A client recently requested me for a quick example of ways I implement marketing automation with a representative example, or case study. Here's a version of my submission to his compilation…
Over time I've enjoyed designing, deploying, measuring and improving numerous automated marketing initiatives for brands and businesses of all sizes. Due to this fact, I’ve begun to frame these initiatives in a number of simple strategies, allowing me to quickly develop automated marketing campaigns to develop customer-brand relationships and drive revenue. These automated campaigns form a baseline of activity personalized for every customer to drive revenue each and every day, automatically and without manual intervention or having to “reinvent the wheel” with ad hoc campaigns season after season. Here's the general framework for the marketing automation designer.
Marketing Automation Framework
- Design campaign “touches” across the customer life cycle
- Additionally, design “touches” to optimize each “event cycle,” or “purchase life cycle” (trip cycle in the case below)
- Determine campaign touch point “triggers” via time-index from customer or brand events, external events relevant to the consumer, and naturally, particular customer behaviors similar to a purchase order or inquiry
Let’s have a hotel resort chain for instance…
- A website inquiry (email opt-in for information or deals) from an individual that doesn't match the current customer database (by email address, for instance) represents a prospect. A triggered email related to a custom landing page would follow to transform this prospect to a first time guest.
- Upon booking, this guest’s behavioral life cycle indicator (first time guest) triggers the ideal “trip cycle” campaign – a time-indexed email campaign to up-sell the guest with a spa appointment between her booking and her arrival at the resort for her first stay.
- After her departure from the resort (a behavior trigger) an email aims to transform the guest to a repeat stay and/or loyalty program.
- Once within the loyalty program and periodically staying at the brand's properties, an email might use the buyer’s local weather report back to trigger a message like… “… even though it’s freezing in Chicago, it is nice and warm in Arizona at the moment!” to encourage another tripstay because of this regular guest. Especially if the time since last visit (time index trigger – of days since last stay vs. this particular guest’s “normal” booking stay cycle) is beyond the anticipated duration of time between stays as anticipated by a “time to next visit” model processed against the database each night.
Across dozens of industries I’ve learned to quickly map the life cycle, event/purchase cycle and numerous triggers that the brand would possibly use to interact customers as a framework for developing automated marketing via internet, email, SMS, social media and other direct types of purchaser investment (aka marketing). Having this kind of framework really frees up the marketing automation design participants to become innovative while still crafting solutions most likely to produce a high ROI. Finally, by developing a marketing automation “system” processing multichannel communications each and every day, marketers are freed up to develop over this “base” of revenue generating activity with innovation in the form of latest products, services and other pillars of sustainable competitive advantage. In other words, marketers ought to automate their service of consumers with the most obvious solutions to their needs which are triggered by their behaviors (purchases within the context in their brand relationship, or life cycle) to ensure that they have got time to focus on the more difficult challenge of innovation and winning market share one customer at a time.
I look forward to seeing the other examples, including yours, of successful marketing automation.
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