I have mixed feelings about automation. The word even appears in my job title from time to time. The myth about automation is that somehow doing so will allow us to have more time to do other things. I've encountered many scenarios where a consultant or subject matter expert is brought into a workplace situation to help a company build out its marketing automation, only to not retain that talent for the long term.
But, this post isn't about marketing automation or my aforementioned rant about companies that fail to use it to build 1-to-1 relationships with their customers. Instead, I'd like to point out the concerns addressing automation's impact on the US trucking industry.
Showing posts with label automation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label automation. Show all posts
Sometimes, Automatic Scripting Errs
One of the many problems plaguing crowdsourced traffic data are the errors. Part of this is due to Google partnering with Waze, a mobile app that crowdsources traffic data from users on the road. Sure, Interstate 5 is a very long freeway and it spans across the western US coast. Given the masses of regional data that Google has at its disposal, one would think that having a traffic incident related to the King County metro area wouldn't show up in the Portland/Clark County metro area, 170 miles away. Why this incident shows up at the Washington/Oregon border is anyone's guess.
In the Waze smartphone app, users can indicate the speed and flow of the route they are currently on. An incident happening on I-5, might not actually be in Seattle but be somewhere on the Portland portion of I-5. For example:
In the Waze smartphone app, users can indicate the speed and flow of the route they are currently on. An incident happening on I-5, might not actually be in Seattle but be somewhere on the Portland portion of I-5. For example:
 |
| 2015-01-20, a Seattle incident reported in Portland |
Birthday Automation
One of the simplest automated emails that any company can send out is a birthday (or anniversary) email. ING Direct embeds a nicely simple video ("What Matters Most", 189k YouTube views) in its birthday email sent to customers.
Pardot: My first drip test
Probably the most bothersome of this whole affair is the waiting. Pardot's drip campaign setup requires you to put in a minimum 1 day (can't do partial days, hours, or minute settings) between when a user is sent an email and opens or clicks. For every open or click, add another day to your test cycle. For brevity, this test only uses two email templates. While I could have Pardot do more complicated actions, I don't want to have to delete or reset my test addresses in Salesforce, so these actions just trigger the Pardot side of the data.
Having four unique-by-content templates (video, case study, webinar, and general) for persona nurturing is a lot better (Thanks Kate!) than setting up 40 unique templates. Except, to start the personas, I'll have to create at least three sets of eight persona content pieces. Each set would include body content, a video placeholder image and a video link, and a unique call to action.
The drip report display is a big step up from what you could get out of Silverpop's EngageB2B product (and much cleaner too) which shows how many prospects are in each section of the drip.
Having four unique-by-content templates (video, case study, webinar, and general) for persona nurturing is a lot better (Thanks Kate!) than setting up 40 unique templates. Except, to start the personas, I'll have to create at least three sets of eight persona content pieces. Each set would include body content, a video placeholder image and a video link, and a unique call to action.
The drip report display is a big step up from what you could get out of Silverpop's EngageB2B product (and much cleaner too) which shows how many prospects are in each section of the drip.
 |
| Pardot - Sample Drip Progress |
Automation Quirks: Pardot
Pardot's integrations with third party vendor software make it competitive among vendors that offer marketing automation solutions; but there are quite a lot of quirks (read this as lost functionality) when you go from using the soup version of an email marketing platform to a nuts version; Pardot is definitely the latter.
I was setting up an email for a rebroadcast. It is a basic flat email with a tracked link for a webinar invite to a select group of prospects in our database. That is pretty easy to put together. Heck, all I had to do was make a copy of the previously broadcasted email. Although, a lot of vendors don't require this step. Anyhow. To set up a rebroadcast, I had to pull out a list of 'opens' from the previous broadcast (which, fortunately, I didn't have to export and re-import as a list) and append it to the new broadcast as a suppression list. Weird. Normally, I would be able to just suppress any lead record who received the previous 'email' in say, Silverpop, and broadcast as usual.
It just causes me to have 'more stuff' within the user environment in Pardot. Now I have an extra list that I don't need for future broadcasts, but I need for this one. I have a stinkin' suspicion that if I delete the list, I'll lose the attributes of the send data for the affected prospects.
I have noticed, however, that if you have a distinct question in Pardot and look in their help or idea forums, and can't find it...the solution does not exist. And, if you really wanted them to implement it, you could suggest the idea to their idea forum and users can vote it up to the top of the queue for development.
I was setting up an email for a rebroadcast. It is a basic flat email with a tracked link for a webinar invite to a select group of prospects in our database. That is pretty easy to put together. Heck, all I had to do was make a copy of the previously broadcasted email. Although, a lot of vendors don't require this step. Anyhow. To set up a rebroadcast, I had to pull out a list of 'opens' from the previous broadcast (which, fortunately, I didn't have to export and re-import as a list) and append it to the new broadcast as a suppression list. Weird. Normally, I would be able to just suppress any lead record who received the previous 'email' in say, Silverpop, and broadcast as usual.
It just causes me to have 'more stuff' within the user environment in Pardot. Now I have an extra list that I don't need for future broadcasts, but I need for this one. I have a stinkin' suspicion that if I delete the list, I'll lose the attributes of the send data for the affected prospects.
I have noticed, however, that if you have a distinct question in Pardot and look in their help or idea forums, and can't find it...the solution does not exist. And, if you really wanted them to implement it, you could suggest the idea to their idea forum and users can vote it up to the top of the queue for development.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)