Chart of the Day: Email marketing techniques used

Automation platforms are a big commitment

Why do I say commitment? It’s not just a product, it’s a game changer, like a car or house. Would you buy a 5 bedroom house when you have no idea what you would use those rooms for? When you view the house, you start planning on what each room would look like. The same reasoning extends to marketing automation. You should have an idea of how you are going to use all the functionality.

While I’m on a roll with my housing metaphors, you wouldn’t buy a 2 story house if you couldn’t climb the stairs. Again, why invest in a marketing automation platform when you don’t have a CRM or can’t connect with Application Programming Interface (API).

What techniques are used with Automation platforms?

In the chart, we can see that the main use is welcome sequences or autoresponders (71%). There is similar use between 2nd and 5th place, but we see a drop with progressive profiling and nurturing emails based on lead score (19% and 18% respectively).

Final thoughts

Marketing Automation platforms are powerful and expensive systems. When only 38% of those questions facilitate triggered campaigns, for me alarm bells start ringing. I have been in companies that believe that they need to have these platforms, but then the system is used like a normal email dispatch program. Before you make rash decisions, please about the following:

• what do you actually want to do?
• can your systems facilitate what you want to do
• can you financially afford the investment
• Do you have the manpower to implement and maintain the platform?