of people who've changed SEO tools. And historically, that had been quite small now that it's jumped up. I think a lot of it is just around maturity of the technology, and people internally, but you know, working out what they need, but also the fact that these tools are changing quite quickly. And so I think those two things are driving a need to perhaps change more often than people want.

Hannah: Absolutely, it really is driving the need. That's a really great point, Mike. So if we have a look at marketing automation platforms, we've spent a lot of time talking about the marketing side, we've talked about workflows, we've talked about content, emails, but what I'd be really interested to talk about is what are the benefits to sales. And I asked this because Active Campaign have recently released a report, and it's from a direct client called preview me, and actually revealed that sale reps from this company are saving one day per week by automating repetitive tasks. And I think it's such an obvious and simple thing, but perhaps something that isn't talked about enough because market automation platforms are meant to support both marketing and sales teams. So what do you think are the real key benefits of a mark automation platform for sales?

Mike: I mean, it's a great question. And it's really difficult, because in the past used to have a CRM system, and that was different your marketing. Now the CRM, like Active Campaign is integrated into the marketing automation tool. I mean, it's really hard, you know, you talk about saving one day a week, saving one day a week compared to what and I know, I'm the cynical guy here. But, you know, were they just really inefficient beforehand? Or do they have some competitive tool and actually active campaign is that much better, I suspect, you know, the story is a bit of both. But it's an interesting story. And I do believe that, you know, if you look at both marketing activities and sales activities, when they use automation, people can save a lot of time. One of the challenges is, is really building up the right automations. I mean, we have the same problem at Napier, where, you know, I'm sure there's a lot more we could automate in our marketing automation platform. And it's just a matter of having time and resources to build the logic to actually make that work automatically.

Hannah: Absolutely. And I think I would debate you on one of your points there, Mike, because you mentioned, you know, are the sales team ineffective? You make a good point, we can't compare it to any sets of data. But I think that is one of the key points of a system like this for sales reps is that even if they are a little bit inefficient, the platforms are meant to make them as effective as possible to let them do their jobs easier?

Mike: Yeah. And I'm not arguing the platform's don't work. I mean, you're absolutely right. The platforms are really good. I think the question is, it's saving one day versus what, you know, I mean, we're a marketing agency, we write a lot of press releases. And this is, I think, one of the dirty secrets that we're probably not allowed to admit, but we're gonna admit to our listeners, now, writing press releases, where you have a relative comparison, this product is 10%. Better, and then you just move on, actually haven't compared it to anything 10% better than what? And I think that's always always a difficulty. You look at this saving one day a week, what was it? How do they do it? Why was that the case? And really, I think, you know, although it made a great press release, and we certainly looked at it and liked it, I'd love to see a much more in depth case study explaining exactly what happened, and what sort of automations are implemented and why they save so much time

Hannah: releasing all of our industry secrets, there might QR but yeah, I definitely agree it would be good to see a bit more of an in depth review and analysis of how is it supporting them and have that little bit more data around how it could be saving them this much time?

Mike: Yeah, unfortunately, went to marketing people like us. And clearly someone just got really excited by the number, I mean, is actually over $10,000 a year, if you look at the average sales rep, you know, compensation. So, you know, it is a really big deal. And it's just like, it's really exciting. It's a great headline, I think, to be really useful to people. I'd love to see more detail.

Hannah: Absolutely. So to end off our podcast, as always, Mike, I want to have a bit of a chat about our insightful Tip of the Week. And this week, I'd like to have a bit of a discussion about really using market automation platforms to its full potential. So often companies sign up to these my automation platforms, but they don't really have a strategy or have planned what they're going to use the platform for. So they've got, you know, a big suite, such as HubSpot, for example, that's got everything from workflows, automations, you know, optimizations, SEO, but they're literally just sending email campaigns out on the platform. So what can companies do to really just make sure that they've got a good plan in place before they launch them off automation platform?

Mike: I love this question. I think it's a great question, it comes to the real hub of some problems where, you know, we have clients who basically have expensive marketing automation systems that predominantly just send out newsletters, I mean, one of the solutions is, don't spend all that money, if you just want to send newsletters, go use something like MailChimp, or Constant Contact, and that that would solve the problem. But But I think the, you know, the other answer is much more about thinking about and planning campaigns actually spending some time considering how you can use those, those capabilities. And this is something you've done quite a lot with Napier's tools.

Hannah: Yeah, definitely, I think it's taken a bit of a wider view. And I think this is what we do with clients, you know, I can't resist the plug, you know, I can't like it's part of my job role. But when we take a look at campaigns ever, it'd be in April with our clients, we look at what else we can do around to support that message. So if it's a product launch, yes, let's do these PR aspects. But how can we use the mass automation platform to also get that message out to the database, find new contacts to get it out to new prospects? And I think it's taken a wider look at, okay, we've got this platform, what campaigns are we running? How can we utilise this platform to make our campaigns more effective and more successful?

Mike: I mean, again, great point, think of it from the point of view of the campaigns and how you can make them more successful. I think, you know, the other thing is, is there's a balance, you know, you shouldn't just use a marketing automation tool as an email distribution tool. I mean, that's, that's silly. That's a waste of money. But equally, I think, you know, and let's be honest, it probably applies to us as well, I don't think anyone really uses 100% of the capability. So look at all the features, look at what the platform can do, and make use of as many of those features that are relevant to you as possible, without really killing yourself to try and tick all the boxes, because that can actually be counterproductive. You can spend a lot of time and get, you know, limited benefit.

Hannah: And times and resources. You know, as you mentioned previously, that's always going to be an issue. So as you said, it's a fine line, but it's balancing. What can you implement, that's going to make the real difference. And also, don't be scared to ask people around you ask the experts around, you get, you know, a third insight opinion on how can I do these campaigns? How can I use my resources effectively, to basically build the best marketing automation campaigns that I can?

Mike: I think that's great advice. I mean, it's really good. And probably the sort of advice we should end the podcast on because that's a great thing for for listeners to take away.

Hannah: Definitely. Well, thanks so much for joining me again this week, Mike, it's been a great conversation as always.

Mike: Thanks, Hannah.

Hannah: Thanks for listening to the marketing automation moment podcast.

Mike: Don't forget to subscribe in your favourite podcast application, and we'll see you next time.

by Natasha Websdale

Why Should You Use Personas to Enhance Your Campaigns?

In episode five of the Marketing Automation Moment podcast, Mike and Hannah share how to deal with a Martech stack that’s getting too complex, and the questions marketers need to be asking in demos.

They also explore why personas can be such a valuable element in your marketing automation campaigns, and how they can help drive your content and campaigns.

Listen to the podcast now via the links below:

• The Marketing Automation Moment on Apple Podcasts
• The Marketing Automation Moment on Spotify
• The Marketing Automation Moment on napierb2b.com

Transcript: Marketing Automation Moment Episode Five - Why Should You Use Personas?

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Hannah Kelly

Hannah: Welcome to the marketing automation moment Podcast. I'm Hannah.

Mike: And I'm Mike Maynard. This is Napier's podcast to tell you about the latest news from the world of marketing automation.

Hannah: Welcome to the marketing automation moment Podcast. I'm Hannah:.

Mike: And I'm Mike Maynard.

Hannah: And today we discuss marketing automation platforms and quote in the complexity of the MAR tech stack, questions to ask in demos,

Mike: and the importance of using personas to build your marketing campaigns.

Hannah: Hi, Mike, it's great to have you back. You've just been in the US for the last couple of weeks. How are you doing?

Mike: Hi, Hannah. Well, it's really good to be back. We had a great trip to the US had a week at sea, but and also a trip around the Bay Area. But it's nice to be back even though the weather's a little chilly in England.

Hannah: Well, yeah. So you're coming from there wouldn't be quite as nice as Last Vegas or Silicon Valley?

Mike: Well, actually, Vegas was quite nice. But Silicon Valley was flooded, there was so much rain that I chose flooded out my hotel had to go and get another hotel because of all the water and the lack of drainage. So coming back here perhaps isn't as bad as I thought.

Hannah: Well, it's nice to know that it's not just the UK that gets torrential rain poor. Exactly. So I'm really interested to know, what was the key thing you'd say came out of your US trip? What was your one key takeaway?

Mike: Well, I guess you're talking about marketing automation, because that's the podcast. So one of the interesting things that became very clear was that companies, particularly companies in the sort of, you know, late stage startup, they tend to have marketing automation teams. But the thing was limiting their marketing automation campaigns is content. So it seems to me and this is probably not different from from anyone else. But the people we're talking to, we're really struggling to get enough content to be able to run the automation campaigns they wanted to run. And I think that that's something you know, we all need to think about, because content is so important.

Hannah: That's really interesting. Thanks, Mike. And I think you're completely correct. You know, there is no market automation campaigns without content. Exactly. Well, let's cover some of the news stories that you've missed from the market automation world while you've been away. So the first thing I wanted to have a little bit of a chat about and slightly out of the scope of specific b2b technology, market automation platforms. But is that demand bridge has partnered with age to power a quote to order workflow. So basically, what this integration provides is a real time product information coming directly from Sage to include imagery pricing, to basically populate customer proposal documents within demand bridge itself. So it's quite an interesting concept, don't you think?

Mike: I think it's really interesting. I mean, demand bridge isn't really a classic marketing automation platform. But it's fascinating that products, like demand bridge are really needed, because one of the big issues of marketing automation is that they focus on the marketing and not the sales. So typically, you're not seeing quotes, modules within marketing automation platforms. To me, that's something I think that that will come. I mean, I think it's something that has to change as we go forward. But today, even some of the automation platforms that integrate both marketing, and also a CRM for sales, they still don't have that quote, module, it's still external. So it's one big error, I hope we'll see improvements of going forward.

Hannah: Definitely. And I think it is a challenge that companies face when they're looking to export from just a CRM that they're using to maybe it's perhaps gold CRM, and they're looking to move over to a platform that's full sales and marketing. And actually, I've come across with they've been like, well, actually, we can do quotes directly in something like gold CRM. And that's actually can be a disadvantage when moving over to a market automation platform.

Mike: Yeah, I think when you go to these integrated platforms, you can lose some of the functionality that you got with a separate CRM platform. So it is an issue for some people. But equally, a lot of these marketing automation systems will also integrate. And to be honest, once you get to a certain size, pretty much everybody's on Salesforce. So we are seeing that you know that Salesforce dominance is still there for the larger enterprises. So it's definitely coming. It's definitely something that could could improve. It's an area where perhaps the the market automation guys are lagging behind the CRM, guys, but I'm optimistic it's gonna get fixed in the near future.

Hannah: Definitely. And I think there are solutions out there already, you know, there's integrations, as you mentioned, but integrations such as panda doc that can be used to help that, quote, functionality come back into the automation integrated functions.

Mike: That's such a good point. Because actually, even when you've got a CRM with a quoting function, sometimes people use other tools, Panda docs very popular because of its the signature capabilities. And so I think what you're seeing is this problem where you've got all these little specialist solutions, but I suspect in the long term, it will be a process of consolidation and we're just have to wait until that happens.

Hannah: Definitely. And I think the mention of integrations really moves us along to my next point, Mike. And this is because I recently came across an article by marketing charts. We're a big fan of marketing charts here at Navia. But what was really interesting is this focused on the MAR tech stack and how the market stack is actually getting too complicated. So the report actually revealed that 40% of respondents in the USA and 44% of respondents in the UK believed that their Mar tech stack had got too complicated. Now, when does it start getting too complicated? When does it start getting way out of control?

Mike: I'd say interesting, because I mean, the complexity of some of these products, it feels like just one product would be too complex, if you've got a small team. But But I do understand that, you know, what we're talking about earlier is a great example where you might end up with a marketing automation platform talking to a CRM platform, which talks to a quote platform. And that starts to get complex there in terms of managing just that simple process, from getting an inquiry through to quoting. But I think the reality is that actually, complexity means functionality as well. So today, people actually quite like choosing the best product for each particular task. And I will suggest that, although complexity can be a challenge, because we don't have these, you know, truly integrated solutions, actually picking the best solution. And then dealing with some of the integration issues, can be a better a better way to go about it, than trying to pick something as integrated and frankly, doesn't offer the functionality you need.

Hannah: I think that's a brilliant point, Mike, that functionality, because perhaps that's where marketers are getting confused. Because often these integrations or these platforms all have a use, perhaps it's just analysing what you're using what's actually beneficial to what you're looking to achieve. And that's how you can start narrowing it down. So it's not too complex when you look at the bigger picture,

Mike: for sure. And we're seeing some people trying to integrate, I think HubSpot is perhaps the best example. And I think other vendors will follow. But it will tend to be slower, because at the moment, now, the technology is still evolving. And actually what's happening is we're seeing, you know, vendors concentrate on what they're good at, and try and be the very best at that, rather than try and do an okay job across a wide range of different functionality.

Hannah: Definitely, and I think perhaps that's one to watch, as we move into, you know, further into 2023, perhaps the second half of the year, we'll see that slight change where the focus on the integrations will be made.

Mike: Yeah, I think maybe 2023 might be a bit optimistic. But But hopefully, you know, we're going to start seeing more integrations. And we've seen that to some extent, with some acquisitions as well. So I think it is gonna continue. But yeah, I probably not as optimistic as you when I say, I figure it's probably a three to five year kind of process.

Hannah: I'm always optimistic marketer, Mike, that's me. You are brilliant. Well, I thought another thing we could have a chat about, Mike. As we you know, we're now midway through January in 2023. And often this is where companies are looking at the different marketing automation platforms they can use. So whether they're going from an existing CRM to go to integrated platform, maybe they've decided their budget needs to change, and they want to integrate from one platform to another. So what is really the key thing within a demo, when you've got a demo, you're looking for your perfect marketing automation platform? What are the questions that marketers need to be asking in these demos to get the real outlook of how the market automation platforms are going to perform for them?

Mike: I love that question. And actually, martec.org has recently published an article giving the 15 questions you should ask during a marketing automation Demak. I mean, to me, I think one of the biggest challenges as a demo, it's not the same as actually, you know, using the product and running it every day. And so to me, once you've understood that it's got the functionality you need, which probably you've done on paper anyway, what your focus on a demo should really be is about ease of use, and how well the platform fits with your marketing processes. So to me, it's about you know, how easy is it to use? How easy is it to integrate with what you do? It's much less about seeing the flashy features? You know, that's something you should be able to research outside of the demo. What do you think?

Hannah: Yeah, I definitely agree. But I would also say other important aspects is the training and resources available. So you know, if we take HubSpot, for example, we know they've got a fantastic training hub. There's account managers per company that helped them have any questions. And I think that's really vital as well to really kickstart in the market automation platform to be successful. Is are those additional service and health features available to you as well?

Mike: Yeah, you got to Good point there. I mean support is, you know, I guess part of ease of use, but it's a very specific thing. I mean, however, I feel that today, most of the marketing automation platforms have realised that the biggest risk is having customers churn, so they sign up for a year and then leave, you know, the cost of acquiring that first customer is probably almost as much as the first year subscription. So therefore, it's very unprofitable if you have customers leave after a year. And to be honest HubSpot, were one of the first to work this out and really provide great training, great support. But now I think if you look at what's happening, in general, the training and support is very, very good across the board, may be, you know, slightly different in style for some of the, you know, big enterprise systems, where they expect a certain level of knowledge. And if you've got people who are really new, then perhaps the support isn't geared to them. But equally, there's also a big third party community in terms of training, support, and education. And, you know, a lot of people, they do tend to lean on their agency as well. So we know that quite often, our clients when they're talking about issues with market automation, they'll come to us first rather than going to the vendor, you know, and that's a whole bunch of reasons partly we understand what they're trying to achieve, then I have to give any context, partly because, you know, we're very invested in making them successful. And maybe also, it's just easier to talk to someone you know, and you're working with on a day to day basis. So I think the support is is interesting, important. But to some extent, I think it's becoming so because the vendors that are successful, almost by definition, have given good support.

Hannah: Definitely. And I know I'm very biassed when I say this, Mike, but I have to say I think you're spot on there when you say talk to someone you know. So you know, we have a lot of clients with their marketing, automation queries, problems, help them notch their campaigns. And I think a lot of our success comes down to that we have such good relationships, that we can tell the truth, we can tell them when something's going to work, when something is not the right idea for them. And that really is the benefit of having the experts around you.

Mike: Yeah, and I think we probably shouldn't say this, which is probably a secret. But generally speaking, if you're an agency partner, you get better support than you do if you're a customer. So vendors will give agency partners special access into support. And obviously, that's because they assume the agency partner has got a level of knowledge, they're not going to ask the basic questions. So you'll learn by skip that first level of support. So, you know, often talking to an agency, you're actually getting that shortcut into, you know, the more experience and deeper expertise of the second level support team. So a little bit of a secret there as well.

Hannah: Definitely. And I think to relate to that, as well, as you know, the things like free trials, you know, we've talked about user functionality. And I think being able to focus on the free trials, but use an agency to skip that second step and get that free trial, rather than having to go through the long haul the demos, is a real benefit for company sometimes.

Mike: Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, although trials are limited, you can never really put all your marketing automation across to a new platform in a trial. I think they're way better than demos. So they give you a much better flavour. So getting to that trial and be able to test a few things out. It's not perfect, but it's absolutely the right way to go.

Hannah: Definitely. So Mike, moving on to our insightful tip of the week, I was having a think about what I wanted us to discuss in this podcast episode. And we actually hosted a webinar on the first of February through pm GMT, focusing on customer journeys, and really how to use them, and how to use them successfully in b2b. And focusing on that, I thought it would be interesting to have a conversation around personas within market automation systems, because personas can have a lot of benefits within the customer journey, but also a lot of the functionality within the marketing automation platforms such as workflows, forms, things like that. So my initial question to you is, why bother with personas, if you could give me one sentence as to why personas are so important? Why should marketers bother with them?

Mike: Well, I mean, the obvious reasons, you make up silly names for the personas. So it's one of the most, it's one of the most fun bits of marketing is coming up with your persona name. So that's clearly a reason I mean, more seriously. Creating a persona is really important because what you're trying to do when when you're you're doing marketing is you're trying to hit a range of people, not everybody's the same. But what you really want to do is hit in the centre of that group of people. So you're going to be most effective at hitting the largest number of people in your audience. If you're aiming right to the side to someone who's got really, you know, extreme motivations or extreme views, you're probably going to be very ineffective at targeting that population as a whole. So your persona is kind of giving you the bullseye in the middle of this much bigger target, which is your audience. And if you're aiming for the bull's eye, that's going to give you the best possible results. So That's the really simple sort of technical reason for creating personas.

Hannah: And I think to add to that, Mike as well is this again screams why content is so key to market automation campaigns because we can hit the bull's eye, but you're going to make sure that not just your email and your messaging is Hitting the Bullseye. But also the content is tailored to their specific personas.

Mike: It's such a good point, I mean, different personas need different content. And by understanding the persona, and typically it's around, you know, the personas, pain points, what motivates them what their goals are, it's content that either helps them achieve the objectives I ultimate, I guess, you know, when you talk about individuals get promotional look good in inside a company, or it's content that helps them solve a problem. And the important thing is, once you begin to build personas, you've realised that different people involved in a buying decision will actually have very different pain points and very different objectives. And so therefore, you begin to realise the need to create content that's targeted at each persona. And not only that, but also these different personas take different customer journeys. So you know, whilst a safe persona as great as the bullseye of what you're looking to target in terms of your audience, the percent was also great because it effectively defines where you should be focusing your content, and also what the customer journey is going to look like. And all of those, when you put it together, fundamentally, the persona should be the foundation of a lot of your marketing activities.

Hannah: Absolutely. And I think it's key to mention here, Mike as well, that using personas, and especially within the automations doesn't have to be complicated. Now, you've mentioned a lot of different things there regarding how personas can work, how it helps within the customer journeys. But it doesn't have to be a complicated process. If you have a plan in place for how the automations can help you send out the sequences and send out this content, then actually, it can be a really, I wouldn't say easy, but I wouldn't say hard, but a really good way an effective way to target personas effectively.

Mike: Yeah, and I think for example, what you do with with Napier's marketing is great, because you've got two primary personas you target. And one is is fundamentally interested in PR and media relations. And the other is very much interested in digital. And actually, it really does reflect the kind of prospects and customers we see. So I think what you're doing with vapour is a great example of how you can simplify it down. And you know, we have other personas, but we have these two primary ones. And he's done a great job about defining what they care about, you know, what motivates them, and then building content that appeals to those two different personas. So much. So I know that you're actually almost able to define which persona someone is that they come in as a lead by which piece of content they've signed up to receive.

Hannah: Yes, absolutely, that. And I think that's the value of using something simple, like forms to identify which content piece links to which persona. And I have to say, when I've been building the strategy, and for this year for 2023, I've had it in my mind, okay, well, we want to run this Account Based Marketing Campaign for the example. And we're going to use this piece of content. And I know this is the persona we're targeting. And I think that's the rule of consistency as well. You know, I've worked at Napier, I'm in my seventh year now of working at Napier. And we've had the same personas, we tweak the, you know, we might tweak their values, their interest as the year and the landscape kind of changes, but their fundamentals remain the same of what we're trying to sell them.

Mike: Yeah, definitely, I think maybe the only thing is that the percentage of people we see who are really focused primarily on digital, obviously, as increased as Digital's become more widespread. But we still have that kind of PR Media Relations persona, they tend to be specialists in a larger organisation. So rather than being a, you know, someone running, marketing, like a CMO, they're much more likely to be a specialist. But for sure, you know, that persona has served us really well and continues to serve as well. So personas, I think work, they drive your content, they drive you understanding the customer journey, and ultimately, you know, they drive the market activities, as you say. So that's super, super important.

Hannah: Definitely super important. So we're heading to the end of our time. Now, Mike, it's been a really interesting conversation, as always, before we say goodbye, is there anything else you wanted to share to our listeners today?

Mike: Actually, that's a great question. I think the only thing is just to put another note out about the webinar we're running. So if people are interested in marketing, automation, you know, one of the most powerful things is looking at the customer journey. And I'd love people to come and join our webinar. It's the first of February, they can go to our website, or check out my you know, social media on LinkedIn, and sign up. So it'd be great if people could join.

Hannah: Brittany and thanks so much for your time today, Mike.

Mike: It's been great. Another good conversation, Hannah.

Hannah: Thanks for listening to the marketing automation. Bye

Mike: And then podcast don't forget to subscribe in your favorite podcast application and we'll see you next time.

by Natasha Websdale