What should you know about marketing automation in your marketing career?

While marketing automation offers numerous benefits, it's essential to approach it strategically. Understanding your target audience, creating relevant content, and continuously optimizing your automated processes are crucial for success. Additionally, compliance with data protection regulations is crucial to maintaining trust with your audience.

Marketing automation is NOT a set it and forget it. It is nurturing a relationship and as such it needs to change with the times. Something that worked 3 years ago may not work now. Something that works for one audience may not work for another. It is a living thing!

Are we getting further away from the actual meaning and purpose of marketing? Studying the evolution of marketing during the last 10 to 15 years, I feel like the focus shifted dramatically from the human side of customer understanding and psychology towards advanced technical settings and optimisations for better performance. However, with the rise of automations and AI, we can, as marketers, focus again on the core concepts of marketing, the human side, which cannot be (at least not for now) replaced by AI. I personally think that this is the best time to develop innovative and creative marketing and branding concepts.

Recognizing the swift pace of the modern world is essential. In a rapidly advancing environment, it is crucial to adopt marketing strategies that align with this accelerated speed, potentially even amplifying our approach by 100 times. Automation emerges as a priceless asset in this scenario. Harnessing automation methods greatly assists in capturing the attention of our audience, especially those with a strong interest in our offerings. Through the adoption of diverse automation techniques and the mastery of innovative marketing skills, we not only enhance our speed and creativity but also become proficient in maximizing the capabilities of these tools.

Understanding the new world’s pace is crucial. With the world moving at lightning speed, it’s imperative to implement marketing strategies that match this rapid pace, possibly even accelerating our approach by 100 times. Automation stands out as an invaluable tool. Leveraging automation methods significantly aids in engaging our audience, particularly those deeply interested in our products and services. By embracing various automation techniques and mastering new marketing skills, we not only become faster and more creative but also adept at utilizing these tools to their fullest potential.

The biggest hurdle to marketing automation? Integration. It's not just about plugging in software; it's about weaving it into the very fabric of your organization. Look at Peloton - a masterclass in integrating marketing automation with customer experience. But remember, no tool replaces human creativity. Embrace it, but never let it override your strategic thought process.

Adherence/compliance to different laws that govern the commercial emails in different countries, often presents as a challenge. Specially if you work for a multinational company with Marketing communications going out to a very geographically diverse audience. Marketing automation cannot always help with this. So it is important to be well versed in the laws and being in compliance at all times.

You need to find a platform that is suitable to your business needs. There is no need to buy the highest package on Salesforce if you are a small business. Try to negotiate with your salesforce representative for a custom package. Marketing automation also is not a given success tool. If you do not already have a website and a reputation, you will not yield many results.

As with any other emerging technology, marketing automations come with a few challenges, specifically around different regulations based on the market and around the barriers created by the lack of creativity. Regulations should be the first topic to review when implementing different automations in certain states (especially in the EU). Then again, automations are limited to certain repetitive tasks that need minimal personalisation. When it comes to creative tasks, which are fundamental in marketing, it is still very difficult to automate the procedures. However, despite certain challenges, the advantages that come from marketing automations far surpass the minor disadvantages.

Combining analytical thinking, technical proficiency, and content marketing expertise equips professionals to navigate the intricacies of marketing automation successfully. Continuous learning and staying updated on industry trends are also integral to mastering this dynamic field.

Ask your CEO or boss what their main goals are for the marketing campaign. Is it more leads? Is it more website traffic? Cater your presentation to them by studying specific KPIs that are needed.

I consider creative, solution oriented and very analytical profiles to fit best for marketing automations tasks. From what I have experienced, you can achieve numerous objectives that seem impossible if you are creative enough to combine certain automations that would drive the results needed. Apart from those, you certainly need to understand human behaviour and trends in any aspect of a marketing career, no matter the specific job you have to do.

AI is making a new wave for the capabilities for marketing analytics. You will be able to schedule your postings for Linkedin or your email marketing on a set schedule, so it saves you time and headaches. I am excited to see how much AI will help users. One thing that I think could really help my business is for a skilled SEO AI. This could help any company gain their site relativity in a quick time frame.

Content Marketing is the next big wave in the world. People want to be entertained and have constant stimulation from your company. Keep them entertained by having an updated Linkedin that posts regularly. Have a blog site that allows you to share a skill that you want to sell in the future. Stay updated in all medias not just professional. Twitter and Reddit are great ways to take breaks and to also get witty and viral content.

In fast paced early stage companies it can often be easier to pull together a quick stitched together automation solution which is quick and often solves the need. The challenge however is that these systems often break under pressure as scale increases - as things break stakeholders can lose trust in your data and systems which will make it challenging to get additional buy in for future automation imitatives. This is why it’s critical to architect a resilient automation system for the get go - even if you’re working on building it in stages.

At the end of the day, the people who will rise to the top will be the ones who are critical thinkers and problem solvers. All the tools are there to do things better, faster, and cheaper. Not only that, but they are going to be available to everyone. Your goal in 2024 should be to inverse the typical thinking of most marketers. Don't learn the tools and go looking for problems to solve with them. Find the problems and then figure out which tools will help you solve them for yourself and your clients.

Guess what... Your customers and your boss don't know how to get the best out of automation tools! 💣 If they did, you would be unemployed, right? 😁 So take charge and regularly ask your interlocutors where they want to go and what they aim to achieve. Encourage them to share their deepest dreams with you. What would they want to automate if they were sure of success? Then, find a solution! Paraphrasing Mark Manson, the author of "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k," your value as a consultant is defined by the problems you choose to solve. By continually asking your prospects to challenge you, you'll not only help them achieve their goals but also establish yourself as a rockstar consultant.

1. Cultural Adaptation: Share an experience where implementing marketing automation involved navigating cultural shifts within your team or organization. Highlight how fostering a culture open to automation adoption and learning helped streamline processes and enhance collaboration among team members. 2. Customer-Centricity: Discuss the importance of maintaining a customer-centric approach despite leveraging automation. Illustrate a scenario where personalization through automation not only boosted efficiency but also reinforced genuine connections with customers, enhancing brand loyalty and advocacy.