Today’s marketing teams are under constant pressure to do more with less. Trying to increase sales and marketing activities with small groups and little resources is a nearly impossible mission. Thankfully, the landscape has lent itself to some technologies that allow marketing teams to automate all of the different activities they are asked to achieve. These tools have become critical to streamlining and, in some cases, eliminating day-to-day tasks.
Often, this is the most challenging part of marketing automation. Selecting the right tool for the right job can be frustrating. Ideally, a marketing automation tool is a combination of both software and strategy that allows teams to nurture prospects with personalized content to convert them at a higher rate while automating several of the daily tasks marketers are doing. Here are two essential questions to ask before you start looking for the right tool.
Document your overall business goals, expectations, and expected headwinds that you’ve encountered. Use the information you collect here to put together a set of overarching requirements to help determine the initial criteria for your tool when searching for an ‘all-in-one solution or ‘best-of-breed.’
What features are you looking for?
You’ve already chosen your new marketing automation tool, it’s rolled out, you have your game plan, and you’re ready to start pumping out campaigns. There’s only one issue: how are you going to ensure your tool maintains the highest level of efficiency? With teams always changing and the landscape always seeming to shift, there are some fundamental guidelines to stick to ensure your tool stays in tip-top shape.
Much like folder structure, naming is critical, as each marketing automation system uses a common language to communicate. For campaigns, you should name them something unique. No two programs should have the same name, as shown below.
For the local assets inside programs, the rule is to keep the name simple. Just name an invitation “Invitation,” as opposed to “2015 June Webinar Invitation.” Because these are in a program, the parent program is automatically part of the name when choosing it elsewhere. In other words, local assets only need to be unique inside the program. You can have hundreds of assets named “Invite,” each in a different program.
Be the watcher on the wall, the guards’ shield for the marketing realms of this tool. It would be best if you enforced the guidelines you are working to put in place. You should consistently monitor the different connections, web-hooks, and integrations you have with your tool. Sometimes the slightest of changes can be made, which could break your entire connection to tools like Salesforce (and you might not find out immediately). It is necessary to review these consistently.
Additionally, it is imperative to review the users you have in your system continuously. As team members leave or move onto another team, they may not need to utilize the tool anymore. Save those seats for new digital marketing team members and archive the 150 previous campaigns from 2018. It is also essential to ensure that user roles and permissions are followed, and users are only given the level of access they are required to have. The fewer users you have in the systems making changes, the less likely you can come across an unknown issue. With this in mind, setting dates once a quarter to ensure connectors, integrations, and users are checked is a great cadence to ensure the tool stays working efficiently.
Choosing a tool is tough, but maintaining it can be more challenging. Without the right marketing automation support, getting any tool up and running can be difficult to manage. Not gathering the correct information before you invest in the right tool that fits your specific needs and requirements can sometimes lead you to rely on multiple tools to achieve what you could have done with one. Not maintaining the right level of quality and organization with your tool can cause significant issues and require proper maintenance.
Our team at Convertiv has successfully helped put together comprehensive Best Practices Guides for multiple marketing automation tools. The goal of the guides is to act as the central source for newly implemented marketing automation tools. From email marketing best practices to webinar program naming convention and event architectural best practices, Convertiv’s expertise helps clients ensure that day-to-day marketing tasks stay genuinely automated.