Meet Ivenials #5 - Kacper Gawlik
Why do companies need marketing automation (MA)? What benefits and opportunities does it create for them?
Marketing automation responds to the challenges expressed by marketers who find themselves spending time on repetitive tasks and workflows. In addition, there are companies in which marketing teams struggle to demonstrate their value, as they are often instructed to attend conferences, workshops, etc., mostly for lead generation or event presence purposes.
However, with the right MA tools, the marketing team is empowered to do so much more! Don't get me wrong – attending branded events is an effective way to promote one’s business. However, the added advantage lies in capturing the details about every prospect during these events. Through our MA platform, we can later nurture these prospects, maintaining ongoing conversations and enhancing our brand awareness.
With MA tools, we are capable of sending our message across all marketing channels! What's more, with the ability to capture campaign responses, we generate marketing gold: data. Through the carefully chosen marketing technology (MarTech) stack, we gain insights into who our ideal buyers are, which campaigns and channels are effective, and understand the duration of our lead lifecycle, etc. This data can feed data analysis tools that, when supported with AI engines, can create some behavioral scenarios and predictions. With such knowledge, the chance that our next campaign will attract more prospective customers grows significantly.
MA enhances the implementation of requirements from business or sales by fine-tuning certain process components and delivering results almost instantly, in contrast to the manual effort of sending emails one by one or engaging in cold calling activities.
You work with Marketo every day. How would you explain the possibilities of this platform to someone who has never been interested in MA?
I'll be honest – without a basic understanding of any MA platform concept, the first encounter with Marketo may be tough. However, the true strengths of this platform are flexibility and community.
Flexibility is a key feature of Marketo because it does not impose a single way to achieve a goal. Depending on your experience, resources and time, the end result can be attained in many ways. That's why it's crucial to stay in touch with the platform while working on multiple projects, as Marketo grows rapidly by implementing new functionalities. So, the next time you need to tackle a similar case, you may be capable of achieving the result more effectively.
I have also mentioned the community because Marketo Nation is simply awesome! I believe every single challenge you may face has been covered at some point on the forum, and if not, there are people who are always willing to help! Some true Marketo magicians can make Marketo dance to their tune. Finally, Adobe's documentation is pretty thorough and frequently updated, so if you're looking for a specific Marketo section, it's always a good place to start.
How, from your experience, is MA improving the overall customer experience and helping build and maintain strong customer relationships?
I believe that currently, every message has to be tailored. So, it's really important to understand how prospects or customers explore our channels. We need to know what content they are interested in, what products are in line with their needs, or what products are not yet on the market that could meet certain demands. This is why building a strong relationship with our database is something that marketing teams need to focus on these days. We need to make sure we deliver content, tools, and analysis—whatever is needed—so when the time comes, prospects think of our brand when they are willing to buy.
That being said, it's important to have the MarTech stack that helps to achieve all of that. However, when we start our MA journey, it's vital to have at least three tools:
MA Platform to perform our daily marketing efforts and reporting that will show some basic campaign responses like visits, clicks, opens, conversions, etc. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Platform to help us better understand our prospects and customers and improve our sales process (for example, tracking our opportunity stages). Data Analysis Tools and Platforms (e.g., Customer Data Platform or Data Warehouse): ideally, these tools put all the data from MA and CRM platforms together, allowing us to obtain a 360-degree view of our customers and prospects.
Once we have this solid MarTech foundation, as our company grows, there will be time to enhance it with other integrations to maintain our events, social campaigns, or focus on all other nuances that can generate better analytics and user experience.
What projects have been the most challenging and rewarding for you, personally?
I've had the chance to be part of implementations, audits, and migration projects. However, I believe that being a team leader at some point in my career has been instrumental in my learning journey. Leading a team is not an easy task, especially when there are daily projects to deliver to our customers. Nevertheless, I consider people in organizations to be the most crucial factor. Understanding their needs to help them grow has been the most challenging experience. I had the privilege to work with a great team, and witnessing the growth of their capabilities was the most rewarding. I recognize that I may not have covered every aspect of the Team Leader role perfectly, but if I've helped someone to progress, I consider it a success.
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