“When you say hill,” the Queen interrupted, “I could show you hills, in comparison with which you’d call that a valley.”
“No, I shouldn’t,” said Alice, surprised into contradicting her at last: “a hill can’t be a valley, you know. That would be nonsense—”
The Red Queen shook her head, “You may call it ‘nonsense’ if you like,” she said, “but I’ve heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!”
—Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
For a hobby, primarily in order to stay in shape, I ride a bike. It is not uncommon if you were riding in a car with me that as we approached a hill I would comment and say, “That is a hill (with emphasis on hill).” I would be defining that hill with some qualification of sort based on my own feelings and experiences riding up hills via my bike. But it’s still just a hill, right? Yes, until you personally experience that hill in a unique way (in my case on a bike).
Marketing automation is the same way. It’s just marketing automation until you personalize and automate the marketing to create an experience and elicit a feeling. It only then becomes powerful and regarded as marketing automation (emphasis).
This involves:
- Telling a story that is memorable
- Precise and purposeful leadflow
- Excellent content
- Good design – not boring
- Concrete message – creatively presented
- Aligning your selling process with the buyers buying process
- Precise nurturing
- Next actions based on activity
- Knowing what is working and not working
Recommended reading: Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.