A journey of a thousand miles

Marketing Automation

A journey of a thousand miles, …begins with a single step, so goes the often paraphrased Chinese proverb from the philosopher Lao Tzu.

I was reminded of this phrase today while discussing with some learned colleagues the process organisations go through when getting setup with a new and shiny MarTech stack.

The reason it sprung to mind of course, is that having had a suite of Marketing Automation software implemented is really the start of your journey towards having an automated customer journey engine; a smooth repeatable process that nurtures and maintains the relationships with your customers, helps them when they are having difficulty, rewards them when they are loyal, and above all strives to stay relevant and offer information, products and services to customers when and where they need it; via a channel of their own choosing, whether that is inbound or outbound.

All too often software vendors are focused on just that, the software. At Purple Square our primary goal is to help you realise and maximise the potential of your investment. If you are still in the process of making that investment, there’s a lot we can do to help you (e.g. vendor selection, implementation services, application management), but having made that investment and implemented something which on the face of it is very sophisticated, powerful and intuitive, to the point of knowing how you like your coffee; it’s surprising how many organisations feel that the job is now done, and are surprised to find out that it isn’t. Questions get asked, such as ‘we’ve implemented XYZ, why aren’t my margins up?‘, ‘why hasn’t my open and click rate increased?‘, or ‘why is disengagement not reducing?‘

The key, as our long suffering CEO Andy Addison likes to say, is that “technology is an enabler, not a magic bullet”.

Having made a great decision and implemented Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Adobe Experience Cloud, HCL Unica or Acoustic Marketing Platform (to pick a few thoroughbred vendors not at random from the racetrack), this is really the start of your journey towards getting it right for your customers. The good news is, the journey isn’t a thousand miles or years long (though it may feel like it at times), though the bad news, if that’s what you want to call it, is if you want to get where you need to be quickly, then you need an accelerator – a collaborative, transparent partner who believes the same things you do. That a lot of the time, good enough just isn’t. A partner who knows the road ahead of you better than you know it yourself, who can see the pot holes and how to avoid them, who gently supports you in steering your Marketing Automation along that journey to enlightenment.

A phrase I’ve been very fond of over the years both in what I would say to customers, prospects and while interviewing consultants to join us on the adventure is “Purple Square are the accelerator, never the brakes”, which really sums up all that I love about working for an independent marketing automation consultancy; and I think our customers might, if prompted, say the same thing about us.

Finally, I’ll leave you with another thought, by paraphrasing another of the great orators of the twentieth century, Winston Churchill, in what I think neatly sums up the state of an organisation after making the switch to a cutting edge piece of Marketing Automation. “Now this is not the end.  It is not even the beginning of the end.  But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

If you’re on the journey, and interested in moving beyond the end of the beginning or accelerating the process, why not get in touch with us today.