From the mid-1990s when emails became a genuine method of communication, ‘marketing automation’ meant a one-size-fitsall newsletter to a customer database. The ever-growing industry now encompasses endless automation and analytics for marketing, and is seen by many organisations as an essential business tool to understand their audiences. Platforms such as Salesforce, HubSpot and even tools like Google Analytics are streamlining processes and changing the way customers interact with brands.
Kevin Doyle, Salesforce Regional Vice President, says the vision of the platform is taking moments and turning them into trusted customer relationships.
“Marketing is no longer a silo. Today’s marketers have to nurture customer relationships and grow revenue for their businesses by connecting with the sales, customer services and commerce teams.”
E-commerce, email and CRM data can all be integrated onto a single digital platform. By homing all business data in one place, everyone in the business can understand who their customers truly are, what they want and how the business can meet their needs, Kevin says.
In the modern digital age, it’s not hard to spot when an organisation’s marketing and commerce groups are not connected. From a consumer perspective it can be as obvious as continuously being targeted online ads to an item they’ve already purchased.
A Salesforce Connected Customer Report found that nearly 90 percent of buyers believe the experience a company provides matters just as much as the products or services it sells. Kevin says that can only be achieved with privacy ensured collection of data across an organisation, and that comes down to trust.
“The way you build trust is through empathy and actually caring who your customers are – you can only do that if you know who you’re talking to, otherwise you’re just praying and hoping for the best which is impossible
