Connection between marketing automation and engagement

As a new father, I've been thrown headfirst into a strange new world, where clothing is sized in months but outgrown in weeks. So it was especially fitting that the brand represented in the Email Engagement Solutions breakout session at Connections 2013 was the infant clothing retailer Carter's.

Their challenge is to provide moms and dads with relevant, personalized product recommendations for children's clothing based on the age of their children. A beautiful quote when describing the relevancy challenge was, "Get it right, and nobody notices (though opens, clicks and conversions will continue to rise). Get it wrong, and your subscribers will disengage or unsubscribe." However, with five size-based segments targeted by Carter's, manually deploying relevant messaging can prove challenging on top of all other marketing priorities.

By spending a little time and brainpower in advance, the team at Carter's is able to achieve their goal of timely, relevant communications with little ongoing oversight. They report higher engagement metrics, with 84% higher click-through rate, 17% higher conversion rate, and an 86% drop in unsubscribe activity.

When asked who was currently utilizing automation, a shockingly small number of marketers in the audience raised their hands Even more shocking was how few individuals even planned to adopt automation in the near future. This is an area for quick, easy gains, and the key to moving past tactics and into strategy. As marketers, our value-add is strategy, not the day-to-day deployment of marketing materials. But the messages must go out, and it is easy to lose site of the strategy in favor of the logistics of day to day tasks. With a bit of thought, and a commitment of time up-front, you can easily automate several of the manual deployments, freeing you up piece-by-piece to tackle the next strategic goal of your organization.

Jim Collins of Good to Great fame discussed the concept of achieving ticks on the flywheel, and that with subsequent turns of the wheel you begin to see and feel momentum. Each manual campaign that can be automated is a turn of the flywheel, freeing up a marginal amount of time to dedicate to another task (or, more appropriately, your next automation). Lather, rinse, repeat. In time, you'll find yourself with the time needed to dedicate to marketing strategy, not just tactics.

ARTICLE SOURCE: This factual content has not been modified from the source. This content is syndicated news that can be used for your research, and we hope that it can help your productivity. This content is strictly for educational purposes and is not made for any kind of commercial purposes of this blog.