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PrintMarketers at most companies choose their campaign management tool in one of two ways. The first approach is to feel a pain around their ability to execute multiple, increasingly complex campaigns. They then figure that the right software can help ease this pain and go pick a software tool, have it implemented train their people and hope for the best. Not the best approach but one it is a road taken by many. This approach usually leads to regrets and recriminations, but that is to be expected.
The second way is a little more thoughtful and deliberate. This approach takes the time to identify business requirements, develop a business case not only for the purchase and installation of the software but also for any other related changes in process, organization and skill upgrades that may be involved in this transformation. See my colleague Joe Kelly's blog on selecting a marketing automation tool http://quaero.csgsystems.com/insight/blog/76-selecting_your_marketing_au... for more on this.
Regardless of the approach, however, even marketers who successfully build a well designed and implemented system sometimes find that life does not get any easier. Therein lies the paradox. Good marketing automation systems allow skilled users to do what they could only dream of before. Run many more campaigns, more finely targeted. Create specialized landing pages and personalized or customized messages finely tuned to insights you may have about the customer's preferences. Synchronizing and sequencing communications based on customer actions and triggers. There is a cornucopia of possibilities. There is also the demand of high expectations. Everyone, including the executive sponsor now expects miracles. How do you manage this? The answer is, very carefully.
Remember that just because something is possible it does not mean it is worth doing.
Make sure that the neat new things you are trying out have potential business value and are also in line with your strategic objectives.
Be sure to measure the incremental impact of most campaigns, so that you can stop doing things that don't work.
Automate ruthlessly. Wherever possible try and make the campaign process a "lights out" process that requires as little human intervention as possible.
Focus your efforts on learning and tinkering with business rules that drive the automated campaigns rather than on the individual campaigns themselves.
Don't let the blessing of a successful marketing automation program morph into a curse of longer hours. Make it work for you by doing more of the things that interest you and challenge you, as well as having a bit more time to yourself.
