Pitfalls and Gotchas of Building (even simple) Marketing Automations

Adeola Sole 0:31
Good afternoon, everybody and welcome to today's session. So today we're going to be speaking about the pitfalls and gotchas of building even simple marketing automations. Now before we get into it, I'm just gonna ask my lovely panellists to introduce themselves. So let's start with Tali. Tali. Please let everybody know who you are and what you do.

Tali Hasanov 0:56
Thanks Adeola Good morning, afternoon or evening everyone. My name is Tali and I am the owner of digital marketing agency called WSI digital bus. I have been in around digital marketing and email in particular for about 15 years now. And I absolutely excited to join this panel with those lovely ladies.

Adeola Sole 1:20
Amazing and the Neharika. Beautiful name, please tell everyone who you are and what you do.

Neharika Sharma 1:28
Sure, thanks, everyone. Hi, everyone, from all corners of the world. I'm Neharika. I am a senior manager for the customer success team at Netcore solutions. I have about 10 years of work x mix with digital marketing and online CRM. Super stoked to be part of this panel really excited about an old women's panel today. So yeah, looking forward to this.

Adeola Sole 1:50
Yeah, go power. And you can't see her name badge. But we have Kisha, please tell us who you are, even though I've already said it and what you do.

Kisha Robinson 2:02
Hi, everyone, super happy to be here. Thank you, I do Allah. I'm Kisha Robinson. I'm a senior email marketer at Udemy, the largest online learning marketplace. And I work on the b2c side of email marketing.

Adeola Sole 2:17
Fantastic. And I'm Adeola Sole, I'm a senior consultant at holistic email marketing. And I'll be hosting and moderating today's webinar. So we're gonna jump straight into it now that you've met the lovely ladies. And first question essentially, is what is automation? And why is it so important? So who wants to kick this off? Everybody is silent.

Neharika Sharma 2:46
I can do that. I think marketing automation is essentially for me, as I've seen and worked with so many brands and companies in forms, that is essentially a more stronger platform and a strategy rather to develop relationships with your customers. I think a lot of us marketers look at the, you know, the whole concept of marketing automation to not just automate the whole process of a multi touchpoint with the customer. But it's also about building a relationship because customers are so smart. And they have so many options to know so much about competitors. So yeah, I think this to set a bit of a pretext. Yeah, no,

Adeola Sole 3:27
I totally agree. I actually read somewhere that someone described automations as telling a story to the customer, which I thought was really brilliant. So essentially, it's almost a series of communications that are sent as we all know, the premise of an automation, but it allows you to build upon your first send your second send, and really set the tone. But the one thing that I would say with telling that story, is to make sure that you always optimise that story. Because as time goes on, that story loses its credence. And so therefore, it needs to be readjusted a little bit. No, just to keep the the audience re engaged. Does anybody else want to add to that, you know, just talking as to why it's important to have automations in place.

If I may add something, and is great finds Neharika and they all absolutely agree, I would add saying that this should be more of a conversation. So listening to the customer getting feedback and act in accordance is an answer, right? So it is true building relationship. And these are only setting but it should be really a conversation between brands and customers.

Kisha Robinson 4:40
I like that I actually really like that approach. So it's not necessarily all about driving sales, but building that dialogue with the customer, using it to also build upon your business offering and learning from what they're saying rather than just sell, sell, sell. I think that's very well put well So, now that we've kind of established the ground rules, what do you what do you ladies feel are the actual pitfalls? Or let's say blind spots that marketers usually Miss? And what makes for a really good automation? Okay, shut up get great, great.

I mean, definitely as we can tell by how often it's been mentioned, even in this Expo alone, but how often it's a key topic and, and articles and webinars and different content that we're exposed to, is the importance of data and how crucial that is, and our automations. So just three points like that would lead to kind of poor data or poor use of data would be, in my opinion, not starting with a strategy or plan so that you know what data that you need to even obtain from your customers or your clients, trying to do too much too fast trying to automate everything all at once you're, you're bound to run into issues there with your data, and then not being able to make sure that it's, it's accurate and flowing in the direction that you want it to flow. And also, as Holly mentioned, not being client or customer centric, you know, we can't just do automations just for the fact of trying to save ourselves as marketers time. And you know, making things easier for ourselves. But we also have to look at it from the perspective of the customer first, and see how what's how it's going to make their one learning about your product, getting acquainted with your product and or service. And then also using it how are we going to make it easier for the customer and the client?

Adeola Sole 6:46
No, I agree. If I might add to what Keisha just said, and I absolutely agree to go good point strategies should be always the first before beginning any kind of activities around email digital. And I would like to add, basically understanding Who's your audience, right? What what are they trying to solve? And how you can help them solving this problem, right? So what's their their problems? And what is your solution? So how are you helping them and on the pitfall sides, and I saw it white many times about data, sometimes it leaves it, you know, in different places, and companies have no connections between those points two or three, and they just send in some random things to customers who just get frustrated, right? So getting an email, you know, three months past your purchase, saying, how was your recent experience might be not very appropriate, right? I ended up in November for for buying Samsung, and then start starting to get emails every day about your birthday, which is in May, it might be not appropriate. So automation is great. But the suggestion, you can just let it run in the unsupervised and hoping that it will work like a magic. It's always good to look at the numbers, data, and if it's actually aligned, is what you would like to achieve and what expectations of automation. So always measure and checks analytics.

Yeah, no, I think that's a brilliant point. And actually, it builds upon. We know that there are so many automations out there. So ones that are actually trying to be more customer focused, and let's say helpful, like replenishment emails, so if you've ever bought a skincare or haircare product, there are some brands that will send out a Yuju for another, another item, but you're still only halfway through your first product. So in essence that hasn't really hit at the right time. So I think it's also looking at your repurchase rate, you know, when you're trying to be helpful to the customer, making sure that you pick out some of those key sets of information that you need. So if it's things like replenishment look at how often do people buy, what is that repurchase rate? How many times are they ordered, so you know when to incentivize. So, like, you know, Kesha and tele have actually alluded to it's looking at that information is is that your disposal, it's at your disposal. So it's there for the taking, and it's there to help inform how you move your automations further, and I think yeah, that's definitely some of the areas that you know, some of us marketers can can sometimes overlook and it's not our fault You know, we've got loads of things going on. We've got pressures from all over the place, but I think sometimes it's great to have these forums because it just helps remind you of technically the things you already know. But it allows you to then go back review and have a look at one your data points. Am I pulling in the right information does this actually help me serve the customer, but also helps you look at the content as well because we In automation without good content, there's no point in setting all of this up if the content doesn't make sense. So yeah, America, do you have anything to add? Maybe I know we've been pulling apart the pitfalls. Maybe you might have some good examples. Or maybe you might have some more pitfalls that we need to let fellow marketers know about.

Neharika Sharma 10:22
I think it's lovely, I think, amazing ideas from Keyshia darling. And you. And I completely resonate with everything that you've just said, because these are, I think these are maybe not pitfalls, like you mentioned, and they're their daily activities that we've got a target. So we end up overlooking the customer in our chase to kind of, you know, develop the right automation strategy. Yeah. So, I think for me, what I've observed in my experience, one of the things that marketers tend to overlook is that they focus so much on their own funnels, right, their own life stages of their business, that they forget what the customer really wants to know about or read about. And I'm just going to give you a quick example of something that happened recently. So we have a bfsi customer with us, working in automation with us. And we observe that they were observing a different engagement over a period of time, and we were thinking, Oh, my God, our automation is so dynamic in real time, what could be the reason? And we realised that a change in simple strategy where we just added a preferred channel node, so all we did was we fine tune our automation strategy to the channel that the customer would prefer engaging on? And that made the biggest difference for us? And these are some minor tweaks that tell us look, you know, what, the customer should be the centre of your strategy, and not your business.

Adeola Sole 11:50
quite interested in do you think, essentially, that when people think of automations, they're far, far too email centric? I just had myself twice. Do you think that, would you would you suggest that people look beyond the email remit? So expose more of what their emails can do? Let's, can you build upon that?

Yeah, sure, I think it's a very good question. Because we, we've seen a lot of situations where even the marketers, you know, ask us to pump up a lot of emails, no, you want to send emails, you want to shoot one trigger, we want to do this. But like I said, Before, I think the customers overall, and so we have to evolve, we're evolving into understanding that, you know, maybe he, he's just going to unsubscribe, Gmail has come out with this feature, where if you don't open the emails, after a certain amount of days, they want to unsubscribe. So people are becoming smarter, is our understanding that, you know, marketers may or may not be, you know, innocently taking advantage of the channel and the greatness of email, because organic. But I would want to say that I think it's evolving, we're seeing that the customers and the marketers both are sinking in understanding that the triggers should make sense. It should not bombard users, you know, so Yeah,

I agree, I think definitely a nice happy synergy between your different channels. And, you know, identify, like you said where they are. So with one, one company that I used to work with, they've got a very big focus in terms of Gen Z. And what they were doing was creating a lot of automations that were on the email platform after doing some research because it felt as though Okay, Gen Z, that these Gen Z lots, they're not they're not paying attention, they're not giving us the, the the attention that we need, how come so they did some research and found out that Gen Z actually hate emails. To put in more generally find other ways of being communicated to are more appropriate than an email, which is quite interesting. So I think it definitely ties in as well. Understanding your audience and understanding where they are, and tailoring those sets of columns to meet them where they are. For me, I guess I'm archaic a bit of a dinosaur. I love a good email when I see a push an email every day for me, so I guess that's showing my age. I'm not part of the Gen Z crew. But it's it's really interesting and I think it's something that sometimes as marketers we fail to remember I I've definitely been at fault here, when I've been solely focused on CRM, or the email channel within itself. And I forget at times that there are those other outlets that we can use to target and I think potentially for me, personally, I'm not talking about all of you guys that are watching us today. But for me, I'm trying to protect my KPIs and my revenue because I know at times it's not attributed so it's a bit it's a bit of a Fish move on my part. But it's not about me, it's not about my KPIs. As we say we've got to be more customer centric. So yeah, totally love this. And does anyone have any great examples of really good automations? What have we seen that we feel like this is how you get it done?

Actually, if I might, for example, say four right? Everyone knows the four beauty brands. So you can subscribe to the insider you get coin so every time they send an email if you're an insider, they tell you Okay, for this point, you can ABC ga purchases choose this certain products or for this if you buy for this amount, then you get so basically they they provide you some kind of flexibility and personalization for your you know, based on your experience and purchase experience. So you My life is based on that. I just wanted to actually mentioned about automation, previous points that we spoke about welcome in emails, importance, because at all, you mentioned other channels, people and businesses spend money for to drive customers to their website, paid search social media channels as your whatever channels, right. And then surprisingly, more than 50% of businesses don't send welcome email right away. So there is a right means right? And, and we as customers we expect, right? We almost if if I, if I'm already ready to give you my email address, you kind of have to send meets expectations, right? It's hard. It's same as website as we you know, there is only certain elements should be on the page saying this email, if I'm given my email address, I supposed to get some kind of information to set up expectation, etc. So 50% off, or more than 50% of businesses don't send the welcome email, right. So there is a image. So this is really low hanging fruit for some businesses implemented. It's not that complex, maybe it's a simple automation. But for sure, if you as a business not doing it here, it will improve your customer experience.

Definitely, especially because it's been noted that welcome emails, as well as abandoned basket. I have one of the highest opens clicks and actually predominantly good revenue as well, just from that first initial Hello. I think sometimes when you provide your details to accompany, especially when you especially your welcome email also serves weirdly as your own confirmation that Oh, everything works my email when I'm fine. I put in the right email yet. Okay, I'm going to start receiving things moving forward. When you don't receive that welcome email, you start second guessing yourself as a customer. Did I? Did I put that in? Right? Am I going to hear from them? I really needed that 10% of my first purchase code. Where is it? So yeah, you're right. Totally. It's definitely something that businesses especially 50% Wait, tell him, they need to have that it's it's incredibly straightforward. I do know that at times. The some people's API's are not in real time. And so they have to wait for the information to pass through. Usually 24 hours but Come on, guys, as Tolly said, low hanging fruit quick wins money being left on the table. We don't want that in 2021. Not after the year we've had. Let's recruit some money. So yeah, I think those are that's a really good tip for those watching. And actually, I just want to say, if anybody does have any questions, please feel free to type it away. You know, where we're happy to answer any questions that anyone may have in terms of automation while we give you our insights over the next 20 minutes. So yeah, feel free to interject, we'll answer on the spot, don't you worry. So moving on to the next question, unless anybody else has anything to add on. In terms of good automation?

I do. I actually just had an experience as a consumer, where I signed up to find out some information about a graduate degree programme. And right away, they sent me a welcome email and a welcome text message. So and So right away, as we were saying customer centric that gives the customer the ability to choose which channel they want to receive communication from us. I'm also obviously as an email marketer, A huge fan of email. So I'll be opting out of the text messages that feels a little bit too personal and intrusive to me personally. But even as marketers, we have to know not to put our perspectives. But I appreciate the opportunity to choose the channel that I want it to be communicated with right away.

Yeah, yeah. Do you know what he's actually good automation are usually the ones that are more customer centric, because it's the ones you remember the most. So before we got put into lockdown, I did a little stint around Italy, like having a midlife crisis, I was turning 85. And certain things hadn't really panned out in my life. So I thought, gonna do a Eat, Pray Love, but in Italy. And I had a few different hotels, you know, as I was travelling around, and it was one hotel in particular, that when I booked it, they had sent me my order confirmation as per usual, then a few days before my trip, they sent me another email just telling me things that I could do in the area, and things that are the hotel, and what tourists love to do, you know, the closeness, excursions, etc, etc. And I thought, Oh, this is incredibly handy, because I hadn't planned my stay yet. And it was Naples, then on the day that I was due to check in, I received a text message with the Wi Fi code. So if I was then waiting in the lobby, I could then immediately access the Wi Fi, it told me my room number, and what floor I would be on and where Breakfast is served all in one text message. And I just thought, This is fantastic. And essentially, it's an automation, but it's put me at the front of everything. So it's not asking me to buy anything, it's not asking me to do anything. It's more just helping me to enjoy my stay, and to have a more relaxing time as soon as I arrived. So that when you're using the data correctly, and really being customer fast, you build some incredible automations. And so yeah, I think he should give you great experience. I can't I can't wait until we can travel again, I

Kisha Robinson 22:24
was the name of the hotel.

What was the name? I will put it in the I will even forward you the email and the text. Put it in the chat. I think it was Best Western. Okay, so I really, really did. So now actually, this bill moves us on nicely to our next question, and Kisha, this one is for you. data, how can it be used to enhance your automation? So you know, we've mentioned data roll lots. And Tyler Tyler is nodding away cuz she wants to get out this question too. So yeah, I'd like Keyshia kick us off with this. How can we really use data to drive some meaningful automations?

Yeah, for sure. So like we mentioned, just from the beginning, knowing what data it is that you need, what data it is, that's going to help you achieve the goal that you want, but also what your customer is going to need, personalised to them to achieve the goal to achieve the goal that they want on your platform or with your product or service. So that's number one, knowing what data to even obtain. And once you've got that data, how are you storing that data? Is that data easily accessible for you to use within your automate, automate automations and personalizations? That's one of your huge point. So if you're, you know, a small team, and you're using one platform to do all of that, making sure that you know, these platforms are really evolved nowadays, the ESP that we've got to use are really evolved nowadays are is, is the data that you need in order to achieve to achieve you and your customers go in the right place for you to be able to use it appropriately. If you've got a larger team, are you in communication with your engineering team to make sure that that data pipeline is where it needs to be in order to to, you know, use that data properly and to be accessible in the appropriate thing? And then once once you have that and you have it stored? Are you maintaining it? Are you making sure that it's accurate? You know, are you sending Did someone put in a name that's or something in place of their name to be really simplified? Because obviously that's the most simplified version of personalization, someone's name, are you sending out the right name? If not, do we have backup information backup data to use or default information to use in place of, you know, the data that we don't have for specific Customer so that the customer that didn't want to give you that particular information so that you don't miss a beat with them. So again, one, what should what data do we need? How are we storing and maintaining that data?

And then

how are we using that most appropriately? How are we using that in a way that really like like you like your experience at Viola with the hotel? How are we using that in a way to really enhance the customer or the clients experience? We don't always have to sell, we don't always have to. We don't, we don't need to the old saying goes always be selling right? A lot of what we're looking for, when, you know, we're customers, we're all customers, we're all consumers. So put ourselves in the consumer shoes, what are you looking for? Do you want to be sold to all the time, not. So you know, your experience with that product or service is most important. So with with your customers and your clients, we need to do the same thing with them. So just make sure that making sure that we're obtaining the correct data, maintaining that maintaining that data, and then using it in a way that makes sense for that customer and to enhance their experience. For instance, at Udemy, you know, a, an online learning platform, folks can take courses with different instructors, and we're sending them things that apply to whatever topic or category that they that they are interested in, you know, if someone is interested in web development, we're not sending them information on art courses, unless of course, they've also showed interest in art courses, you know, so we're sending them what's what's of interest to them, not what we want to sell or not what we we see our best selves, as far as categories concerned, we're gonna send you information on bestsellers is something that we think you might be interested in. But it's going to be based on that customer, that client above all else.

Adeola Sole 27:00
Whatever bust on set, Kisha absolutely love it. Do you Italia? Did you want to ask? Because we've got some questions coming in.

Tali Hasanov 27:13
Yeah, if I may quickly and Kesha great, great sites about the data, it's really important because many times and I personally saw it when, you know, organisation have data all over which is not connected. And then it's just, you know, missing missing points. One quick example of some great data use is actually online dates. And those are successful. They send you really personalised emails, percentage of, you know, new users that actually feed almost 100% feed to you based on your profile based on your interests. And actually, interestingly enough, survey was done by statista in 2018, I think. So men actually claimed online dating other day didn't receive enough messages while woman claimed that they received so having this gender, so maybe you send you know, less the woman more men. And again, using this data, what you have appropriately. So that's

Adeola Sole 28:19
it. I totally agree. It's It's literally all about using your data in the right way and making sure first and foremost, it's clean, that the data points that you need, are there and I like Kisha had pointed out if there are missing data's or missing entry points, ensuring that there is a default a backup. So if you're missing first name for personalization, and it's always straightforward stuff, but sometimes again, we forget to do it. Neharika Do you have anything to add?

Neharika Sharma 28:52
Amazing, very important points have just been discussed. And I'll just like to add one tiny example like where I experienced what how important data was and how important was it to understand the customer. So I'm just going to talk about the customer analytics in the park place in automation. There was a online grocery forum who they were trying to build a strategy and they were trying to understand what is selling for them what products should they promote and they were going by their own statistics Okay, you know what shampoo sell the most I'm gonna go for that. But we took a step back and we said look, you know what, let's let's deep dive into this and we realised and these are such amazing results. We had different results for different gios so for certain months, we understood that customers were actually heavily buying skincare or talking about skincare or inquiring about skincare over haircare and they wanted to get communication on that. And it was funny because you know, you just have your sales data, but what about Customers feedback, you know, simple things that I'm, I'm going arcade? No, no, I'm talking about the time when the, the stores would probably ask you, you know, face to face. But here people have made the efforts to kind of, you know, show their interest on your website. So we track the entire cycle of where my customer was going did an analysis. So at what points has he dropped his information for, you know, knowing more about the product? And I think that really built a strong automation for us. I mean, I don't want to call it call it automation. I think we were then showing him and just talking to him via email or text about the things you've wanted to see. So I've made a lot of different.

Adeola Sole 30:39
Yeah, no, fantastic. And I definitely, there's a there's a question that one of the lovely viewers has asked, but on that. And this question is from cafe, but it's cafe that told me this, that at times, you know, where you fill in your preferences, let's say for a department store, and you say, Oh, yeah, I'm really interested in stuff for men stuff, the kids and stuff for the home. But when you're actually interacting on a website, or you're really looking at his makeup, clothes for yourself, and shoes, so it's even though the customer said, yeah, these are the things I'm really interested in, it's always good to overlay it based on that actual behaviour. Because there you get the more meaningful results and probably the most in terms of of revenue, because it's more driven by what they're actually telling you by their actions. But I'm going to jump into one of these questions real quick. So I think we're like, this time is going so quickly. So can we find that a lot of customers want to wait until the whole series of say, welcome emails have been completed? What do you recommend? We always recommend in terms of Catherine agency, we always recommend to get the first email in place and then build upon the series. What do you guys think? Do you feel as though marketers should actually just build everything out all at once? Or should they do things incrementally in terms of their automations?

Tali Hasanov 32:02
If I may, take this question. So I think going back to the strategy and audience, so it depends who we're talking about, what is the audience what their needs are, it might make sense to only send if, if a business doesn't have a welcome email, to implement at least a welcome email right away. Right, without and then other other emails could be implemented later stage. If if there is enough information about audience, if there is strategy in place and enough resources, yes, of course, it's possible to build the whole sequence of welcome emails, and then maybe even test, you know, five, or seven emails or subject line or whatever makes sense. What I would suggest if there is no welcome email to implement right away, and if there isn't enough information in data, were all following emails, then it could be done right away.

Adeola Sole 33:06
Okay, so you're saying put them all in, if you can put them all in? Does everybody else does everyone else in agreement.

Kisha Robinson 33:14
So I think this is where this is where we have to lean into automation, because it's going to depend on how how, like the size of your audience, if you have a smaller audience, and you can wait to see what the customer does in order to respond. Great, but that's not going to be scalable, depending on how, what your goals are, as far as your customer base is concerned, if you have a larger audience, my opinion would be to set set up that welcome series, in a way where depending on where not only a larger audience, but also the tools available, as well. But depending on setting up the each each email in the series, according to according to the actions taken by the customer. So that way, you have your your, your welcome series is personalised to that to that customer, but not to where you're waiting to see what the customer does, and then you're jumping in really quick to shoot them out in email. You know, that's the sweet spot of marketing automation to go in there and set things up according to exactly what the what behaviours that the customer might take. And then you can set up depending on what what sort of ESP you're using. Most of them now have something like journeys or programmes that you can use to kind of stick an email here, if the customer does this, send them a push notification. If the customer does this, send them a text message if the customer does this. So I think really, leaning into the power of automation plus personalization would definitely solve that issue. Of course, when you're in the learning stages and seeing what what works for your customer base I think that it is helpful. If you have a smaller audience to do things kind of by hand, and then compile that data, compile that information, figure out what you've been doing, and then apply that going forward in a more scalable and automated way.

Adeola Sole 35:15
Nice. So, you know, essentially carve some people out, put in some tests, as well see what's working to give it to the rest. And then you want to, you want to add, I feel like our time is, this is crazy, isn't it, how we've gone through this, Oh, go ahead and add build upon quiche, this point.

Neharika Sharma 35:36
I'm just gonna, I think I'm gonna be a little adventurous because I just want to do just a quick suggestion, you know, like, something I think we can all try is, why don't we use the welcome email as a form of understanding what our customer wants by maybe driving it as a data enrichment campaign? Maybe that will help us, you know, because the customer would want to engage with you the most when you received your welcome email. So maybe we kind of tweak that email into letting the customer tell you what he wants to see next, maybe the frequency and the preferences, and maybe that could help us build on the rest of the strategies. That's what I was just wanted to add to this.

Adeola Sole 36:15
You know, and that's not something that's actually very common. There are marketers that do say, look, tell us more about you. But essentially, it's always usually driven to push those sales. So yeah, it'd be interested to see especially if they did a split test, you know, to kind of look at the journey beyond that. So very interesting. Point. Is that okay, so we've we've got probably time for one quick question. What if we rush? Do you think ESP is I campaign fast? and automation second, in terms of their dashboards and focused in general? Each question is correct.

Kisha Robinson 37:04
I think that I'm sorry. Go though. The older the I feel like older DSPs are campaign first, automation second, but as more tools come out, I think that they're realising you know, we want to do things API base versus, you know, transferring csvs and things like that. Definitely depends on the USB

Adeola Sole 37:29
memory card you want to add deep in their CRM first and campaign first.

Neharika Sharma 37:35
I actually think that the ESP is always triggered First I want to use the word trigger because they understand that the emails are coming from actions.

Adeola Sole 37:49
Sorry, everyone, I feel like we've spoken so much that we're now almost at the ends of our panel but tally, are they CRM focused and automation second, are the reverse.

Tali Hasanov 38:03
So it really depends what kind of ESP is some that I see is a really sophisticated they provide you personalization based on what customer does, and some of them

Adeola Sole 38:14
wonderful. Yeah, we gotta go now.