Marketing Automation: The Data Model

Heeey there,

Today we’ll talk about why your armada of leads converts so poorly. 🤯

But first…

I had a really weird experience recently.

Without going into much detail a great business connection has rather abruptly ceased to exist last week.

I was honestly somewhat shocked by the rapidness and unexpected manner of the news.

I even felt like I might be crazy for being “so” upset about it.

Luckily I had a great conversation with a friend who was also affected by the situation and he reassured me that he is just as shocked.

Why am I on about this?

I sometimes feel like with the hustle culture of the past few years, feeling something on a deeper level became somewhat of a luxury.

Yet I think even in business settings it’s not only normal but healthy and in many cases even useful to be invested somewhat emotionally too.

Does that lead to crappy feelings sometimes?

Sure it does.

But does it also help you appreciate the great moments better?

I think so.

After all, life should not only be about how to get ahead with your business.

Now back to marketing stuff 🤙

Last week, I introduced our new podcast: Business Companion
and in it the first episode in a series about marketing automation.

This week we’ll continue right where we left off: with the 2nd EP of Business Companion.

The goal of this series is to provide you with valuable insights
and strategies that can empower a business
to enhance its customer experience
and increase efficiency

All through the power of marketing automation.

Last week we started with: “Phase 1” which we refer to as: “Analyse & Strategise”.
Today we are continuing with Phases 2 & 3, referred to as: “Data Model Build-Up” & “Implementation”.

If you find these insights valuable, the best way to support our work is by inviting your friends to become Dot Connecters and learn more about Connecting The Dots between marketing activities and financial goals.

Topic Of Today:

• First Steps Of Setting Up Automation 🏁

• Have You Really Got Great Leads? 🙄

• Fixing More Than Emails 👷‍♀️

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First Steps 🏁

We’ve already talked about the preliminary analysis that a business needs before marketing automation may be prescribed and before we can implement it.

Without understanding:

• The end goal of the business

• Current data collection practices

• Current tools used for current JBTD

You are merely wasting your time by trying to apply any automation.

So how do we get started when we set MA up for a client?

One of the 1st steps is simply checking what’s visible.

Meaning, that we go through all possible routes of customer journeys the business offers to see each point a customer must touch.

We check out their website »
Go through the login process »
Check what forms we need to fill »
See where each step takes us next »
See what platforms are involved in this »

We record & visualise all of this information on a Miro board.

You don’t have to use a Miro board, of course, the point is to
understand and visualise what their customers experience.

We distinguish between:

• Sales-Led Motion

• Marketing-Led Motion

Unless it is a completely product-led business, it will often have multiple conversion routes.
In a Marketing-Led motion (similar to a Product-Led one)
the customer goes through each step on their own »

from seeing ads to registering they do everything themselves.

In a Sales-Led motion, however, at a certain point in the customer journey, an SDR/AE gets involved to convert the lead.

Understanding all possible customer journeys are crucial part of setting up marketing automation.

Without knowing:

• what touchpoints are involved,

• what tools play a role in the conversion,

• where an SDR may get involved in the process,

• where the business needs manual transfer of data

you can not set up a system of automation that can enhance both efficiency and customer experience.

Once we’ve got all the visible parts down, we can move on to the invisible parts.

This is the point where we first list all the questions that we want to know about the customer’s journey.

Things like:

• What is the name of the customer?

• Are they part of a business?

• Do they have multiple accounts?

• Are they using a free version?

• Through which channel did they join?

…and so on.

We then translate these questions in a way that relates to the data stored on them, like:

• How do we record names?

• How do we record business information?

• Do we record customer IDs?

Etc.

Then we present the collected questions to the backend developers of the business.

We’ll usually do a few rounds back and forth
to then end up with a map of all the data that we need.

More often than not data will come in from multiple sources meaning:

• There will be duplicates of some data

• Some of the data won’t be accurate

• Some of it won’t be properly used

This is why the next steps are to:

• Clean up the current data

• Define future collection

This means we first need to clear duplicates, outdated & inaccurate data,
then we need to set up clear naming conventions in order to ensure
that in the future there is 1 clear set of records for each customer.

This is what we call data mapping.

We’ll often do this in a Miro board as well so that we have a visual representation of:

• Current sources of data

• Current names of data

• Future sources of data

• Future names of data

While we are working on this we have to simultaneously figure out current lead definition methods.

Have You Really Got Great Leads? 🙄

Part of understanding a business’s current records is knowing how they’ve been defining leads.

This may seem nitpicky at first but it actually has lasting implications.

As we discussed in our last edition, the 2 most common scenarios
in which we implement marketing automation are:

• A client facing issues with revenue

• A client facing issues with retention

A rather common scenario that we experience is one where a client explains
that while they do have a lot of success with generating leads…
when it comes to converting them into customers
the picture isn’t as bright anymore.

Now there could be a million different reasons for this, from issues with the offer, through issues with translating the offer to the right message all the way to wrong timing and more.

Yet a much simpler and all too common explanation is:
an issue with how the business defines what a lead is.

While I’m not saying that there is a golden standard to defining a lead, there are definitely better and worse practices.

Among the worst ones is the all too common route of wishful thinking.

Understandably some businesses, especially ones that need to prove numbers to their investors, will be rather trigger-happy when it comes to calling someone a lead.

…and while it may lead to a comforting-looking large number of leads, it will also certainly lead to a devastating-looking small number of paying customers.

Without a clear definition of:

• What is a lead

• What is a free-trial

• Who’s considered a customer

etc.

Not only will you have an unpleasant surprise when it comes to your conversion rates, but you’ll also most certainly be unable to set up a working ecosystem of marketing automation.

That is why as we are uncovering current data sources, and setting up future data collection standards…

we also have to understand current lead-definition practices and create a clear structure of MQLs, PQLs, SQLs and the lot for future reference.

Fixing More Than Emails 👷‍♀️

If you’ve come this far it won’t surprise you that a marketing automation process that was set up with experience and “care” will actually affect way more than automation.

Since you need to both understand and clean up:

• data collection and storage methods

• sources of truth for data collection

• the way leads are defined

• the funnels lead go through

Even without specifically setting out to do so, through this process, you’ll be able to fix a variety of loose ends in your business.

While creating a comprehensive marketing automation ecosystem certainly requires time, resources and effort from a business…

The benefits it is capable of producing are tenfold compared to what you’ll invest.

The idea that what you’ve thought of as great results may actually be subpar… and figuring that out will require further investment can be scary…

But do you know what’s scarier than knowing you have an illness that you need to take medication for?

Not knowing you’ve got it.

That’s it for today…

Stay tuned for the next episode of Business Companion.

Want to know how you can enhance business efficiency and your customers’ experience?

…or perhaps you’ve been meaning to implement some automation in your marketing motions »

In any case, don't miss out on the upcoming episodes of our series: Mastering Marketing Automation!

Subscribe to our podcast and keep an eye on your inbox for the next edition of our newsletter as well.

Happy learning!

P.S. If you haven't already, be sure to check out Business Companion on YouTube for a more in-depth discussion on Phases 1, 2 & 3.

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