The Marketing Automation report In association with RedEye International

Transcription

1 The Marketing Automation report 2014 RedEye International

2 Marketing Automation aims to take the effort out of achieving genuinely targeted messaging. What started out as a focus on automating the process of segmenting and targeting for marketing alone has slowly become more of a cross-channel focus. With that said, MA can seem like an awfully big mountain to climb for a lot of organisations, especially if channel integration is yet to be completed (or even started). TFM&A Insights and RedEye ran the Marketing Automation: What does it mean to you? survey to get a feel for how Marketing Automation is perceived and adopted within marketing departments around the UK. 36 % 4 % Benefits of MA Through the Eyes of Non-Adopters 24 % Examining the ROI We asked our survey responders what they saw as the main benefits to Marketing Automation. The most popular response was Takes repetitive tasks out of our hands, allowing us to focus on new/more exciting projects with 36% of responses. This indicates a basic understanding of the technology doing what it says on the tin, but doesn t approach the situation from a tangible return on investment angle. The second highest response, Better targeting of customers and prospects at 27% is a more complex and rewarding way of thinking of automated marketing - it looks at the end result, which is where businesses will find their ROI. Of the 250 marketers who responded to the survey, they are almost perfectly split between non-adopters of MA (124) and adopters of MA (126). When we examine how people feel about the benefits of MA split down the line of adopters and non-adopters, the realisation of more tangible benefits starts to become clear - among non-adopters 24% recognise the benefit to better targeting of customers, while this figure stretches out to 30% for those already using the technology. 36 % 5 % 8 % 9 % Benefits of MA Through the Eyes of Adopters 13 % 30 % The type of businesses taking advantage of MA In offering up a free-text entry option on the survey to the question What does Marketing Automation mean to you we hoped to get further insight on how people saw the benefits of marketing. What we found was a similar split between the obvious benefits of MA; Time saving, avoid errors that are usually made under pressure, Doing marketing automatically with the least amount of monitoring, Ease at work! Takes away a lot of the manual elements of contacting customers and also disallows human error in the customer journey! - and the more advanced benefits; Understanding the customer journey, Targeting consumers with more relevant content without creating more work for the marketing team, getting to know my customer better through real-time, high impact, interactive 8 % 3 % Better Marketing Better targeting of customers and prospects Helps improve the customer experience Lead Management Multichannel marketing Reduces the chance of human error in our campaigns Takes repetitive tasks out of our hands, allowing us to focus on new/more exciting projects 4 % 02

3 32 % 23 % Important Elements of Day-to-Day work in non-ma adopters 45 % Coming up with fresh ideas Knowing our customers Making sure deadlines are met 19 % 29 % Important Elements of Day-to-Day work in MA adopters 52 % engagements. Overall comments were focused on positive business aims, with a range of benefits recognised. Depending on their exposure to the benefits of MA, these open comments switched from focusing on pure benefits through to the impact across the entire marketing environment. We had a single voice of dissent when it comes to describing what the technology means to them; Nothing really, just the buzz word you re using. To get a feel for the internal cultural makeup of organisations taking advantage of MA, we asked survey respondents Where do you find the greatest return on investment? Overall responses were split between investing in internal teams (63%), investing in technology (27%) and employing external agencies (10%). There is very little variation when looking at these figures through the adopters/non-adopters lens (there is a slight majority of adopters among that 27% who value technology investment). There are more telling statistics when we look at how marketers indicated their team spent their day. There was a higher percentage of organisations Making sure deadlines are met among those yet to adopt MA at 31%. Whereas those who have adopted MA seem to represent smarter, more cohesive marketing teams who are able to focus their days on coming up with fresh ideas (29%) and getting to know their customers better (52%) and less preoccupied managing deadlines (19%). There are also some interesting findings when we examine those main elements of the day to day challenge in relation to the perceived benefits of MA. For the most part there is an even split between Coming up with fresh ideas (around 20%), Knowing our customers (45- Main ben of automation vs Marketing day 29 to day challenges % Coming up with fresh ideas Knowing our customers Making sure deadlines are met Better marketing Better targeting of customers and prospects % Helps improve the customer experience % Lead management Multichannel marketing 40 % Reduces the chance of human error in our campaigns % % % % % 60 % % % 20 % 60 % 20 % % % Takes repetitive tasks out of our hands, allowing us to focus on new/ more exciting projects % % % 50%) and Making sure deadlines are met (22-27%) regardless of how the responders see the main benefit to marketing automation. Key exceptions include: l Among those who see MA as a route to better marketing the proportion who see Coming up with fresh ideas as the most important part of their day to day work rises to 50%. l For those who see lead management as the key MA benefit, the response Knowing our customers jumps to 60%. l For those whose identify multichannel marketing as the main reason to invest in Marketing Automation, 0 respondents indicated that their day to day s main activity was focused on meeting deadlines. These statistics again indicate a maturity gulf in marketing departments, with those who acknowledge multichannel as an important benefit rising above the day to day tribulations of chasing deadlines, while those less focussed are being left behind, living hand to mouth with issues their competitors no longer have to deal with. 03

4 52 % 48 B2B MA Adoption % 48 % Publishing MA Adoption Financial Services MA Adoption Travel and Leisure MA Adoption 52 % MA Industry Breakdown We also wanted to know if there were any industries showing signs of adopting MA more than others. Most of the industries nominated were almost 50/50 splits between adoption and nonadoption. However, retail showed a majority 61% of adopters, indicating their advanced nature when it comes to dealing with customer data. Retail has traditionally been more playful and experimental with their data, so it would make sense that they have carved out space to move ahead in the MA landscape. In our experience it is often retail teams who are finding clever ways to manipulate data and get the right messages to their clients at the right times - we usually put this down to two factors: a history of knowing the benefits of knowing the customer and having fewer legislative hurdles to cross than other areas like financial services or gaming. For those in retail, take note, if you aren t integrating your channels and introducing MA, you are losing ground on your competition. For the rest of you, looking for case studies on how retail organisations are leveraging MA technologies to better understand their customers and increase conversions is probably a really good place to start. Barriers to adoption Separating out the non-adopters and looking at their reasons for not yet embracing MA, the largest portion of responders indicated It s part of our plan, but we have other elements 12 % Benefits of MA Through the Eyes of Adopters 39 % 61 % 13 % 21 % What's Stopping Your MA Adoption? 54 % It s part of our plan, but we have other elements in need of more immediate attention 54% Prohibitive cost structures 21% Lack of technical proficiency in our team 13% Lack of understanding of benefits 12% 04

5 in need of more immediate attention (54%), followed by Prohibitive cost structures (21%), Lack of technical proficiency in our team (13%) and the remainder indicated Lack of understanding of benefits, which could also be read as no intention to adopt. With over half of this group planning on adoption once their more immediate data concerns are dealt with, it creates an interesting picture of how MA fits within the wider marketing plan. In the hectic environment of the modern workplace, that list of things that a team will get around to is certain to have some nice to haves that will never get achieved. However, considering that 50% of our survey respondents already have an MA solution in place I would hazard a guess that those other priorities being worked on will be essential groundwork for the implementation of MA. 20 % 6 % How Far Integrated are your Channels? 42 % Integration journey as a catalyst to MA adoption With this in mind, our survey also asked marketing teams how integrated their channels currently are. The biggest slice of companies surveyed appear to be in the very middle phase of the channel integration process: they have a few channels integrated, but acknowledge that they have some distance to go. Then results are spread from the mature (10% indicating they are fully integrated) maturing (22% as mostly integrated) and immature (20% planning to integrate, but not yet started). While the midpoint in the progression towards channel integration still takes the lion share for both adopters and nonadopters of Marketing Automation, the more mature integrators show a higher propensity for adoption of the technology. 15% of those using Marketing Automation are fully integrated, while only around 5% of non-adopters have made it that far. This statistic gives some indication of where Marketing Automation tends to fit in the marketing teams collective journeys with the integration process being helped along by the implementation of a Marketing Automation solution. It also starts to build a profile of the more tech savvy marketing teams adopting the technology earlier to boost the integration of their channels. In contrast to the adopters being fully integrated, a stark 30% of non adopters are yet to start integration as opposed to around 10% of Marketing Automation adopters. We also asked what was stopping the non-adopters from embracing MA technology. In descending order the results were: It s part of our plan, but we have other elements in need of more immediate attention (54%), Prohibitive cost structures (21%), Lack of technical proficiency in our team (13%) and Lack of understanding of benefits (12%). This lack of benefit awareness may link back to our finding that the overall impression people seem to have of MA is its ability to automate 22 % We are fully integrated across all channels 10% We have a few channels integrated, but there s a long way to go 42% We are mostly integrated, with one or two channels yet to be integrated 22% We plan to integrate, but havent started yet 20% We have no plans to integrate 6% tasks, rather than the benefits such automation could have on a marketing campaign. The real competitive benefits to be gained from Marketing Automation will be realised when channels are fully integrated and a complete view of the customer has been attained. With that in mind, we further dissected the businesses on their journey to integration to realise what is holding companies back. By examining this journey to integration from the viewpoint of those companies yet to embrace Marketing Automation it becomes clear that those who have bought Marketing Automation into the fold are significantly more advanced on their integration journey. Let s take the chunk halfway along their integration journey those indicating We have a few channels integrated, but there s a long way to go - their overwhelming reason for not yet adopting Marketing Automation software is It s part of our 05

6 Integrated progress of non adopters - to be expressed in percentages We are fully integrated across all channels We are mostly integrated, with one or two channels yet to be integrated We have a few channels integrated, but there s a long way to go We plan to integrate, but haven t started yet 26 % We are mostly We are fully integrated, with integrated across one or two 38 % 50 all channels % channels yet to be 16 % integrated 12 % 11 % 47 % 5.6 % 16.1 % 38.7 % 30.7 % 8.9 % Integrated progress of adopters - to be expressed in percentages We are fully integrated across all channels We are mostly integrated, with one or two channels yet to be integrated We have a few channels integrated, but there s a long way to go We plan to integrate, but haven t started yet 15.1 % 27.8 % 45.2 % 9.5 % plan, but we have other elements in need of more immediate attention with almost 70% of responses. Given Marketing Automation s abilty to help simplify the process of integrating channels, it could be assumed that these other elements involved more fundamental changes around areas like business goals, budgets and staffing. It s worth noting that, overall, 1 in 5 of those who are yet to deploy Marketing Automation tools indicate that prohibitive cost structures are holding them back. This could be from a combination of factors. For instance, these may well be smaller marketing teams with very modest budgets, or it may be the lack of clarity around the ROI of a well deployed Marketing Automation initiative. Conclusion While Marketing Automation is widely understood in terms of its basic ability to take care of repetitive tasks, actual users of the technology realise more business-sensitive results. Looking through the open text field we gave respondents the chance to answer into, the overwhelming focus was on the customer getting to know them and serving them better. It s part of our plan, but we have other elements in need of more immediate attention Lack of technical proficiency in our team Lack of undestanding of benefits Prohibitive cost structures Prohibitive cost structures (only chart 2) 13 % 8 % We have a few channels 9 % integrated, but there's a long way to go 70 % 29 % We plan to integrate, but 41 % We have no haven't started plans to yet integrate 20 % It s part of our plan, but we have other elements in need of more immediate attention Lack of technical proficiency in our team Lack of undestanding of benefits Prohibitive cost structures Prohibitive cost structures Adding in to this theme, understanding the customer was seen as the most important element of day to day marketing work, however only 12% of respondents saw it as a main benefit of Marketing Automation. This could show a lack of understanding about Marketing Automation, or the perception among marketers of Marketing Automation as a simple internal resource. Used correctly a good Marketing Automation system should not only help you understand your customers, but also market to them in the right way. When it comes to marketing automation, there is obviously still a fair distance to go in terms of knowledge and understanding. However, as digital marketers progress more and more with regards to finding ways to improve the customer experience and provide a better online service, it s likely more will move towards an integrated automated approach that not only benefits the internal workings of a business, but also its customers. 06

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