Marketers have a habit of using words that give the illusion of being sophisticated and succinct. The trouble is that when every marketer in tech uses the same words to describe very different products, it gets more than a little confusing. This really hit home at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona a couple of weeks ago. I was wandering around the cavernous halls looking at how companies choose to describe themselves and was reminded of that scene in the Life of Brian where they bicker about The People’s Front of Judaea and The Judaean People’s Front…
One of the main offenders is ‘automation’. I don’t think we help anybody by pasting it onto every tech website, banner and booth. And yes, we at Swrve are just as guilty as anyone else. Some of you may call this a necessary evil, or even just pedantry on my behalf, but, you know what? - It is important! Look at it from the perspective of a prospective client: their CEO probably has 101 other things to be doing instead of decoding vague, even cryptic, product descriptions.
And another thing also hit me, walking around the maze of Hall 8 - ‘automation’ is not only a confusing word, but it carries with it scary connotations! To some people it is sure to bring up memories of job losses and years of unemployment. For those of you that are starting to worry… this isn’t the case with marketing automation (deep sigh of relief). Let’s take a look at why you shouldn’t be confused or scared of mobile marketing automation.
Why We Shouldn’t Be Afraid Of, Or Be Confused By, Automation
Before mobile marketing automation, there was email marketing automation. Far from making the job of an email marketer redundant, the introduction of automation did quite the opposite, as is proven by whole teams of email marketers in companies today. With mobile teams expanding exponentially in recent years, there is really nothing to be frightened of!
Automation actually frees up marketers and experience owners from being bogged down by menial tasks that have previously taken up a lot of time. The manual input of data, for instance, is practically a thing of the past. Highly sophisticated campaigns can be set up and deployed in a matter of minutes, which could have taken hours or days to set up previously. This is terrific, as more time can be given to focusing on other more human tasks such as crafting engaging campaigns for customers, and thinking of the best ways to connect with them.
Not only does automation do the heavy lifting for you in the background, but it also optimizes these campaigns for you, enabling you to reach users in a contextual way, at the optimal time, and with personal flourishes. As a result, it is no longer good enough to send a blast push notification to your entire user base containing the same message for everyone, regardless of their timezone, interests or previous behaviour. Automation allows for segmentation of your customers, and personalizing the message to create a 1:1 interaction that results in increased engagement and lifetime value.
So think of it this way: with the burden of menial tasks off our backs, we create more meaningful jobs as a result - all thanks to automation. In other words, automation makes you a better, more productive and more powerful marketer.
