MARKETING AUTOMATION: CAMPAIGN PLANNING AGENDA AND CONSIDERATIONS Agenda Introduction, context & objectives 1. Automation for the complex B2B sale a brief introduction to our thinking. 2. Understanding the underlying need and basic objectives how do these break down? a. Prospect engagement b. Customer retention c. Win back d. Event recruitment e. Upselling 3. What is the breakdown/groupings of products and services we are promoting, and how are they inter-related? Considerations for the audience journey 4. Likely size and scope of our audience what are the relevant areas? a. Seniority b. Business functions c. Organisation size d. Industry sectors e. Maturity The Marketing Practice, The Great Barn, The Old Estate Yard, East Hendred, Wantage, Oxfordshire, OX12 8JY +44 (0) 1235 833233 info@themarketingpractice.com themarketingpractice.com
5. Mapping the buying cycle a. What are the relevant influences and education processes. b. Is there an existing framework and associated content strategy to reflect these that we would need to incorporate? 6. What is the decision making ecosystem how do the different functions and job levels interact during the buying cycle? 7. What range of relationships currently exists between the vendor and the target audience can we categorise them? 8. What kind of sales engagements are required? How does this range: a. From a high self-service element e.g. download free trials, plug-in-and-play scenarios. b. Through to the potential for high value, consultative engagements if a senior individual is available. 9. What other campaigning is being planned? a. How will we need to build workflows around it? b. What potential for conflicts / contradictions exist? Sales alignment 10. What sales handover mechanisms are currently in place and how can this fit with the automated campaign (i.e. avoid dead patches in communications until sales are definitely ready to interact)? 11. How will we work with sales to set lead scoring that reflects their priorities? Page 2
12. How can we ensure the campaign workflows are responsive: a. Including sales, telemarketing and data analysis feedback into the fine tuning of messaging and audience journey in the workflows? 13. Technology and data alignment: a. What CRM is being used and how does it align with your automation solution? b. What strategy is in place to ensure the on-going quality of data? Roll out and project delivery key points 1. Project management best practice: a. How long can you expect the roll-out to take? b. What is the typical roadmap to follow and where are the typical client / agency dependencies within it. 2. Data quality, including: a. Contact quality: given the upfront investment required for MA it is essential that the data set is of high quality. b. Talk through the targeting agreed during campaign planning. c. Email data quality: it is essential that the email data is clean. Having poor data can seriously affect the IPs reputation d. Consider the interactions that can be built in to campaigning to ensure the on-going quality of data. 3. Email & landing pages: a. What are the internal compliance and brand considerations issues around creating the new email web domain and templates? Page 3
i. Web domain will be a sub domain of your main website e.g. go.themarketingpractice.co.uk ii. Email template will need designing and uploading to the MA system. iii. Landing page templates: these will need designing and uploading to the MA system b. Email deliverability: setting up SPF and domain keys. c. IP warming (the email sending needs to be managed carefully sending to large volumes at the beginning can damage your reputation) 4. Segmentation: a. Sense check the work done segmenting the audience and the implications for the audience journey. b. Sense-check that the segmented fields are well-populated to avoid scenarios where certain contacts are lost in the automation. 5. Content: a. How are we using the content and how much is already available to drop into the campaign workflows? b. How should campaign content align with the specific audience segments? c. What is the schedule for future content creation /adaptation across the business (e.g. PR, other thought leadership programmes in progress) how can we build responsive workflows to accommodate these? d. What scope is there for tagging online content and generating inbound leads to the automated funnel and what strategies may already be in place across the organisation? 6. Lead scoring framework: a. Defining or reviewing the initial framework developed for contact/account profile and contact activity b. How this may evolve during build of subsequent workflows and campaigns. Page 4
7. Flexibility and length of workflows a. Short workflows b. What will be the review and evolve process as time goes by? 8. Social media integration a. How do you want to track and respond to social media interactions? b. How do you incorporate social listening into your approach? Page 5