Marketing automation is the new game in town, it builds leverage onto marketing investments. Absolutely right, and I am a believer. Scott Brinkers amazing work illustrates just how rapidly it is advancing.
Automation delivers the opportunity for huge leverage when used well. For small and medium enterprises it offers the opportunity to look and act like their much larger competitors, and win by outmanoeuvring them with their inherent agility.
However, there are risks not being talked about very much, if at, all in the rush into the automated tools.
- A tool is not a strategy.
There is so much smoke and mirrors and just plain bullshit being sprayed around by the vendors of many tools that the basics risk being ignored. When you need to drive a nail, the tool you need is a hammer, not an all singing, all dancing, multipurpose expandable screwdriver. Digital tools are all driven by algorithms and logical progressions, based on assumptions. Problem arises when the tool does not accommodate the myriad of behavioural realities that occur in the real world. I am seeing automation seen as a strategy way too often, without due consideration of the context in which the tool will be used, and the outcomes that can reasonably be expected.
2. Ownership delivers leverage.
Those who ‘own’ the tool are able to use the output to further their particular perspective. Outcomes predicted by some tool often takes on a credibility greater than it should simply because somebody has done the number crunching through a tool. These things do not think, they do as they are told, so being constructively critical of outcomes that appear at odds with common sense is usually a pretty good practise. The next time I see a course of action that sits uncomfortably with my instincts being pursued just because it appears justified by some algorithm will not be the first. Getting the balance between the wisdom of experience and domain knowledge and the output of some algorithm wrong is akin to letting the kids loose on a 1000cc racing bike. Great for a while, but destined for a nasty prang.
3. The danger of complication.
Steve Jobs has been credited with the words “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’ which is simply an extension of what we have known for ages. Einstein said (amongst many other insightful strategic observations) ‘Everything should be as complicated as it need to be, and no more’. Automation has within it the opportunity to overcomplicate, when the simple is all that is needed. I still have (SME) clients to whom Excel pivot tables represent automation of their sales analysis, and sometimes that is all that is needed. Setting out to implement a ‘marketing stack’ in this sort of environment, with this existing level of digital sophistication will only lead to tears.
4. Business is not absolute.
The formulas in a tool are absolute, they do exactly as they are told. As noted, business is not absolute, there are multiple shades of grey all over the place, often confusing and conflicting. Digital algorithms are yet to be able to learn and apply the judgements born of that learning to a situation facing them, and indeed, in analysing adequately the situation confronted.
5. Marketing ROI.
Marketing has long suffered from the accusation, that it is all smoke and mirrors, supposition and judgement along with the long lunches, and too often the accusations have had some merit. “Where are the numbers?’ is a pretty common question when marketing is chasing its slice of the available resource pie, and in their absence, Marketing is the first to be cut in a squeeze. Now there are tools that supposedly, and in fact do deliver an ability to do reliable calculations, they are often grasped like a drowning man will grasp anything that floats by. Pity an attractive lead weight can be tarted up to look like a life jacket.
6. Financial ROI.
Implementation of marketing technology is no cheap exercise, as anyone who has had anything to do with this stuff will attest. The cost of the software is only the beginning, and the time taken to project completion usually confounds even the most pessimistic forecasts made in the blush of the original ‘let’s do it’ decision. In many instances I have seen, taking some of the money thrown away in marketing automation, and putting it against genuine customer oriented activities would generate a far superior ROI.
7. Automation for its own sake.
Automating a crap process just leaves you with automated crap. One of the most common mistakes I see is believing that an implementation will solve a problem, when in my experience, automation just makes an existing problem worse, harder to find, and more expensive to fix. Never automate until the existing processes are working seamlessly, or alternatively, when you automate, throw all existing processes out the window, and start with a completely fresh page. The danger here is that without a rigorous outside intervention those that allowed the former processes to resemble a dog-pile will be the ones writing the new routines. Usually not sensible.
8. Automation is different to decision making.
Automating can deliver information that provides the data required to make informed decisions, but cannot in itself make decisions that require judgement. At best an automated decision tree can be an ‘if that then this’ logic sequence. If ever you needed convincing of this; just look at the May 2010 ‘Flash Crash‘ of the Dow Jones. The decisions surrounding resource allocation are challenging, requiring a multidimensional view of the options that balance the relative outcomes, risks and rewards.
9. It all becomes too easy.
Let’s face it, life is really busy and stressful, so when there is an answer provided that has corporate credibility, the easy way is to go along with it, not rock the boat, and often not run the gauntlet of questioning the status quo.
My thanks to Tom Fishburne for the header cartoon. You continue to demonstrate the power of the cartoon to make a serious point.
