Have you ever been in charge of putting all the pieces of luggage in the car for a family road trip? Playing that game of suitcase Tetris can be majorly stressful. There has to be a specific order (This suitcase would be crushed by that suitcase — and the blue one has breakable souvenirs in it!). If you don’t follow the set rules as you put it together, all is lost. Some people are truly gifted with the ability to see how all these pieces fit together in harmony, but a lot of us (including me) cross our fingers and hope for the best.
Manually controlling sending each piece of a marketing campaign is similar. You have your pieces all lined up in your CMM, but pressing “go” is a critical part of that process — and if you accidentally press “go” too soon on one email, well, you have to catch all those falling marketing suitcases as they tumble out of your car. You risk sending too many emails in a row, annoying contacts.
Investing in an automated campaign manager can solve this whole problem. It’s like your organized friend whipping out a tape measure and putting each piece of luggage in your car for you, leaving you free to gather up your family members and head out. Here’s some of the problems a campaign manager can help solve — and a taste of the good things that come with campaigns being sent out automatically.
Put Time Back on Your (& Your Partners’) Side
We’re all busy. It takes time to set up campaigns and manage them day-to-day. Time that could be better spent on selling or taking care of customers. Dealing with the intricacies of campaigns takes valuable (and often scarce) resources away from other outlets, and trying to capture modern best practices in those campaigns can be intimidating as well, especially for smaller organizations. Plus, you and your team might be busy dealing with a monster ChanTech mash, which can take resources away on your side.
Are You on the Pulse of Digital?
For partners whose digital efforts aren’t integrated with their overall sales and marketing, using one form of digital marketing alone may not seem worth it. Worse yet, using just one form may actually dilute the brand, misrepresenting their values and products. Companies who rely on word-of-mouth or direct mail with one sparsely filled-out Facebook page may strike a bad chord with customers, who can pick up on how savvy companies are with digital marketing very easily. And, as with before, often partners don’t have the time to completely change up their marketing strategies.
Let’s Get Digital
We’ve covered the problem — partners either may not have the time, resources, or know-how to enable complicated digital marketing campaigns on their own. One solution may be an automated campaign manager.
With simplified campaign execution and delivery, even partners who struggle with adopting digital marketing tactics can easily enable campaigns. Essentially, it’s just a matter of pushing a button for marketing materials to start going out at a preset cadence. Automation also ensures customers won’t be inundated by too many marketing materials at once. We’ve all been on the receiving end of overly enthusiastic marketing campaigns.
Grouping automated campaigns by partner type goes even further to drive engagement and results. Targeted campaigns for specific groups can eliminate the paralysis of choosing one campaign from many and help partners pursue prospects aligned to their business specializations.
No matter how you configure your marketing suitcases, automation helps both you and especially partners — automated campaigns for partners puts them well ahead in the game of campaign management. Consider it like giving partners a diagram for their own puzzle. Without having to juggle all the pieces of a multi-tactic digital marketing campaign, they’ll have the time and tools to close more deals.
Want to learn more? We’d love to chat more — or leave a comment on your experience with automation in the channel. (And if you have any tips on stacking luggage, those would be welcome, too.)
