MAKING AUTOMATION WORK
The Kiwi marketing environment is much smaller than most, which provides its own set of challenges for brands looking to take advantage of automation technology. NZ Marketing talks to Nathalie Morris, Ubiquity’s managing director, for her advice to local
The challenges of marketing in a small country like New Zealand are easy to see; with smaller segments and even smaller prospect pools, marketing spend needs to work harder to achieve returns, while marketers themselves need to wear multiple hats to get the job done. That makes marketing automation all the more attractive—and the choice of an automation partner all the more important. Ubiquity’s Nathalie Morris gives us the low down.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BIG MISTAKES MARKETERS MAKE WHEN IT COMES TO AUTOMATION?
Underutilisation. What we often see is that after investing heavily in technology platforms, marketers realise they’re only using about 15-20 percent of the available functionality. The reason for that is because they simply don’t have the right resources to drive the additional functionality and often when a technology partner is offshore, there’s no ongoing support to make sure the system is successful.
When marketers choose off-shore partners they’re not only often sacrificing ongoing support but local expertise and guidance for planning and implementation. Local partners have that and can tailor solutions to the scale and requirements of the New Zealand market.
Another mistake we see is when the automation process needs continual proofing to check data quality – which requires people power and defeats the purpose of automation in the first place!
HOW CAN MARKETERS AVOID THOSE MISTAKES?
Focus on specifics. First and foremost, what the business problem you’re trying to solve is and find a technology partner that will understand that and determine the right-size solution at the right level of investment.
When automating customer data, automation platforms should integrate with third party CRM or ERP systems to create that rich single view of the customer that will drive highly targeted programmes. And look for a partner that takes a proactive role in reviewing the results of your efforts and recommending enhancements.
WITH RAPID CHANGES IN AUTOMATION TECHNOLOGY, HOW DO YOU KEEP YOUR PRODUCT RELEVANT?
We work closely with our clients to increase the relevance and feature set of our platform in tune with market requirements and also to understand their current and future needs. We involve clients in our roadmap process so that we can scale our solution to future expectations.
IS AUTOMATION A THREAT TO CREATIVITY?
Not at all! On the contrary, automation is a creativity enabler. It’s eliminating the repetitive aspects of data collation and reporting and allows marketers to focus on what they do best – strategy and creativity. Automation opens up new opportunities from customer data and behavioural insights, offering new creative levers in personalisation, greater engagement and interaction.