Important Things You Need to Know About Leveraging Marketing Automation
Randall Craig explains marketing automation as a strategic nurture program, not just software. Most prospects fall into a "95% problem" of untapped potential, and capturing just 1% of them can boost your bottom line by 20%. The key is strategy first, then consistent, human-tone content delivered through email, mail, or events.
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Marketing. Ah, who's got the time? I mean, figuring out what email campaigns you should set up, what social media content you should create and send out, and following up to see if anything is actually generating any kind of result is a full-time job. In many cases, a couple of full-time jobs. Effective marketing takes time and resources, 2 massive commodities that are in really short supply. But what if I tell you, you can have an effective marketing strategy that pays dividends without the huge commitment of time and resources? Well, that's what we're talking about today on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode. This is where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up core skill sets to help them create the show-stopping, jaw-dropping experience that their customers and employees deserve. I am your host, Service Expert and Master of Experiences Marc Haine. I am so glad that you are here with me today. My guest for this episode is one of the best experts on scaling for growth on this planet. Randall Craig. We will be discussing how you can grow your business with one of the most misunderstood marketing techniques available at your fingertips— marketing automation. I know. I see your eyes glazing over. I see you're probably thinking, this is not for me. But here's the thing. If you are trying to get noticed, trying to stand out from the crowd and have your marketing efforts actually mean something and pay those dividends? Put on your learning cap today and stay with us. If this is your first time on this podcast, welcome! You are in for a treat. Do check out the other videos on the channel. I tell you, I am so blessed to have the scope of experts on this show. Nothing but value each and every week. It is amazing. If you've been following me for a while, thank you Thank you so much for being a fan. I am so glad that you get the value that we bring each and every week. I tell you, I am probably in the same boat as you are. When it comes to marketing, I've tried this. I've tried that. I've tried the other thing. I've read the books and I've created the content calendars only to set them up and set them aside because I was too busy with other things. Like I had other things within the business. And really, I couldn't see if the effort was paying off. So that brings us to our Question of the Day. So, where are you at with your marketing strategy? The bigger question is, where are you at with your marketing automation strategy? I'd love for you to share your experiences with us. So, go ahead and post this episode wherever you're consuming this content on social media. Make sure that you hashtag your comments #ExperienceLeadership and be part of this conversation. I'd love to be able to see what your comments are and what your thoughts are about what we're doing. and what we're talking about today. My guest today wears many hats. Randall Craig is the author of 8 books. He is a Business Growth Advisor and a Hall of Fame Speaker. Randall serves on both corporate and not-for-profit boards and frequently appears as an expert in the media. He has earned his FCMC, FCFA, MBA, CSP designations, and is a Black belt in karate. Randall has also been inducted into the Canadian Speaker Hall of Fame, no small feat in its own right. He leads the Brain Trust Professional Institute and aside from his books, shares his unique and oftentimes innovative perspective through his keynotes and his virtual presentations. He's written over 600 articles and has his own podcast. So, here's your challenge. Welcome to the show, Randall. It's so nice to have you.
Marc, it's just wonderful to be here. Thanks so much.
Hey, before we get into today's topic, could you just dig a little deeper into what you do with your clients and for your clients?
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty easy. Most entrepreneurs, small business, even larger businesses, the people who lead them, they're not dummies. They got to where they needed to get because they're smart people. But the problem is that oftentimes, they don't know. It's not that they don't know the right answers. Oftentimes, they don't have the right questions. So, what I can do with them is help them figure out what those questions are. A lot of them don't know what the unknown unknowns are or might not understand what's possible with respect to some of the latest thinking on marketing strategy and how that interacts with technology, with their people, with the market, product-market fit. and so on. So, that's what I do. I help them figure that out.
It really is a situation of people don't know what they don't know.
Yes, correct.
And as leaders, I think so. Do you find that the leaders that you work with have done the research? They've gone into different things and they're just like, they have this nugget of information but they just need to explore deeper?
Or do they just not know You know, I've got clients in Europe, Asia, throughout the United States, and here in Canada, which is where I'm located. And every single business is different. And some of them, you're right, they've gotten an idea but they haven't really explored it. In which case, in a certain sense, I'm a bit of a CEO whisperer. You know, I can outsource brain, if you will, to help them expand the concepts or deal with the risks, or thinking about how they might be able to implement it more. For others on the other hand, they're not really— they really don't know. They know their field. They know their company. They know their customers, their clients. They understand kind of their industry. But they might not know, for example, what best practices might be from other industries. Or they might not understand how technology should be used. They're captive of a vendor, of an agency that's got something to sell, right? And so, no, take the inputs from where you are. But oftentimes again, it's they don't know what they don't know. It's the unknown unknowns.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So today, we are here to talk about marketing automation. Why is this topic so important in today's marketplace?
Well, you know what? There's no shortage of people who will talk to you about what automation is and everything. But let me describe for all of your Viewers what it means by not digging into technology because technology is just one thing. No, no. The bigger issue frankly is what I call the no, not yet problem. You spend all this time marketing and you get to the point where a particular prospect comes to you and says, ah, I'm kind of interested. But at the end, they say no. And then, off you go. And you're disappointed because you thought that you had the sale. And when this happens over and over, obviously this is a problem. You've invested a huge amount in that. But the question that I would ask is, are they saying no or are they saying not yet? Because if they're saying not yet, then you could do something about it. You're not going to suddenly get them to change their mind. But when they are ready to make a decision, Then, you want to be there.
And present and being seen, right?
Absolutely. And it sort of reminds me of something else. I call this the other 95% problem. If you think about it, any sophisticated marketer will say, well, what's my conversion rate? That's the— after a certain marketing impetus, okay, advertisement, or an interaction, etc. Certain percentages of people will convert to the next stage of the selling process, the buying process from their perspective. And people would say, well, you know what? If I've got 5% conversion, that'd be fantastic. Okay, 5% of the people that knock on our door, or that we reach out to say, yeah, I'm interested in more information. And so, there's a huge amount of investment, a massive amount. That tries to increase it from 5% to 6%, right? And that, if you think about it, for the same marketing expenditure, what that will do— excuse me. What that will do is that'll increase your bottom line by 20%. 5% to 6% is a 20% increase. So, you say, of course, that's really where we've got to be spending the effort. But I would once again ask the question just like, no, not yet. What about the other 95% of the people? If you've spent your marketing percent, your marketing dollars on 100%, 5% convert. The other 95% don't. Are these the not yet people? Or maybe they're saying no, they didn't convert for some completely other reason. We're not so sure. They don't have trust in you, right? Maybe your pricing is off. Maybe they're not so sure that you've got the expertise, whatever it happens to be. So, if you could focus on what this other 95%, it's more likely that you're going to have success growing your business over the medium-longer term. Okay, yet so often agencies are concerned about the campaign, right? The season, whatever it is, right? Which is the 5%. So, you ask the question about, well, marketing automation. Let me bring it back to that. Marketing automation is the series of initiatives that you do specifically to deal with that 95% problem.
So, you're tackling the 95%. So, when you first were mentioning it, you were talking about you go out and you do this campaign. And there are this whole waft of population that is, no, not yet. that have ignored your whatever content you put out. But the marketing automation then is to get you in the face of the 95% at different times.
Yes, and let me be very practical. Marc, let me ask you. When was the last time you bought a car?
2013.
2013. Okay. So, let's go. Let's use our time machine and go back to 2014. 1 year after you bought this car. What kind of car was it, by the way?
It was a Honda Accord.
It was a Honda Accord. So, you just plopped down a big chunk of money on this Honda Accord. And then, all of a sudden, 1 year to the day after you made that car purchase, the salesperson calls you up and says, Marc, you wouldn't believe we've got a great deal on this year's Honda Accord. And you say, I just bought one. It's good for more than just a year. Okay. And, but thanks for calling. Okay. Now, that's a stupid call that a salesperson would never make. They would probably say something else. They'd probably ask you, well, how's the car? Do you enjoy it? Okay. How's it working out for you? Just wanted to check in.
Yeah.
If they did that after 1 year, you would probably say, Yes, I'm glad that they called me. That was very nice of them. Okay, then maybe they call you a year afterwards in what, 2015? Okay, and they say, hey Marc, I'm not so sure if you know. But after 2 years, oftentimes your mileage goes down if you don't have the such and such. Just wanted to make sure that you got that taken care of. Wherever you do, we just wanted to make sure you're okay.
Yes.
Okay. And you would say, okay, well, I never thought of that. Maybe I should go and get my, I don't know, whatever it is changed.
Yeah.
Right? Then a year later, okay, the salesperson calls you up and says, don't know if you're aware but you're part of our VIP group. And we're having a launch for the new car. I know it's just 3 years. Your car lasts a long, long time. I thought you'd be interested in seeing latest innovations in safety. And you'd say, ah, that actually I'm interested in safety. Sure, I'll come to the event. And then they say, okay, here's the details. A year after that, they may say, you know, Marc, it's 4 years. Your lease is long gone and everything. Don't know if you realize but the newest version has got much better mileage and actually much better safety. I know you're not looking for a car but do you want to take one for a test drive just to see? And you would say, yeah, sure. Now, when you say, yeah, sure, at that point, okay, what's actually happening, Marc? What's actually happening is number one, the salesperson has got a higher degree of trust rather than the usual experience of always trying to close the sale. Trust has gone up. The second thing, excuse me, that's happened is that you're now aware of certain kinds of needs— safety, better fuel economy, whatever else. And over time, Over time, it's getting to the point where you're going to say, you know, maybe I'll go for a test drive. Maybe I'll buy another car and specifically a Honda and specifically at this dealership and so on. Now, those 3 or 4 annual phone calls is a very simplistic, simplistic example of marketing automation. Now obviously, they call you up after a year. You may say, it's been a whole year. Why didn't they call me earlier? Or, oh my God, I don't want to hear from this guy until I'm ready to do a car. So, you have to be aware of what your prospects, your clients actually want. But we realized that if you keep on growing your business over the years, it's impossible for you to make phone calls every year, every 2 months, every whatever it happens to be. Because the more customers you have, the more prospects you have, Your time doesn't scale like the number of touches that you actually had. Those other 95%. So, we start to say, well, what other kind of touchpoints? Well, we can send them postcards in the mail. We can send them emails. We can do a whole bunch of other things. Okay? And what marketing automation is simply is a sequence of specific touchpoints which may be real world. They may be by email, or postcards, or whatever it happens to be, or phone calls that happen in order to build trust and build that affinity, right? Credentialize you as say, the expert. Okay? Improve the service level. But you're not trying to sell them. In this particular case, you're not trying to sell them. That's one example of a marketing automation. It's very practical because most people have bought a car or know somebody who has. But does that clear it up a little bit?
It does. You know, the phrase marketing automation, some people would infer that this means it's all about technology. But this is not what we're talking about. We're not talking about that it has to be marketing automation through technology. We're just talking about a systematic outreach program essentially, right?
That's right. But if you listen to the technology vendors, it's all about the technology. You just have to subscribe to our You know, whatever. And magically, your business will grow. No, no, no. Okay.
It doesn't have to be that way. Yeah.
No, I can guarantee every single listener is going to say is, oh, okay. I understand. That's kind of what marketing automation could be. What's the best way of doing it? Gee, how do I do it? Are there different types of marketing automation sequences? And by the way, how does technology fit in? Like all those questions are obvious, you know, second-level kind of things. Yeah, exactly. But the whole idea of marketing automation, you're right, is to say, okay, you know what? Somebody's here and we need to move them there. Maybe it's a no, not yet. Maybe it's another 95% problem. Sometimes, it's, well gee, how do I use marketing automation to operationalize something after they become a client, right? The onboarding, for example, or to build them into a great referrer. for more business. Or there's a whole bunch of different ways we can use it, right? But number one, it's not just technology exactly to your point.
Just to make it a black and white definition, how does automated marketing differ from conventional marketing initiatives?
Well, first of all, it doesn't in the sense that an overall marketing strategy has got to have a whole bunch of little bits and pieces in it. Of which this is one. So, it's not a contrast between one or the other. But I will give you one contrast. In the olden days, okay, I certainly did it. You probably do it as well. You got a newsletter. And whenever a prospect comes through or— and with CASL and CCPA and GDPR, we got to get permission and everything. But putting that aside, we get the permission. They're in the newsletter. And every month, or every week, or whatever it is, They get a blast from you. But you know what? When they get a blast from you, that's nice information about you. But where is it in the service of them? They don't care about us. They only care about how we can solve their problem. So, if they're sort of halfway up the buying process, it becomes very easy for us to serve them by using automation to continue the conversation. Sometimes in an automated way through an email series. Sometimes through real-world touch points on the phone. Sometimes through the mail like regular mail, snail mail. Maybe through events, etc. But the idea is that you're not just doing a blast to everybody, which is kind of best thinking of, oh, I don't know, 2019, call it. Well, let's call it 1976. Okay? But We could do a little bit better by continuing the conversation in context. I've got some examples if you want later on. Just ask away. But that's how I would describe and define it.
Well, and what's really cool as you were saying that is it's also more focused on personalization. It's not like to your point. It's not putting up a billboard that 150,000 people will see and it will resonate with only maybe It's being able to find content that's going to be personalized to various different segments even of your market.
Well, boy, that's a tough one, Marc. Okay. Because when— I'll give you an example. Let's just say you're an accounting firm that does 2 things. You do accounting and you do tax. Right? And a client comes on and you've got a marketing automation which is a bit of an onboarding one. And the first communication in that sequence would be, Marc, thank you so much for asking us to help with your tax. As you know, we've got X number of years of tax experience. Okay, just wanted to let you know we're in our schedule and we'll be able to reach you. And then maybe a month later, there's something else. That's something else. Okay. But let's just say that you weren't a new tax client but you were a new accounting client. So, I sort of attach you to that tax marketing automation sequence and you get that. You think, what? This isn't me, right? This isn't me. This is terrible. And so, you're right in the sense that when you attach somebody to a particular sequence, it's got to be segmented for their particular purpose. On the other hand, the way it's written has got to be the same for everybody. Because if you are the new tax client, you're going to get the very same email sequence number 1 email that everybody else is going to get, right? So, it's not special to you. But it's special to your segment. But it's written to you As if it were from me.
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
Can you imagine if the first email in that sequence was, hello, this is the automated onboarding system from Randall Craig. And I wanted to let you know personally as a machine that I'm really interested and pleased that you signed up with us. Even though we like personal service, really, the machine is all you're going to get for your big Big honking fees, right? So, it's got to be written as if it came from—
Your business is important to us.
That's right. Please, waiting time is 4 hours on the phone. Nope, nope, nope, nope. But on the other hand, when a new client starts, for me anyway, okay, for years I would write them an email. And the email was, Gee, Marc, thank you very much for asking me to speak at your event or to advise on your organization's growth or whatever it is. Okay, just wanted to give you my personal promise that me and the team are going to do the best for you, etc., etc. Okay. And so, after doing that for a long time, I thought to myself, surely, this can be automated. So, I took the same thing that I would write every single time and I put it into my CRM system so that magically, when they became— when they moved from the stage of being a proposal outstanding to they've now signed the contract, that automatically got sent out. And an email would always come back from the client saying, Randall, we're so thrilled to be working with you too.
Yeah.
Okay, when that came back, I'd say, oh, who's this? And of course, I knew who it was. But I write back another little personalized response saying, yeah, we are too. Thanks once again.
Yeah.
Okay, by the way, see you at next Tuesday's meeting. Right? So, it might start in an automated way but it ends being a very personal interaction.
Right.
And so, you're an expert on customer experience, customer service, the whole bit there. And the last thing that anybody wants to talk to is a machine. Machines don't sign contracts. Machines don't build relationships. Okay? But if you can put your words in a way that can be automated, And this is where the challenge is. What you can do is you can help those people that just need a little bit more from you.
Yeah.
Okay. And be of service.
So yeah. So just one point for those consuming this podcast today. CRM, if you don't know what that acronym stands for, is Customer Relation Management. It is usually a software database where you can track your customers through different aspects of your marketing initiative. So, that's what CRM is if you heard Randall say that and went, I wonder what that means.
Yeah.
Typically, and coming up as a young leader coming up in different organizations, one of the toughest things I've ever had to do was quantify the value of marketing initiatives. One never truly knows if what you're doing is making a difference. How does marketing automation differ As far as being able to look at, is it worth it?
Well, this has got to be, Marc, the most important question. And when you talk about the effort of moving a 5% conversion to 6%, having a 20% direct impact on your bottom line, the question is this. You've already spent that money on the other 95%. If you can capture 1% of that 95, you're going to have a 20% ROI. Just 1%, you're gonna have a 20%. You're gonna cut, you know, you're gonna have 2, you could have a 40%, you know, increase in ROI, right? So, my question really is this. Is the cost of implementing it properly, which is not just the cost of buying some software, okay? If the cost of implementing this properly is far, far, far, far less than that 40% or 80% or 2,000% increase in ROI from that marketing spend. What do you think? Okay, it doesn't take rocket science to say, yeah, indeed it does make a huge difference. But let me just say it over and over and over again. It's not the technology. Okay, it's the strategy behind. You know, there's what? 11 types of marketing automation sequences that most service-oriented businesses should have. Okay, you're not going to do them all on day 1, right?
Right.
Right? You start them. That other 95% is not going to convert the next day, right? They're going to do it over the longer term. But as they're sort of building the trust in you and people say, well, who do you know who can solve my problem of X? Even though they're not a customer of yours right now, they'll still develop the referrals. They'll still tell their friends about you because you were of service along the way. It's give to get 101. The more you give, the more you get.
Yes, I love it. I'd love— you just mentioned, teased us a little bit with the 11 different types of marketing outreach. I'd like to dig a little bit deeper into that and we'll do that right after this.
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Welcome back. I am speaking with the host of the podcast. So, here's your challenge, Randall Craig. Randall, could you just tell us a little bit about your podcast? It's rather unique.
It's actually not that unique, okay? Honestly, Marc. But here's the issue. Most people don't have time.
Yeah.
Right? But if they just had one idea and they could do that in 5 minutes, okay? Something in the marketing kind of area. Okay, marketing strategy, some technology area. You know, they could probably do something about it. So, here's your challenge. My podcast is one idea in less than 5 minutes. And at the very end, it always says something about doing it right away. And I end up with, so, here's your challenge. And then, some interesting little twists on how to implement the idea that we talked about. So, it's available every week. And on your podcast provider of choice. And it's a lot of fun.
I did put the link to the podcast in the show notes. So, make sure that you check it out because 5 minutes, right? And you get an idea. Who knew, right?
Yeah.
Craig, underlying philosophy for marketing, like the marketing gurus have said that this idea of not now. You mentioned the 5%. I've heard the Statistics say that 1% of the population might be ready to buy from you when you're ready to sell to them. Like if you put some sort of ad out. When we think about this idea of effective marketing sequences, first of all, what are marketing sequences? And then, what sequences should every business be leveraging in order to be more effective?
Okay. My God, you're a master of the largest, longest quiz ever.
But the little questions. The little questions.
So, number 1, okay. I don't know about 5% or 1%. But one thing for sure, if you're fishing in your bathtub, you will not catch a single fish. If you fish in a pond with a certain type of fish, you may catch one. The more fish there are, if you're fishing in the right pond, you're going to catch a lot. So, that's number one. Okay, you want to make sure you fish where the fish are, right? So, any kind of marketing stimulus whether it's an advertisement, or a trade show, or a referral program, etc. It all depends. Your conversion rate will depend on that. With respect to the marketing automation sequences, I'll share one that I think is critically important for any business. And it's what I call the long-term retention sequence.
Okay.
And the idea of that is this. Now, sometimes you'll hear these called nurture sequences or long-term drip sequences. The idea is that when somebody has an interaction with you but they've not closed, they have not signed the contract, what you do is you ask if and you get permission because that's the law in pretty much every jurisdiction now that you have permission to send them things from time to time.
Very good.
And here's an example. I'll speak at a conference. There might be a lot of people and I offer them something rather if they're interested. Just leave your card or text something to a certain number. And I ask them explicitly, if I see things from time to time that might be of interest, would you be interested in receiving? So fine. The vast majority of people say yes. So after the conference, what I'll do is I'll send them an email, a custom email that says, hey, as promised, here's the stuff that you asked. But then, I'll attach them to a long-term sequence where every 6 to 8 weeks, they get an email from me. Hey, it's Randall here. Hope you enjoyed the conference where I presented on such and such. A lot of people have the question about this or that. I thought you might as well. So, I have attached a white paper that I wrote on that topic. It goes into greater detail. Hope all is well. Randall. Right? And what comes back after that is, thanks, Randall. Actually, it's a very interesting white paper. 2 months after that, they get something else from me. Hey, I was in a video on such and such where we talked about this and that. It's related to what I spoke about at the conference, etc. Thought you'd be interested. Here's the link to YouTube. And then, there you go. And then, over the years, I've got 5 years of long-term drip, long-term nurture sequence. And guess what? All those people, By the way, how many times have I asked for the sale during all these emails? Zero. Absolutely zero, right? Because every single one of them, they don't care about me. They care about how I can solve the problem. So, for everyone who's on there and they get yet another part solution to their problem, they put it all together. It means something. As I said at the very beginning, leaders Sometimes don't know what they don't know. But if they know the questions, they can figure out the answers. So, that's kind of what I provide. And guess what? Somebody says, do you know anybody who might be able to speak at our conference? They say, oh yes, absolutely. Randall Craig, font of knowledge in the area of fill in the blank. Right? So, people would say, okay, here we go. Other people say, well, we need somebody to help our CEO figure out how to scale the next level. Or solve some other type of problem. Do you know anybody? And they say, yeah, absolutely. Randall Craig. Let me forward a copy of one of the white papers he wrote. And it becomes very, very powerful because it's long-term drip. In my case, for the audience. But if you think about it, and I'm talking really to the listeners, who are your customers who don't say yes? Right? And they should have a long-term drip sequence. And who are your customers who say, who do say yes? They need one too, right? That improves retention and referrals and all that. And you're not trying to sell them stuff. That's a different type of thing. What you're trying to do is build trust and demonstrate expertise.
Right, right. Being the point of the trusted advisor, being the one that is there. You're like, instead of sending a piece of marketing material to say, hey, this is how great Acme company is, what you're doing is you're sending out information so people when they're reading it realize that Acme Company is probably the business they want to be doing business with.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Philosophy. Yeah.
It's for them.
Yeah, this is fantastic. Like, this is a really great way of being able to view it. And I hope the viewers get from that. If people have questions, how can people get in contact with you?
Well, randallcraig.com is my website. Okay, that's certainly one thing, www.randallcraig.com. But on the topic of marketing automation, if they go to randallcraig.net/automation, they'll go directly to something that gives an example of all these different automations.
Great, great. I don't know if you meant to cover up your camera.
No, I did not. That's what happens. I just wanted to make sure that I got the URL correct. randallcraig.net/automation. If you go to randallcraig.com, you can get in contact with me.
And again, that link is down below. And in that white paper, the marketing automation, you do put the 11 different kinds of marketing sequences in there too, don't you?
Yep, yep, yep.
So, if you're curious about it, it's in there. When it comes down to marketing sequences, does one have to start from scratch? Like I know, we talked earlier about how if you talk to technology or CRM company, they're like, oh, this is the best thing ever since sliced bread. And then, you're left with kind of this implementation of what about my mailing list? How do I migrate? How do I take what I have and make it more effective?
Yeah, that's really where consulting and coaching comes in.
Okay.
I've not met a single business owner ever who said, I'm exactly like everybody else. And therefore, everybody else's exact sort of solution is going to work for me. So yes, there's all kinds of neat tools out there like Keap, K-E-A-P, or ActiveCampaign, or Zoho. There's a whole bunch of them that are built for this kind of thing for smaller businesses and medium-sized businesses. Okay, but listen. The best that they can do is say, hey, here's how to use the tool.
Right.
And there are 2 other parts. Number one is the strategy of it. And number 3 is the—
Implementation.
Excuse me, is the actual writing. By the way, and once again, it's not just emails that go out. There are other types of steps in the sequence as well.
Yeah, yeah. When somebody's exploring this and thinking that this is, I need to start. I need to pull up my big boy panties and get on the train. How much does it cost to set up and maintain marketing automation? Like, how do you create that variable or define that variable?
Whoa, Marc! It's so expensive. Oh, it's hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just hundreds and hundreds. Listen, it depends on what you want to do. Okay?
Right.
Some people are just brilliant. They've got all the answers. They don't want to listen to anybody. Maybe they'll get a dummy's book on something. But the thing that makes these things sing is figuring out what the right strategy is for your organization. So, a very, very small company that has got very little, very, very simple business model and very clean data and very clean market and a good already done marketing plan. It's very different than somebody who says, boy, we've never really looked at it through this lens. We need to figure out what's going on here. Right? And gee, our marketing, we don't really think it's effective anyway. Or we've been captive of an agency or we've been captive of a of a big consulting firm or captive of a piece of technology, etc. And so, for that, it's a little bit— it needs more time, right? It really depends, right? But technology is cheap, okay? It's super cheap. But why bother with technology if you haven't figured out what you're going to be doing, how, why, and everything? So. Yeah.
But to your point, it really does boil down to a marketing strategy and then an implementation strategy. And I think what happens though with new toys is that we get so anxious. It's like, oh yeah, we could do this. We could post. Oh yeah, we could do all this work. And then realize that you cannot be consistent, which is kind of the puddle I fell into. It was like, oh no, I can do this. And I started and started. But then, other things pulled me away. And I couldn't make it a priority. And because of that, it falls by the wayside. And then, you do nothing but try. And then, it just gets bigger because then, it's like, oh, I have to go back now. I have to go back 6 weeks and go back and start. And it just gets messy from that point on. So, it is about what we can do in a consistent manner, right?
Well, yeah. The good thing though about some of this is just that example of that long-term drip nurture sequence I just Describe. Once you've sort of framed it out, okay, you've got the strategy and you've written those things. You don't have to redo it every time. When that new client starts, for example, for me, and they automatically get a couple emails, I don't need to redo that. So, it's a great way to actually recapture time that can be used on things that actually need your direct attention. Attention.
Yeah, fantastic! I'd like to get into some cautionaries as people kind of look into this. One of my biggest fears is operators who look at stuff and go, okay, we need to do this. This is going to be the thing we're going to do next 6 weeks. So, I'd like to get into some cautionaries and we'll get to that right after this.
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Welcome back. I am speaking with the CEO Whisperer himself, Randall Craig. Randall, cautionaries. As people start wanting to get into this idea of marketing automation, what are some of the things they should be concerned about that might be a red flag?
Number one, it's not technology. Gee, how many times do I have to say this? And I said it actually earlier today. There's no piece of technology that's going to suddenly sign your engagement letter or buy the product. It's a person.
Right.
Right? So therefore, the strategy has got to be one that comes first, not buying some software.
Perfect! I do get myself tons of email solicitations offering to solve my marketing problems. All sorts of things about SEO for this and marketing audit. What should we be on the lookout for as potential targets of these Not so sure I understand the question fully, Marc.
If you're asking, gee, you're getting solicited by all these different, what should we do first? I think strategy comes first. And then afterwards, you can say, well geez, the next dollar that I spend is it best on SEO or on some marketing automation or whatever? The best thing frankly is strategy first.
Yes.
Okay, don't put the cart before the horse.
Yeah, so have that strategy down. Understand what you're trying to accomplish with it. What I'm talking about is these emails that we're getting through their own drip campaigns where we get these cold emails that are saying to business operators, we will help solve your—
Oh, I got to stop you there.
Yeah.
What you just said answers your question. Getting these cold emails, this isn't marketing automation. This is people spamming you thinking that X percentage of everything, if they send a million emails out and maybe 0.001% answer and close and buy something, it's worth it. Okay? No, that's not marketing automation. That's just spamming. Okay?
I love that.
Now, these spammers, they're not dumb. They understand that marketing automation is very good. So, what they'll do is they'll send you a spam. And then, what they'll do is they'll resend it to you with the subject re-something or other. And it'll say something like, hey Marc, not sure if you saw my last email but about this other spammy spam McSpam but blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, and then a week later or 2 days or 2 hours later, they'll send, hey Marc, it's so-and-so again. Just wanted to check in to see whether you thought about what I sent in my first spammy spam and my spammy spam McSpam follow-up. Okay, so the spammers are using marketing automation. But here's the thing: Does it work with you? The answer is no. Of course it doesn't work, right? Does it work for the spammers? Well, because their goal is spam, it probably works. Okay, but listen, we're not idiots. You know, and every time you decide to do that kind of cold email, cold, you know. That impacts your brand. That changes their expectations of your experience with you. It's not a healthy thing. But the technology is there. So of course, the spammers use it. Right? Now, on the other hand, what if for example, I sent something to all of my coaching clients after 1 year of coaching? And I said to them, I'm having a A peer-to-peer networking group meeting on such and such, one time only. Okay, if you're interested in attending and there is no cost because you're a client, please let me know and I'll send you an invite. And they'll think, oh, why? Because the relationship's already there. The trust is already built. And if I've got an automation that says, if they haven't responded, send them a reminder. That's a good use of automation because there's a relationship already. And I think that that's the fundamental difference with respect to some of these things. We're not doing spam. What we're doing is we're taking an already existing relationship and saying, how can we get it to the other? You got a trade show booth. Somebody drops by your trade show. Some of the people are hot prospects. You're going to call immediately. Some of them just wanted the free pens you're giving. Forget it. Okay, they're not a prospect. And then, there's a whole group in the middle there are, I don't know, maybe interested because he had a short conversation. But maybe, it's a not yet. So maybe, there's a specific type of marketing automation for those not-yets and a different automation for the hot prospects. Like it goes on and on about how we can use it.
Right.
But it's not going to work unless it's part of what that strategy is.
And the word that comes to mind is intentionality as well. It's strategy but intentionality as well. This has been such a great topic, Randall. I'm thrilled. This has just been like the quickest 45 minutes has gone by. Do you have any last thoughts about what we've talked about today?
Oh man! You know what? Listen, anybody who's watching this is probably pretty sharp. They probably have got a good sense of what their business is. Excuse me. But I'll make an offer if that's okay, Marc.
Sure, yes.
Okay. And the offer is this. If any of the things that I've talked about today have been intriguing to you and you go to the— you've read the thing on marketing automation, the free thing at randallcraig.net/automation. If you want to talk about it, I'd be very happy for any of the listeners of your podcast, Marc, to give them 30 minutes of my time. And they just need to go to randallcraig.net/30 and ask any questions you like. I love to learn about different businesses and feel free to do that. I'd love to meet you.
Love it! And could you just remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you if it's just an email or just a reach out?
Yeah, any kind of reach out. You can go to randallcraig.com, which is my website, and all those contact forms there and a whole bunch of other stuff. If you want to meet with me for 30 minutes, there's no obligation. randallcraig.net/30.
It'd be brilliant. You know, you mentioned something about getting into your brain. And I really do feel that we were able to take a little can opener today and just and take a peek inside there. It's been great. Thank you so much, Randall.
Oh, fantastic, Marc. Thank you.
Why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to brainstorm your business with you and your team, feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is down below in the show notes. It's the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com. It would be my absolute honor to be of service. And if you haven't done so yet, why don't you go ahead and subscribe to this podcast? Once you subscribe, it'll give you first dibs whenever I bring you fresh new content that will help you work on your business. not just in your business. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and dare to be the exception.
