On every episode of the Rebel Instinct, our team sits down with rebels from across the marketing landscape to share stories about bold moves they’ve taken as marketers. Subscribe for more.

Galen Ettlin:
Welcome to the Rebel Instinct Podcast everybody. I am your host, Galen Ettlin with Act-On Software, and our guest today is Esther Flammer, CMO for Wrike, which is a work management platform. Esther is an award-winning marketer with 20 years of experience spanning B2B tech and nonprofits alike. And I know it’s not everything Esther, but I got to welcome and applaud the fellow summa cum laudes in the building. Thank you so much for being here.

Esther Flammer:
Thank you. Happy to be here and happy to be on the podcast.

Galen Ettlin:
Yes. I have so much I want to talk to you about, so I’m just going to jump right into it. I want to start with where you are right now. I know Wrike is pretty big. It’s a really cool platform. Act-On is actually a client. We use it for our project management. Tell me a little bit about your journey to heading up the marketing efforts there. Probably an exciting rollercoaster the last couple of years.

Esther Flammer:
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve been in marketing for about 20 years. Most of my experience has been in high growth SaaS companies. I love to build foundations and revenue generating programs that can scale basically. And so the last few companies really built out kind of a lot of the, I would say the infrastructure, the frameworks, the campaigns, the programs, building revenue, generating engines and customer lifecycle programs that allowed for high growth within those companies and eventually acquisitions. And then when I joined Wrike, you’re right, it has been quite a roller coaster. I joined shortly after the acquisition by Citrix, so Wrike became part of the Citrix family, and then last year Citrix actually was acquired and was taken private and we spun off essentially and became a separate entity at the end of last year. So it’s been quite the rollercoaster, but we’ve been really focused on driving, again, high growth, taking market share within a really competitive industry. So it’s been a fun but wild ride.

Galen Ettlin:
So yeah, like you said, lots of transition and a lot of companies, especially in tech are experiencing those transitions because of the economy, job changes, the acquisitions as you have gone through, as someone in leadership working through and navigating some of that right now, what is one of your big takeaways for success when trying to get that high growth?

Esther Flammer:
Yeah, good question. It’s not really been new. I know it’s kind of a crazy market right now, but especially at high growth companies, change is inevitable and there’s acquisitions and there’s mergers and there’s spinoffs and there’s just constant pivots on business strategy. So I guess a couple of my secrets that have allowed for me to navigate a lot of change and just varying environments, for me it’s about very quickly establishing a reputation and building value within your organization. And so for me, I have built out my career by focusing on looking at building solutions for major gaps in the organization. What are those core problems that are holding the business back that are not allowing the business to move forward that maybe have never been built? And then how do you tie all of your work to those business drivers and then at the same time grow in the breadth and depth of your experience and skillset? It allows for you to be able to prove value to the organization to make an impact and to honestly have a level of marketability and job security because you’ve shown a lot of, you’ve proven a lot of that value, but also you’re able to adapt in very quickly changing environments. And so that’s how I’ve really built out a lot of my career and that would be, I guess a top tip on how to navigate this specific crazy market that we’re in.

Galen Ettlin:
Connecting to that a little bit, company tech stacks are also pretty tall these days. A lot of competition out there on the market for any various service, and I know marketing budgets are often slashed in tough times like these. How do you and your teams work to stand out to both win new business and maintain existing customer loyalty so that you stay on the roster through this?

Esther Flammer:
Yeah, this is top of mind. I would say tech consolidation for sure is top of mind for literally every business leader out there who’s trying to potentially look at how do we save some budget and put it elsewhere, which then makes it top of mind for every marketer in tech. In a down market, you typically tend to see companies that shift their focus from new customer acquisition, which is really, really costly, sometimes hard to scale, and obviously that cost of acquisition continues to go up and they start to shift more towards our customer base, which is how do you get better net retention? How do you retain and expand the customers that you already have that are happy that are adopting and that could potentially buy more? And that’s absolutely a trend that we’re seeing in the industry. I would say that a couple of things that as I think through kind of customer loyalty, as I think through how to balance new business acquisition with customer expansion, there’s a couple of things that we’ve been doing at Wrike.
So number one, we focus a lot on positioning and differentiation. So that messaging strategy, which is as a work management platform, we’re actually very well positioned when budgets are slashed because when you have less budget and resources, you want to maximize every single dollar. You want to maximize every single person on your team. And so focused alignment and execution is absolutely critical to be able to do more with less. And so we’re focusing a lot on really driving home the value of not only our platform for new customers, but also existing customers and really focusing on how is our platform helping deliver business outcomes, helping your business stay stable in an unstable environment or continue to grow even in a down market. And then that differentiation piece and a really competitive market is important because we’re the only platform that can help you scale and align those teams.

When ROI is key, so that’s one thing is really that messaging, the positioning, the differentiation. A second key piece for us is just being smarter about company or customer acquisition. And so when you think about who you have limited dollars, limited resources, you have to be very selective about who are you trying to target and what are the types of customers and prospects that are most important for the business. And so for us, it’s not necessarily about volume, even though that’s that’s important, but for us, we actually can do a level of predictive expected lifetime value of these are the types of customers, these are the types of companies, the types of buyers where we know not only will they buy, but they will potentially expand. And so that’s where we target a lot of our advertising dollars and a lot of our new business acquisitions, just being smarter with the acquisition dollars that you have.

Then the third is really around, again, the customer loyalty piece. I would say the companies that have always invested in really great customer experience and customer lifecycle obviously have a leg up in a downmarket when everyone started starting to turn their attention over to their existing base, but really thinking again strategically about where are they in the customer lifecycle, how do we get them to see value as quickly as possible within the platform? How do we get them adopting, integrating, and really loving the product? And then how do you start to build out really, really explicit paths for them on here’s kind of your upgrade path, here’s your upsell path, here’s your cross-sell path of here’s kind of the next best thing that you should be doing to actually get more value out of the product that you have. And so those are just some of the things that we’re doing to make sure that we can continue to grow even when times are hard and budgets are being slashed.

Galen Ettlin:
You’ve been talking about how marketers are really trying to prove and demonstrate value right now. How do you feel marketers can strategically steer organizations toward revenue based on those industry insights?

Esther Flammer:
Yeah, absolutely. I think one reason why I love being in marketing is because to me, marketing is at the center of business strategy. Companies cannot thrive and survive and grow unless they understand the market that they’re in, understand how do they shape the market, where should they be going after, what are the markets that they can dominate that they can be differentiated in? And then how do you actually then go and deliver on a go-to-market strategy? So I think marketing is huge and should be part of pretty much every discussion in every functional group and every core, I would say overall strategy for the business, whether it’s what does product development look like, where should we be innovating next? What’s the next market we should be going after? Is there a new market that we should maybe be disrupting or maybe there’s a level of product innovation that we could start to build out that would disrupt our current market.

There’s obviously the go-to-market with sales, which is how do we better deliver the right buyers? How do we go after the right buyers and what’s the right approach? The messaging strategy, the channel mix, sales enablement and what we should put in the sales toolkit, it should all be aligned. Customer strategy is another one where, again, marketing should be at the core of a lot of what’s happening within those customer cohorts. Where are they in their customer lifecycle? What’s the next best product or next thing that they should be doing? How do we showcase value? There’s hr, how do we continue to market ourselves as an employee brand to capture the best talent out there? So there’s so many aspects. I think that marketing can help drive strategically of an organization, and it’s, again, it’s what I love about being marketing, that it’s not just like, here’s the leads, here’s the brand, but it’s actually everything that really moves the business forward.

Galen Ettlin:
And what you’re saying, I’m hearing a lot of sales driven, results driven marketing campaigns, and I think that brings us to a good question of how sales and marketing get along and can really collaborate to bring those deals across the finish line. And I know in a lot of companies that’s the age old give and take. It’s hard to get sales and marketing often on the same page and delivering that same message and getting the results that ultimately you both need and want to achieve to prove that value in your job. What is your approach to cross-functionality and how those two separate teams can better do that business together?

Esther Flammer:
Yeah, I think it starts with being aligned to the same targets and goals. You have to incentivize people in the same way. And sales is a department that is very used to incentives. I mean, pretty much most of their comp is based off of quota, and if marketing is not aligned to the same targets, that’s where the misalignment starts. If marketing is like, well, we just care about leads, we’re always in green, we’ve delivered the leads, we’re good, we’re getting paid, our jobs are safe, we’re celebrating, and meanwhile sales targets are not being hit or overall company bookings are not being hit. That’s a huge misalignment. So I think a lot of it honestly starts with making sure that you have the same goals as a company. Actually marketing being tied to bookings, essentially bookings and revenue, but also pipeline. I care way more about pipeline of what’s actually happening from the leads that we’re generating.

Are we actually creating predictable pipeline and making sure that that can close into revenue? Those are a lot of the conversations I have both with marketing and with sales and just aligning goals. We’ll get sales very much aligned to what marketing is doing. I think the other piece that we always talk about is kind of taking it back to ROI and being able to, again, showcase that we’re driving bookings and driving pipeline from the campaigns that we’re doing. And then you get better alignment with sales of if you want us to invest more in these field events, if you want us to invest more in a b m or in the advertising that’s driving a lot of these leads that you love and that is essentially filling your book of business, then you need to work with us and here’s the ask. So those are just some of the things that I think are really critical to sales and marketing alignment.

Galen Ettlin:
Taking a step back and looking at your success personally, you’ve accomplished a lot heading up marketing for a multi-billion dollar tech company. That’s no small feat, and I think a lot of people are really trying to figure out how can I align myself to reach that peak, that level, not a peak. I’m sure you’re going to do even more, but for those marketers out there listening, they want to know the secret sauce. What was maybe a defining moment in your journey toward these marketing leadership positions?

Esther Flammer:
Yeah, it’s a good question and it was absolutely a journey. It’s been a journey and I’m still on that journey because I’m still growing and learning. But I think as I think through back at my journey, and I mentioned this a little bit earlier, where finding your sweet spot, finding specifically some of those core competencies and those unique skills that you bring to the table and that is your unique perspective and the solutions that you drive from them, and then actually the output of delivering on results, the more that you can hone that and own it and build that brand, not just for yourself of this is my sweet spot and this is where I really thrive, is building these foundations and really connecting the dots to larger business strategy, but then starting to build, I would say a reputation or your own brand within your organization with your team of being that person that can go in and fill in a gap and be able to build solutions that can drive business growth.

Those are things that really make you valuable and it also gives you that ability to be able to add on more experience and that breadth of experience that is really critical as you continue to drive forward in your career. So for example, we didn’t have customer marketing at one of my early companies and it was a gap that the company just hadn’t really thought through it. And so me thinking through what is the customer lifecycle? How can we build out a longer standing kind of the longevity program that can essentially onboard everyone but get to, again, showcasing value, showcasing tips and tricks to get better adoption, but also showing those customers where they can start to drive the value from that product and potentially uplevel themselves or uplevel themselves in their career and starting to build out those types of programs. It allowed for me to expand my skillset and it allowed for me to think more in a customer’s shoes of what would they care about and how do I help them in their careers or in their day-to-day responsibility.

And then being able to apply that, whether that’s partner marketing and thinking through from a partner standpoint of how do we engage our partners or grow or acquire more partners or grow and acquire more business through our partners, or whether that’s demand gen of I’m trying to get in front of new prospects or whether that’s product marketing, just really thinking through some of that approach to how do I drive value for them? What would they care about and how do I start to bring a message of what we can do for them and help them better understand the product better, understand how they can do better in their roles. So those are things that I think are really critical that have been critical for me in terms of expanding my breadth and depth of just general marketing that I’ve also utilized as I’ve gone up in my career as well.

Galen Ettlin:
This may be along those lines, but we always like to ask this question of people on the Rebel Instinct podcast. What would you say is one of the most out of the box projects that you worked on or something that you are really proud of and how did it perform?

Esther Flammer:
I mean, again, that’s one reason why I think we’re in marketing is because the art and the science of it, and I guess some of the innovations and fun campaign ideas that have happened over the years, there’s plenty, but at one of my last companies, we supported basically our target audience was essentially Salesforce users. And so one of our biggest events of the whole year was around Dreamforce, and it was actually in 2020 when everything went virtual, and instead of doing our multimillion dollar headquarters outside of Moscone and doing a silent disco that we were very well-known for, because we had done it for the three or four years that I’d been there, it was the party of the year, we actually did the virtual element of it, and we did a virtual 5K as part of our Dreamforce road to Dreamforce and driving a lot of the buzz around our event alongside Dreamforce, and that was just super fun.

I feel like the pandemic and having to switch everything to virtual made everyone actually a little bit more creative and really, I feel like it was kind of a shining moment for marketers on what can we do when we don’t have an in-person experience? And it was actually super cool. We went from driving a big party in person to doing actually a 5K event that people could do wherever they were. They could go on a walk outside and still be essentially six feet apart from other people, but we made it super fun where people could win awards and they could kind of cheer each other on During that. We had dance parties in between, and so it was very out of the box where I feel like a B2B tech marketer

Galen Ettlin:
Way to flex those creative muscles when you really needed to in a way that was safe as well. So that’s really fun. Well, for you, Esther, how are you a rebel in your non-work life?

Esther Flammer:
I feel like people, when they hear what we do with our family, people are like, I feel like people probably think it’s pretty rebellious, but we’ve been traveling with our kids internationally since they were babies. So when my first son was one, we did a one month trip to Asia, so we spent a month in Asia, in Korea, Japan, with a stop in Hawaii and took him on that 14 hour flight, which was pretty crazy. But we really love traveling and we love to take our kids. When our kids were, gosh, I’m thinking I think four, two and four, no, sorry, four and six, we rented a camper van and went all around New Zealand. We love to explore the world with our kids even when they’re two young to travel according to probably most standards, but they’ve grown up going to really, really cool places and having really fun experiences. So I guess that’s a way that I rebel.

Galen Ettlin:
That’s great. And it’s what a cool opportunity for them too, to grow up feeling like that’s normal. I get to see the world and learn about everything outside my bubble.

Esther Flammer:
Yeah.

Galen Ettlin:
Well, speaking of other places, other cultures, our culture, whatever you want, what rebel do you feel needs to be celebrated and why?

Esther Flammer:
Where we are as a world and a society today is there is more of a push for work-life balance for people where people want to, I think especially with remote work, hybrid work, being able to work from everywhere, there’s absolutely a push for work is not everything I say a lot of times to my team, we’re not saving lives here. It’s important. And you had mentioned a give and take earlier with sales and marketing. I think everything is a give and take. I think work-life balances is a give and take, and I think the relationship with your company is very much a give and a take where again, I’ve built out a lot of value for my company and I give a lot to my company and I’m an asset, and a lot of our people are our employees. They’re assets to the company and they give a lot.

And so I think that it’s fair to take some as well, but again, it needs to be a balance. You can’t be all about taking of like, I’m just going to work whenever I want and not really sign in and not be available or let my team down. You can’t just take, because then you probably won’t have a job anymore. But if you are really producing and you are a business critical person and you’re really showcasing the value, and again, driving and tying to business outcomes, I think it’s fair for you to set boundaries around. I’m going to take PTO and I’m going to try and be off the grid here, right? So I’m going to set things up. I’m not going to leave my team hanging. I’m going to deliver on everything that I need to before I go, but I am, I’m going to go unplug. So I do love that rebellious, and it’s sad that that’s rebellious.

Galen Ettlin:
I hear ya.

Esther Flammer:
But I think, again, when there’s that give and take, I think that that can absolutely work for both the company and for the employee.

Galen Ettlin:
We, I think could all take a leaf from your ‘put more stamps on the passport’ advice.

Esther Flammer:
Take your kids. Take your kids.

Galen Ettlin:
There you go. Yeah, don’t hold back. Just do it.

Esther Flammer:
Yes.

Galen Ettlin:
It’s time for a fun segment we like to call ‘Honey, I don’t think so.’ I’m going to give you 60 seconds for you to tell me something that’s annoying you lately that needs to stop in the marketing or MarTech space. So whenever you’re ready, let me know.

Esther Flammer:
And I was thinking about this. I get way too many emails and I can never find the unsubscribe button, or I feel like it doesn’t work half the time, or I never know if I’m unsubscribed, but I just think email is a channel. There needs to be a strategy and it needs to be utilized in a really thoughtful and intentional way. I think especially now, it’s hugely overused, especially because budgets are tight and it’s a free channel, but the pressure is on. People are starting to try and I think prioritize activity over strategy, and email is just one of those where it’s too much. And I get that you have goals to hit, but if you’re not being thoughtful and intentional and really showcasing the value of why am I reaching out? What does this look like? It’s just going to be a one-sided conversation. You’re going to get unsubscribed. You’re not going to engage with your audience. So that’s my thing. That’s annoying me. I think I get too many and I just ignore email now. So that’s I think my soapbox.

Galen Ettlin:
Amen. I’m there with you, and we’re a marketing automation company that specializes in email, but it really comes down to deliverability and making sure it’s something that’s worth someone’s time and what they actually need or want. Right? Otherwise, it’s just clutter.

Esther Flammer:
Agreed.

Galen Ettlin:
We’re there with you.

Esther Flammer:
More to delete.

Galen Ettlin:
Exactly. Well, Esther, thank you so much for joining us here today on the Rebel Instinct Podcast. It has been a joy. Where can people find you?

Esther Flammer:
So they can find me on LinkedIn. That’s probably the best. And our company is wrike.com.

Galen Ettlin:
Excellent. Well, thanks again.

Esther Flammer:
Yeah, thanks, Galen.

Galen Ettlin:
Thanks everyone for listening to the Rebel Instinct Podcast. Be sure to follow Act-On Software for updates and upcoming episodes, and remember to always act on your rebel instinct. Until next time.

Check out the next episode of the Rebel Instinct Podcast, featuring Tejas Manohar, co-founder and co-CEO of Hightouch.

Marketing has also transformed over the past several years. Customers don’t just prefer personalized experiences – they demand them. And if you miss the mark on personalization, a customer will delete your marketing emails, keep scrolling online, and ultimately lose interest in your company and products. So it’s no surprise marketers are spending more on technology to support this increased demand around personalization. But this technology depends on data, and having more of it requires greater security. 

As you shop for technology, you might have heard about ISO 27001. But what is it? 

ISO 27001 is an accreditation that shows a company has a strict set of standards for securely handling customer data. As you consider what it means for your marketing department, here are a few things to consider.

Helps Keep Customer Data Confidential and Private 

With the rise in security breaches, customers care more than ever about the safety of their data. If a customer hands you personal information, they want to know they won’t regret it later. The challenge is that customer confidence around data security is already pretty low, with 70% saying they don’t think businesses do enough to secure personal information and that it’s likely been compromised without their knowledge. With trust levels already so low, it falls on marketing to rebuild that trust. 

Many governments have already stepped up to help, with Europe creating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California creating the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). But in addition to meeting relevant regulatory requirements, marketers can choose technology partners that have undergone optional ISO 27001 certification to strengthen their security. 

Supports Personalization and Improved ROI

Customers are getting pickier about how they expect to be treated. Send a customer the same email they positively responded to a decade ago; today, that person will skim and delete it without a second thought. Customers want more, so marketers are responding to the call. 

Over half of marketers say that personalization is their top priority. At the root of this priority is giving customers a better experience, according to 88% of marketers. Audience segmentation is required to do this successfully, helping you speak to people in a way that makes them feel known. But it’s impossible to personalize without data, so you must convince prospects and customers that it’s safe to share it. 

Working with partners that have adopted recognized security standards, such as ISO 27001, tells customers your business does things the right way. As security becomes more important to customers, businesses that can’t prove strict security measures will quickly be taken out of the running. 

Helps Build Brand Loyalty 

Nothing erodes brand loyalty faster than a data breach. Once trust is broken through a breach, it’s difficult – if not impossible – to rebuild it. A recent report found that nearly half of the organizations surveyed suffered reputation damage due to data breaches, and almost one-fifth struggled with reputation and brand damage due to a third-party security breach. And the cost of breaches is rising fast, reaching a 17-year high of $4.24 million in 2021. 

Working with ISO 27001 certified partners helps reduce security breach risk through ongoing work to spot and fix security weaknesses. ISO 27001 certification means your partner is working to evolve security policy, objectives, risk assessments and more to keep customer data safe. 

This extra due diligence supports brand loyalty. Customers who have successfully shared data with you in the past will feel more comfortable doing so in the future. Sure, they could make a switch to a competitor, but if they’re concerned about data security, this factor weighs heavily on the decision. 

Supports a Competitive Advantage 

Does it feel like marketing is getting more competitive? You’re not imagining it; the statistics support that competition is, in fact, getting more difficult. Eighty-seven percent of companies report that their market has become more competitive in the past few years, and 49% say it’s become much more competitive. 

So what can marketers do? 

It comes down to your ability to personalize, meeting customers exactly where they are on the customer journey. And, of course, to do that, you need data. Getting that data requires you to prove trustworthiness, and this trust gives you a competitive advantage. 

Keeping your company’s name out of the headlines by upping data security is a good first step to getting an edge on the competition. Then you need to communicate to customers what you’re doing to stay more secure so they trust you. 

With customer data in hand, you can do a better job of personalizing, which is where the big payoffs start to happen. Talking to your customers in a way that feels like you “get them” gives you a vote of confidence, so they open more emails, download more content, and speak to your salespeople. According to McKinsey & Company, personalization drives performance and better outcomes. The fastest-growing companies drive 40% more of their revenue from personalization than their slower-growing counterparts.

Marketing Automation and ISO 27001

You might already use marketing automation, and if so, you know how powerful it can be to building a business and growing revenue. Marketing automation helps you segment customers fast, send more relevant messages, create trigger emails and reach out at a time that feels serendipitous to customers. But back to security … how can you ensure that your marketing automation technology is secure? It’s a great question and one that more marketing teams are asking. And it comes down to data. 

Data is one of your marketing team’s biggest assets, and it’s part of your job to protect it. One way to do that better is to work with a marketing automation partner with international certification, such as ISO 27001. A partner with this certification gives you confidence that: 

1. Security processes are continuously reviewed. Ongoing review is part of the ISO 27001 framework. Feel certain that processes are under ongoing scrutiny. 
2. The risk of exposure is minimized. ISO 27001 certification requires vendors to undergo a rigorous process, ensuring that data is handled securely at every turn. The framework is designed to reduce security risk and costly exposure. 
3. Customer confidence is built. You can build trust, confidence and loyalty by showing customers that you’re serious about security – it’s a top priority. 

Meeting ISO 27001 requirements isn’t a one-time process. It’s a constant commitment to security, the security framework and protecting one of your team’s most valuable assets – customer data. The framework makes sure that you never let your guard down, and with this assurance, you can feel confident that you have what you need to build and keep customer trust. 

Introduction

Act-On customers have convenient, easy-to-use access to the most engaging digital marketing channel in existence with our automated SMS marketing feature. Marketers are always looking for new ways to connect with their audience, and now Act-On customers can leverage this channel to supplement and augment their SMS marketing automation strategies.

TL;DR: Act-On’s built-in automated SMS marketing feature lets marketers send timely, personalized, and highly engaging messages as part of their automation workflows. With seamless integration, real-time triggers, and advanced reporting, SMS becomes a powerful tool to boost engagement, improve customer experiences, and drive measurable results — all while following best practices and compliance rules.

Get the Best SMS Marketing Automation Experience With Act-On

Our automated SMS marketing feature is not a bolt-on solution to add to a Franken-stack. This feature is a built-in solution that provides a seamless experience, powerful segmentation, and in-depth reporting. 

Unlike any other vendor, Act-On allows you to schedule SMS messaging within your automated programs, complementing and amplifying your existing outbound communications strategy. You can also send unscheduled behaviorally triggered SMS messages when the iron is hot. Again, no other marketing automation platform empowers marketers to leverage situational SMS marketing in real-time. 

Our solution is as intuitive as it is easy-to-use, giving marketers the ability to compose and preview messages in mobile form factors, shorten links, track links, capture behaviors and responses, and generate granular or comprehensive reporting for strategic SMS marketing development. You can even toggle back and forth between your email automation programs and your automated SMS marketing, allowing you to deliver the perfect message on the proper channel when it matters most.

“Our industry-leading SMS automated marketing product is all about improving customer experience and allowing marketers to send messages to customers about things important to their day-to-day lives,” said David Greenberg, chief marketing and product officer at Act-On. “With this new solution we aren’t simply checking a box and allowing our customers to send mobile alerts or spam. We are providing growth-minded marketers the keys to an entirely new automation strategy to reach their audiences.” 

Why You Should Include SMS in Your Marketing Arsenal

When you absolutely must connect with your target audience, automated SMS marketing is tough to beat. Automated SMS marketing represents a highly integrated channel that supports all of your messaging workflows, bridges communication gaps, and helps you build and improve relationships. With engagement rates above 90%, SMS gives marketers the opportunity to deliver timely, direct, and relevant communications with willing recipients. 

Marketers are always seeking new personalized communication methods that go beyond traditional digital channels like email, social, and web. Automated SMS marketing can serve as that new tactic to help you deliver relevant, data-driven messages no matter where your audience is in their buying journey — and the numbers don’t lie.

• Analysts report open rates of better than 95%
• Over 90% of SMS communications are read within three minutes of receipt
• Greater than 40% click-through rates
• 97% of adults text weekly 
• Americans are twice as likely to text than call

And SMS marketing communications can reach your recipients even when they don’t have an internet connection, giving you nearly constant access to your target audience!

SMS Marketing Automation Strategies & Use Cases

SMS marketing has unlimited potential for B2B and B2C applications across every industry. Proven effective use cases include:

Reinforcing a Positive Customer Experience — Customer comms that build trust and loyalty 

• After hotel check-ins, send confirmations with floor plans, schedules (for events/restaurants), in-hotel and local restaurants, and other local info 
• Newly purchased product info and links to learn more or view associated and recommended items 
• Engage customers in fun promotions, games, and sweepstakes 
• Send follow-up survey to gauge your performance and improve over time

Alerts and Notifications — Deliver helpful information in real-time for the best possible experience 

• In-venue notifications in the moment… “Go to Gate E for the shortest line” 
• Critical system outages 
• Appointment/event notifications

Promotional Opportunities — Profile and behavioral triggered opportunities 

• Product promotions and releases, relevant coupons, flash sales 
• Available job positions 
• Promotions based on purchase history

This list only scratches the surface of what’s possible with SMS. To learn more about the most innovative automated SMS marketing use cases, please book a demo from one of our marketing automation experts.

SMS Best Practices to Ensure Success

SMS offers a lot of opportunities, but there are important rules and guidelines that are important to understand and follow — both at the regulatory level and in terms of customer expectations and best practices.

Current regulations dictate:

• Express written consent to receive SMS automated marketing prior to receiving the first message
• Predefining SMS messaging topics, messaging triggers, and frequency
• Potential fees associated with any text messaging 
• Confirming enrollment and sharing data privacy and opt-out details 

In addition to the legal guidelines involved, here are a few best practices for SMS marketing to follow:

• Providing clear examples of the type of content recipients should expect
• Clearly informing recipients before changing the messaging types and criteria
• Sending SMS only within business hours, and never sending business-related content on holidays
• Providing occasional opt-out opportunities at regular intervals

There are also expectations for what not to do to ensure positive experiences and results. These are essentially based on being a good SMS citizen: 

• Many consumers are gradually adapting to SMS as a marketing channel, so tread carefully and don’t overdo it
• SMS carriers and your customers may block you if you abuse the channel, so establish a regular cadence and ramp up slowly
• Your customers may be upset if you reach out with irrelevant or poorly timed messages, so personalize your communications and content based on interests and engagement

Learn More About Act-On Automated SMS Marketing!

Automated SMS marketing from Act-On is the future of personalizing the customer experience. This new channel opens up a world of possibilities, empowering you to deepen relationships and drive new and repeat business. When paired with marketing automation as part of a full-scale omnichannel digital strategy, SMS can broaden your reach and extend existing relationships! To learn more about our automated SMS marketing feature, please book a demo.

Summary

Act-On’s automated SMS marketing feature gives marketers a fully integrated, easy-to-use channel to reach audiences with personalized, timely messages that enhance customer relationships and drive results. Unlike bolt-on solutions, this built-in tool allows SMS scheduling within automation programs, behavior-triggered sends, and seamless toggling with email campaigns.

With open rates above 95% and near-instant engagement, SMS can amplify marketing strategies across industries — from customer service alerts to promotions — while following compliance requirements and best practices. Act-On empowers marketers to connect when it matters most, making SMS a core part of a modern omnichannel strategy.

Your employees will ultimately help you get to where you want to be, so encouraging them to commit to your cause and remain loyal to your organization plays a huge role in motivating them to go above and beyond to get you the results you want. In fact, a study by Gallup found that teams with high engagement demonstrate a 21% increase in profitability (1). Plus, keeping your employees satisfied often leads to unintended benefits such as high employee retention, which will save you money in the long run.

An uninspiring workplace, in turn, can negatively impact your reputation in the community, lead to poor employee performance, and decrease your bottom line. Furthermore, if your prospective customers get word of your poor company culture, this can cause concern about your employee retention rates and your ability to deliver a great product or service in the future.

Still not convinced that developing strong values and a positive work environment can have a huge impact on your overall success? These tips will encourage employee engagement and satisfaction — and get you the type of results you crave. 

Survey Employees to Learn What Matters to Them

An easy way to figure out what your employees value and how they perceive your brand is by simply asking them. Send out an initial survey form asking your employees to identify 3-5 values that are important to them in their current role. Using these responses, pick out the top 20 keywords/themes and send out a second survey to further narrow down your list.

After you’ve gathered employee responses from your second survey, have your leadership team or an appointed committee meet to analyze and interpret these results. From this list, pick 4-5 keywords or themes that will represent your company values and develop a strategy of how you will implement them into your work moving forward. 

Ask Your Employees for Feedback

Transforming your workplace and cultivating strong company values isn’t something that will happen overnight. Occasionally, you might wonder if your efforts are having any impact at all. The reality is that some of the strategies you implement to promote this change will work better than others, and it’s up to you to figure out where it’s best to invest your time and effort.

A quick and easy way to determine what is resonating with your employees is by asking them to give you feedback through an NPS survey. At Act-On, we use AskNicely to survey both employees and customers about how we’re doing and how we can improve. Asking our employees to rate and provide feedback shows them that we care about meeting them where they’re at, and the insights they provide give us a better idea of how we can do that. 

THANKS FOR READING!
Check out our additional related content:

Lead Nurturing Guide: 7 Steps Toward Setting Up Your Next Campaign

Identify How Each Department Contributes to Your Mission and Vision

Naming a few values that you feel apply to the work of your organization is not enough to promote a healthy and thriving work environment. If you truly want to gain buy-in for your new values, you have to encourage your employees to play a part in helping you realize those goals.

To do this, we suggest encouraging each of your teams to set apart some time to discuss how they see your company values reflected in their work, as well as what changes they think they can make to further promote them. From time to time, ask them to evaluate how they’re doing in terms of applying those concepts to their work and identify any areas for improvement. This practice will encourage your employees to feel connected to your company values and make them accountable for doing their part in promoting them across the organization.

Keep the Momentum Going with a Strong Internal Communications Strategy

One of the biggest contributors to dissatisfied, disconnected employees is that they feel as if they’re working in the silos. If you want to ensure your employees are happy and engaged, practicing good communication and keeping them in the know is crucial.

An easy way to do that is by implementing a monthly newsletter featuring company news and topics channeling organizational values that are of interest to your employees. If you use Act-On’s marketing automation, you can take your efforts a step further to track engagement and perform A/B testing to see what kind of content is resonating best with your employees — and then optimize your efforts accordingly.

The practical tips above will help remind your employees what you company culture is all about, why they should be proud to be part of your organization, and improve overall engagement. Let us know if you plan to implement any of these practices at your organization or if you have any activities that have served you well in the past. 

With so many prospects and customers relying on email to receive information about promotions, deals, events, and news to their inbox, companies are working harder than ever to build large email lists. However, gathering valuable contact information is only half the battle. Spam complaints, undelivered messages, and unsubscribes can all impact email deliverability. Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Email Service Providers (ESPs), anti-spam advocates, and email protection services set thresholds for bounced emails, spam complaints, and unsubscribe requests.

Are your emails consistently sent to invalid or unwanted email addresses? Your messages are likely being filtered as spam and your account is probably frequently being blocked. To ensure your messages reach their intended destination (the inbox), maintaining proper email hygiene is critical.

Keep reading to learn more about email bounce backs. Learn what measures you can take to set up your organization for email deliverability success.

What is a Email Bounce Back?

An email bounce back occurs when an email is rejected by the recipient’s mail server. Upon rejection, the sender receives a notification that their email has not been delivered — or that it has “bounced” back.

Typically, bounce-back emails contain information detailing why the original message failed to send. Common examples include:

• The mail server that bounced the original email
• The time and date the message bounced
• An RFC code that helps explain the reason for the bounce (according to the RFC, hard bounces are indicated by a 5XX code and soft bounces by a 4XX code, though not all ISPs adhere to the same codes consistently, so there are exceptions to this rule)

Bounces are broken down into two distinct types:

1. Hard Bounce

Hard bounces are permanent reasons an email cannot be delivered. Addresses that result in a hard bounce are considered invalid and should not be sent further messages. There are many reasons a message can result in a hard bounce, but the most common examples are:

• The email address does not exist
• The recipient’s domain name does not exist
• The recipient’s email server has completely blocked delivery

2. Soft Bounce

Conversely, soft bounces are temporary reasons an email cannot be delivered. The email address is valid, and the message reached the recipient’s mail server; however, a delivery issue has prevented the message from reaching the recipient’s inbox. Once again, there are many reasons a message can result in a soft bounce, but the most common examples are:

• The recipient’s mailbox is full (the user is over their quota)
• The recipient’s email server is down or offline
• The sent message is too large for the recipient’s inbox

If an address results in several soft bounces after a 72-hour period, it should be listed as unsafe.

The Importance of Email Validation

A high percentage of emails expire each year because people either switch their address or update their account. It’s also common for customers to provide fake email addresses out of privacy concerns.

Invalid addresses on your email list can severely damage your brand. Even if invalid addresses constitute only 10% of your email list, there’s a good chance that less than half will get delivered if you’re not using an email validation service.

The potential consequences of a high bounce rate as a result of failing to validate email addresses are wide-ranging. You may get labeled as a spammer, ensuring that very few of your customers ever actually see your messages. High bounce rates can also hinder your brand’s reputation. Some email service providers even ban clients with high bounce rates simply because they failed to validate their email addresses.

Bottom line: you need a reliable way to validate email addresses to help you avoid the consequences of a high bounce rate and ensure you’re reaching your customers with the right messaging at the right time — affordably, efficiently, and accurately.

When looking for a way to validate email addresses, focus your effort solely on services that include the features your business needs to succeed. For small businesses, this could be single-email address validation. For enterprises, bulk email verification is likely a better fit.

How to Stop Email Bounce Backs

Although the email industry used to view hygiene vendors in a negative light because they made it appear senders were getting bad data, practicing good email hygiene habits is now considered a crucial element toward improving email deliverability.

To ensure quality email hygiene for our customers, Act-On currently partners with NeverBounce. This email verification and list cleaning service use a proprietary 20+ step verification process to check each email up to 75 times from different locations around the globe. Utilizing MX, DNS, SMTP, SOCIAL, and additional private technologies in determining the validity of addresses, NeverBounce guarantees that no more than 3 percent of valid emails will bounce after using their service. NeverBounce also offers free deduplication and bad syntax removal prior to cleaning to ensure error-free email lists.

Preventing email bounce backs and ensuring quality data usage are just two necessary components of ensuring your emails are consistently delivered to the inbox. Check out our email deliverability best practices guide to learn how your organization can prepare for (and achieve) email marketing success. 

About the Guest Author:

Nick Harley is the Senior Content Specialist for NeverBounce, the leading real-time email verification and cleaning service. With a background in journalism, public relations, and social media, Harley is interested in helping organizations and brands understand the importance of storytelling and the channels where those stories are delivered.

TruStone Federal Credit Union is a financial institution with a strong customer focus that was struggling to deliver the right messages to their members. It was the credit union’s customer-first approach that motivated them to upgrade from an email service provider (ESP) to a marketing automation platform with the necessary resources to provide their members with timely and relevant communication.

TruStone leverages Act-On’s automated email programs, landing pages, segmentation tools, and more to match up members with resources and information that fit their financial goals. We interviewed TruStone’s Chief Business Officer Steve Steen and Digital Marketing Specialist Carrie Uttecht, and they shared a few insights of how their team is changing the way the credit union communicates with members.

Keep reading to learn how TruStone is benefiting from marketing automation and using Act-On to put their members at the forefront of all their credit union marketing efforts. You can also check out our success story to get an in-depth look at how TruStone uses marketing automation to improve overall engagement and maximize their marketing ROI.

Save Time on Manual Tasks and Allocate Your Marketing Resources Where They Matter Most

With marketing automation, TruStone’s marketing team is able to save time on manual tasks such as onboarding new members, sending emails, and keeping track of which communications were sent and when. By eliminating much of the hassle involved in everyday tasks, the credit union’s marketing team is able to focus their resources where they make the most impact. Carrie says that Act-On’s automation features allow her to concentrate on other customer-engagement efforts while giving her peace of mind that members are still receiving critical information.

“One of the things I appreciate the most is the time that automation saves me. For example, we use Act-On automation’s to manage the onboarding email program, and that gets sent to hundreds of contacts every month without me having to worry about it. I know these people are getting the information that they need in a timely manner, so I can allocate my time more efficiently to other member-focused projects. I just had to take the initial time to set it up but members are now automatically receiving every email in the sequence now that it’s up and running, and that’s just a huge benefit for me.”

Timely and Relevant Messaging Can Yield Better Results

In addition to saving TruStone time in implementing email campaigns and completing day-to-day activities, Act-On enables the credit union to improve their marketing. TruStone uses segmentation and Act-On’s automated program to provide members with relevant messaging that matches their financial goals. According to TruStone’s Chief Business Officer Steve Steen, “Act-On helps us better serve our members so we can offer timely and relevant messages on company updates, financial education, and product solutions. We are now better able to send the right message at the right time to the right members.”

By improving the personalization of their messaging, TruStone has increased overall engagement of their email campaigns. The credit union has achieved average open rates of 68.8% on nurturing emails and an average open rate of 42.5% on follow-up emails. The results are even better for highly-segmented emails, where TruStone is generating open rates of 83.3%.

The Right Marketing Automation Platform Can Help Your Organization Grow

One of the benefits of choosing the right marketing automation platform is it enables marketing teams to fulfill their current goals while also equipping them with the tools they’ll need when it’s time to expand their efforts. In addition to offering customers robust marketing automation, Act-On’s platform integrates with various third-party tools to empower teams to continuously transform their marketing as their organizations grow. Carrie notes that she’s excited to see how TruStone will continue to benefit from Act-On in the future.

“I would love to see us be able to eventually connect with a CRM and really use Act-On to its full potential. I know that once we do, we can also track website visitors, and score members, among other things. There’s just so many opportunities to integrate our marketing activities into one platform, so I think that would make things really easy and save us time. Another benefit of Act-On is that the company consistently shares ideas, tips, and recommendations — whether it’s via email, their website, a success manager, or webinar — and those resources can help us grow and improve.”

We’re looking forward to seeing how TruStone Federal Credit Union continues to use Act-On to transform the customer journey and practice a member-first approach. 

Marketing automation is an absolute necessity for businesses and marketers dedicated to driving conversions and improving ROI. However, not all implementations go smoothly and there are a number of reasons why marketing automation fails.

A modern marketing automation platform enables marketers to deliver their messaging to the right audience at the right time while saving time and money and increasing sales. In fact, marketing automation can help businesses increase sales productivity by an average of 14.5% while reducing marketing costs. If you’re looking to produce similar results, implementing powerful, sophisticated marketing automation is the way to go.

However, a powerful platform can’t do much without the right pieces in place to set you up for success, which is why a marketing automation vendor’s job should transcend merely providing you with an effective automation solution. Your vendor should be willing, eager, and able to provide the strategic guidance and expertise you need to use your new marketing automation software to its fullest potential.

At Act-On, we’ve worked with thousands of customers, big and small, to help them uncover solutions to their biggest challenges and help deliver real results. Here are 5 reasons why marketing automation fails and how to ensure marketing automation implementation success.

Ineffective or absent marketing automation strategies

A marketing automation tool is not meant to replace your marketing strategy. Instead, your marketing automation platform should help you deploy your plan. In other words, don’t expect your new marketing automation software to generate the results you want if you don’t have a complete and thoughtful plan for how you should be using it.  

Before your team pours money into a new platform, you should articulate which goals and objectives you want to tackle with this new solution. As product experts, the marketing automation software company you’re considering partnering with should be able to offer you advice and tips to help you maximize results. They should also provide you with personalized support throughout the implementation period so you can overcome pain points related to your inbound, outbound, sales, and loyalty marketing efforts. 

Limited resources to deploy your new software

I’m sure this is something many of us have seen over the years at various organizations and it’s one of the top reasons why marketing automation fails. Imagine, your business invests in a supposedly life-changing solution only to find themselves investing countless hours simply trying to figure out how to use it.

When choosing a platform, consider what kinds of onboarding services are provided. Research how involved your vendor will be in helping you implement your new marketing automation platform and whether they’ll provide ongoing support and training to help you maximize your use.

A breakdown in sales and marketing alignment

Despite research indicating that sales and marketing alignment can lead to an increase in sales win rates, the lack of collaboration and communication between these two departments continues to be a problem for many organizations. For businesses that choose marketing automation, this lack of alignment can be detrimental to their overall success.

It’s not enough for your marketing automation platform to integrate with your CRM. Alignment with sales starts strategically by having the same vision around goals, metrics of measurement, and the process that you’ll use to get there. For example, do marketing and sales have the same definition for a marketing qualified lead? If not, that’s one thing to consider as you implement your new marketing automation solution.

Lacking a clear understanding of your customer personas

Automating your emails can only take you so far if you don’t truly know your customers and understand how to motivate them to take action. If an email doesn’t resonate with your audience, you’re unlikely to see the conversion rates you’re hoping for.

In order to launch new campaigns in your marketing automation platform successfully, you need a clear understanding of your buyers, and your sales funnel should be optimized to fit their needs. Over 70% of companies with documented buyer personas exceed both their lead and revenue goals.

Marketers and sales professionals need to speak their buyer’s language on their terms. Do your buyers appreciate more formal or casual language? Do they respond better to hard facts and numbers or customer stories and anecdotes? If you don’t know the answers to these types of questions, your marketing automation vendor should be working with you to develop inbound and outbound marketing strategies that drive engagement. Think of ways you can tailor your efforts to collect data that will enable you to better understand your customers and create a plan of action for engaging them throughout their customer journey. 

Using the Wrong Analytics to Measure Success

Whichever marketing automation platform you choose will be equipped to summarize results, but you need to understand which metrics and KPIs to track and analyze to improve your overall marketing efforts.  Before you implement your platform and begin to launch your marketing automation initiatives, you should consider what kind of data you want to measure and the types of results you’d like to achieve. Then, set up your campaign in a way that helps you measure what truly matters to the success of your business and marketing efforts.

Personalize your marketing efforts with an effective automation platform

If your goal is to provide your customers and leads with more personalized marketing, you need a more personalized approach to your marketing automation implementation. As you embark on the search for the right platform to help you realize and transcend your objectives, search for a partner that can offer you a complete end-to-end solution with platform, strategy, and support to  provide the resources required to exceed your business goals. It’s in your marketing automation provider’s best interest to set you up for success, and as experts in their product, they should be able to help you implement your new marketing automation software in a way that works best for you.

While there’s multiple key campaigns for financial businesses (i.e. preliminary interest in a financial product, new member onboarding), one particular type seems to get overlooked with only 17% of banks and credit unions having it set up – despite affecting up to 97% of consumers.

Application abandonment. And instead of thinking of it as an obstacle to overcome in the sales funnel, anticipate and combat it with an application abandonment campaign.

Before diving into this specific nurture program, let’s think about the importance of loan applications for a bank or credit union. Processed applications lead to new loans, which directly correlates to the number of account members. In other words: more customers, more growth. After all, loan applications are a form of measurable growth, and plenty of nurture programs build trust with the consumer to the point that they’re ready to submit a loan application.

But again, up to 97% of people abandon a loan application, for reasons as simple as getting distracted from submitting it or getting interrupted with inability to save and return. So once you successfully build enough rapport to bring the consumer to the application form, how do you also make sure they complete it?

Rise above your competition and take advantage of this engagement opportunity

When you’re a financial services institution and have a marketing automation solution in place, you’ve already got a leg up on your competition because 69% of banks and credit unions do not utilize that technology. Creating an application abandonment campaign, which is triggered when someone closes the application form or gets timed out, gives you even more of an advantage since not all financial businesses with marketing automation have these application abandonment processes.

This is your opportunity to engage with the consumer and help them across the finish line. You’ve already put forth the effort and money on targeted marketing to nurture them through the sales funnel, so go the extra mile and give them the necessary nudge to keep moving along in the customer journey. Remember, they’re already on it – the hard part’s over!

Who are consumers going to respond better to: a bank or credit union that follows up and offers assistance, or one that doesn’t engage after someone shows interest in their financial product? The one who reaches out, of course! It’s a reflection that they’re paying attention and available to provide additional value – it’s also a way to stay top of mind and keep the engagement loop going.

What’s included in an application abandonment campaign?

As a sophisticated combination of email marketing and lead management, marketing automation provides real-time analytics that influence the embedded email marketing, triggering segmented and personalized messages in response to their digital breadcrumbs. This is how the application abandonment process is activated; the software recognizes that the IP address paired with the person’s name and email (collected at the beginning of the form) did not complete the application, so it triggers an email campaign and gets logged in the integrated CRM.

The email campaign can start as simple as sending a friendly reminder that they have an outstanding application. The first email can extend an invitation to connect with one of your financial consultants, as well as welcome questions about the application process or financial product. Messages can incorporate valuable information that are relevant to the consumer, perhaps addressing concerns about the specific type of loan they applied for, or a checklist of how to know which is the right loan for them.

The key to the email campaign is building trust by offering value and gentle lead nurturing – remember, the consumer is already on the customer journey, you’re just there to assist as much or as little as they prefer. Presenting your financial business in such a way reinforces that you’re meeting the consumer where they’re at, which is increasingly on their own in the digital space.

A triggered application abandonment email campaign effectively engages with the consumer and can help gain insight to further build their buyer’s persona, such as what catches their interest from click-through data or what answers they provide in forms. This in turn helps you best cater to their financial needs and methods of communication. The lead nurturing develops into faster, more efficient lead conversions, meaning growth and customer satisfaction for your credit union.

However, building that trust continues to be a challenge for companies and organizations, especially in a world where marketers are simply struggling to attract and engage enough leads. That’s why it’s crucial for companies to invest some of their marketing efforts and resources into establishing a solid relationship with prospects, leads and current customers. Doing so will help them kill two birds with one stone, and result in better lead generation and conversions.

Don’t know where to focus your marketing efforts to gain confidence among consumers? These strategies will help you build brand trust and improve your lead generation efforts.

Keep Your Communication Clear and Consistent

A great way to start building trust with your prospects, leads and current customers is simply by showing up on their radar on a regular basis. Keeping your communication consistent will keep you at the top of their mind, and also allow you to establish credibility over time.

Don’t believe us? Content Marketing Institute claims this is supported by the idea of the exposure effect in psychology, in which subjects demonstrate more trust in people who they see walking down the street versus people they’ve never encountered before. What that means is having name recognition alone will elevate you in the eyes of your consumer, and make you stand apart from the competition.

Boast About Your Results

Did you know 58% of people don’t trust a brand unless they have seen proof that it can follow through with what it says it can do? So, if you’re not already one to brag about your results, that’s definitely a good reason to start doing so.

But there’s definitely a reason why some of us stay away from bragging, because it can easily make you look pompous. That’s why you have to be strategic about how you do it. A good place to start talking about your success without making it seem like you’re exaggerating or full of yourself, is to give your current customers a platform where they can brag about you. That way the boasting about how amazing you are is coming from a third party, giving you just a bit more credibility.

Success stories are a great way to provide current customers a space to share how they’ve benefited from working with you. To gather these, start by interviewing customers you know are willing to rave about your product or service, and have excellent results to show it truly does work. Using the insights you’ve gathered, write a success story you can post on your website and share all around the web so prospects can better envision what you can do for them.

If you don’t have the time or resources to write a success story, sharing customer success can be as simple as asking your customers to provide feedback in a place where others can see it. For example, post to social media and ask your customers what they love about your company. Or, if you work in the ecommerce realm, add a section where customers can leave reviews and rate your product. This will help prospects and leads envision what you can do for them, and contribute to more transparent communication that will make you trustworthy.

Show Prospects You’re A Leader

When prospective customers see you as a leader, it helps both your credibility and their trust in you skyrocket. But establishing yourself as a leader in the industry goes beyond providing a product or service that works. Show customers you know your industry, are aware of what troubles them and are focused on providing them with the latest and greatest solutions.

While this task may seem daunting, there are a variety of ways you can accomplish this. To start, you can have your leadership team write thought leadership pieces where they discuss hot topics within your industry. Or you put a spotlight on your corporate responsibility efforts to show them what you’re all about beyond your product. You can highlight some of these efforts on social media and even dedicate a section on your website to discussing your goals and impact. 

Make it Personal

Personalizing your marketing efforts is one of the best ways to establish trust among your prospects and improve your lead generation efforts. After all, making your content and communications a bit more personal will show customers that you understand their needs and care about their success. This will help you build a strong relationship with them, and provide them one more reason to choose you when the time comes to make a decision.

Need more proof that personalization works? According to research from McKinsey, personalized marketing can lead to 8X the marketing ROI and increase sales by at least 10%. So collecting insights and using them wisely when it comes to setting up your next campaign can lead to much better results. 

But more importantly if you’re a B2B marketer, and especially if your company does anything related to the technology space, hopefully you’ve started thinking about your 2019 recipe for success with analysts that cover your space. In case you haven’t I thought I’d share my recipe for success that’s been working pretty well over the last 20 years.

1.  Go heavy on the ‘regular communication’

Industry analysts talk to and assess so many vendors and companies on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, that it must make it extremely difficult to really stay attuned to what exactly is going on at any one particular company. What that means is you have to be extremely proactive in reaching out and sharing any and all news about your company as well as your strategic direction, innovation and future plans.

For Act-On, we work with many different analysts such as Forrester, Gartner, SiriusDecisions, Research in Action, and many others. And although we don’t have a huge marketing team we try to make sure that we have meetings with the top analysts at all of these firms once a quarter.  This regular communication keeps both our company as well as our point of view in front of them and can help shape some of their perspectives. It also maximizes our chance that they bring us up when prospective customers are asking for advice related to our offering (marketing automation).

2. Throw in a couple spoonfuls of their advice

My point here is that when you’re having regular communication, you have to think about it not as a one-way feed of information but rather a two-way dialog. Because analysts talk with so many different people and do so much research, they are a WEALTH of information. Take the time prior to even setting up the meeting with them to think about what key questions you can ask and get their advice.

In addition, read their research reports and industry analyses. These resources often go into great detail around where analysts see the market going, what customers are expecting, and how different vendors are approaching solving problems in the market. By reading their reports and asking critical questions during briefings, you can become much smarter on how to create successful go-to-market strategies as well as gaining competitive intelligence.

Also, when I say ‘take their advice’, I mean really take and use it. Incorporate analysts’ advice into your product and planning process. Not only can it help you create better products, but it can also help you align better to what they think vendors should be doing. So when the next industry analysis report comes out that covers your space, your chances of being aligned on key points that they grade on will also go up.

3. Layer in key analyst reports

Purchasing reprint rights to industry analyst reports is definitely an expense. In our industry, it’s not uncommon to have reprint annual licensing fees in the tens of thousands of dollars. I think for any marketing team, those costs can be hard to swallow as it may seem to not directly tie to your lead gen efforts. However, in the best case scenario you will have worked hard to have a strong write-up and position in the report itself, so spending the money to be able to share that with prospective customers is well worth it.

But even if it’s a report that doesn’t specifically cover you, if you think it does a good job at educating your key buyers on strategies, ideas, or what to look for when assessing vendors in your space, then that can be a great report to leverage for top-of-funnel programs.

Ultimately, there’s nothing more credible in helping educate people as they begin to show interest than a third party report from a recognized thought leader in the space. And establishing your credibility is the first step in getting both customers and analysts to believe in what you’re doing. 

4. Mix in customer love

In order to do well in analysts reports, you have to have customers who really love your product and your direction. That’s because although analysts do want to hear from you, they also want to hear actual customer perspectives just as as much, if not more.

In picking your references, be sure you connect analysts with customers who are happy about using your product. It obviously takes hard work on your part to both develop a product and provide support that is so valuable to customers they are willing to share their positive story with analysts. But the more of these happy customers who share their story with analysts, the more analysts will believe in your story and direction as a company.

That’s it! That’s Adam’s (no longer) secret recipe for analyst relations success. I hope marketer’s steal this recipe and that it helps drive successful analyst relations for your company in the coming year ahead!