Workflow Engine in Marketing Automation

A Digital strategy is a comprehensive plan that helps businesses achieve their goals through the use of digital technologies. This strategy involves the integration of digital solutions into various business processes to increase efficiency, improve customer experience, and gain competitive advantages. Here are the main components and aspects of a digital strategy:

1. Goals and Vision

A successful Digital strategy begins with clearly defined goals and a vision. These should align with the overall business strategies of the company. The most common goals include improving customer retention, increasing revenue, optimizing operational efficiency, and fostering innovation.

2. Market Analysis and Competitive Research

A thorough market analysis is essential to understand customer needs, current market trends, and competitor strategies. This analysis helps to identify opportunities and threats, allowing for informed decision-making.

3. Customer Experience (CX)

A key element of the digital strategy is optimizing the customer experience. This encompasses all interactions a customer has with the company, from the first point of contact to post-purchase support. Companies utilize digital tools like CRM systems (Customer Relationship Management) to provide personalized and consistent experiences across all channels.

4. Technology and Infrastructure

Selecting the right technology and creating a robust infrastructure are crucial. This includes cloud computing, data analytics, mobile technologies, social media, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. These technologies support the automation of business processes and enable data-driven decision-making.

5. Data and Analytics

Data is the cornerstone of any digital strategy. Companies collect and analyze large amounts of data to gain insights into customer behaviors and preferences. With advanced analytics tools, companies can identify patterns, make predictions, and create personalized offerings.

6. Digital Marketing

Digital marketing encompasses all marketing activities conducted through digital channels. This includes search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, and online advertising. The goal is to increase the visibility of the company, generate leads, and boost sales.

7. Organizational Change and Culture

A Digital strategy often requires organizational change. This includes the creation of a digital corporate culture that is ready to embrace new technologies and continuously learn. Employees must be trained and empowered to effectively use new digital tools and processes.

8. Agility and Innovation Capability

In a rapidly changing digital landscape, agility is a must. Companies need to be able to respond quickly to market changes and develop innovative solutions. Agile methods like Scrum and Kanban help manage projects more efficiently and deliver results faster.

9. Security and Data Protection

As the use of digital technologies increases, so does the risk of cyberattacks and data breaches. A robust security strategy is therefore essential. This includes the implementation of security protocols, regular security audits, and compliance with regulations such as GDPR.

10. Measurement and Evaluation

Continuous measurement and evaluation of the digital strategy are critical to monitor success and make necessary adjustments. KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and other metrics help track progress and determine the ROI (Return on Investment).

Implementation Examples and Success Stories

Example 1: Digital Strategy, E-Commerce Company

A leading e-commerce company could align its Digital strategy to enhance the user experience through personalized recommendations and an optimized mobile app. By utilizing AI and data analytics, the company can identify purchasing patterns and suggest tailored products, leading to higher customer satisfaction and increased sales.

Example 2: Digital Strategy, Traditional Retail Company

A traditional retail company could leverage digital technologies to develop an omnichannel strategy. This involves integrating online and offline channels to create a seamless shopping experience. Customers can shop online and pick up their orders in-store, enhancing convenience and boosting sales.

Challenges in Implementing a Digital Strategy

Implementing a digital strategy can be complex and challenging. Some common challenges include:

• Resistance to Change: Employees and executives may hesitate to adopt new technologies and processes.

• Technological Complexity: Selecting and implementing the right technologies can be difficult.

• Data Security and Privacy: Protecting sensitive data requires constant attention and resources.

• Lack of Resources: Developing and implementing a digital strategy requires significant financial and personnel resources.

• Rapid Technological Changes: Companies must stay up-to-date to avoid being overtaken by new developments.

  
  

Conclusion

A Digital strategy is essential to remain competitive in today’s business environment. It helps companies optimize their business processes, improve customer experience, and develop innovative solutions. By combining the right technology, data, and an agile culture, companies can effectively achieve their goals and ensure long-term success.

Marketing Automation is a vast field. Too extensive to describe in a support article. The aim of this article is to summarize the basics of Marketing Automation in order to explain the goals of Marketing Automation and to gain an initial insight into the topic.

Why do you need Marketing Automation?

We live in a complex world. Every advertiser tries to assert their goals in this world and thereby achieve what is known in marketing language as conversion.

A conversion can be many things: for example, signing up for a newsletter, visiting a specific page, requesting a service or product, an add-to-basket, and of course, the direct purchase of a product online.

To achieve this, advertisers usually calculate a contact rate of 5-7. This means that this is the minimum number of contacts that must occur with the direct/clearly defined interested party to enable a conversion.

These contacts can be banners, social posts, newsletters, websites, forms, chats, or any other digital measure/advertisement that encourages an interested party to engage further.

Where lies the challenge?

Everything must be controlled, data stored and analyzed. Campaigns launched and evaluated. For this purpose, there are various tools. All of this can be done with up to 10-20 tools, plugins, solutions from various providers. However, the limits are quickly reached, because ...

1. the complexity becomes enormous

2. data is located at various places and with various providers

3. central evaluation and analysis is virtually impossible or extremely labor-intensive

4. maintenance becomes extensive

5. data protection regulations must be observed and implemented at all points

6. 
   

Marketing Automation consolidates all of this into a central platform, allows for real-time data analysis, and creates unparalleled automation based on data and campaign results.

This concerns not only marketing topics, but also sales, customer service, and website management can be integrated depending on requirements.

How does dietz.digital work with Marketing Automation?

We have been working for a long time with HubSpot, the market leader in many countries. We use this system, but it is not always the best choice. HubSpot is very well integrated, offers a wide range of features, and is highly developed. Additionally, the topic can be approached slowly, which makes a lot of sense. The licensing costs are also initially significantly lower.

In professional variants, where the actual automation begins, the licensing costs also increase significantly. Moreover, you must commit to at least one year. There are no monthly terms.

Therefore, we repeatedly explain that Marketing Automation is not just a tool, but a strategic decision. Just because a switch would be relatively labor-intensive, it would always mean a certain amount of data loss. We consult on entry, implementation, and continuously support during the integration of a CRM account. Also in the beginning, to clarify whether it is the right path and if it makes sense in your case. This is not always the case.

Is Marketing Automation always the right approach?

As in many other areas, one must be aware in advance of what MA is meant to achieve and what prerequisites and applications are sensible and necessary. The following steps should be taken, which provide the foundation for any decision to actually use MA.

1. Which systems are already in place in the company?

Generally, one should avoid using systems that serve equivalent areas or topics. Thus, it must be analyzed which systems will become unnecessary through the use of Marketing Automation, as they only cover a part (e.g., newsletters).

It is also important to know whether eCommerce is already being operated with its own platform, e.g., Magento, Shopify, Shopware, etc. In that case, the framework conditions change, and there are overlaps that have a significant impact on the decision.

2. What goals are being pursued, what is a conversion?

Sounds simple, but it is not. Of course, the purchase of a product by a customer is a conversion. But various other activities should also be defined as goals and explicitly clarified in advance.

3. Are there already data available that support a customer journey?

Have data already been stored in a CRM system or other internal systems? How was this structured? Are there analyses or results available?

4. Are there internal structures that allow for active Marketing Automation?

Who should operate the platform? It makes a lot of sense if this is managed by an external agency like us, as the expertise is present, and one is not integrated into internal organizational structures in a consulting role from outside. Depending on the size of the company, there may be a department that deals with this and for which success goals were defined. In this case, active collaboration makes sense.

5. Are you willing to invest a suitable budget?

The budget should not only be aligned with licensing and agency costs. Without adequate creative and media budgets, it will be difficult to operate Marketing Automation effectively. Due to the multitude of influencing factors, we have prepared an internal cost calculation that can serve as a suitable guideline for the annual use of Marketing Automation. It can also function as a step-by-step plan for SMEs or larger companies/corporations.

Are there alternatives?

Of course, there are alternatives. For example, ActiveCampaign. A provider from the USA that also offers a good Marketing Automation tool. It is significantly cheaper than HubSpot, but can also be less in some parts. It is always a question of usage, so it is advisable to carry out an evaluation here.

At this point, the various CRM tools like FreshWorks, Pipedrive, Evalanche, etc. should also be mentioned, which could also be part of an evaluation.

Benefits of the Yoast Plugin

The following essential benefits are offered by the plugin. For clients for whom we manage and support the entire website, we also utilize the premium plugin for a fee.

• Definition of one or more focus keywords (FK)

• Traffic light system red/yellow/green for displaying the quality of SEO optimization

• Comprehensive analysis of the optimization with suggestions for what still needs to be done

• Definition of meta descriptions and assignment of pages, posts, categories, etc.

• Schema.org integration

• Readability index check

• Suggestions for linking relevant pages, posts, portfolios (Premium)

• Managing redirects (Premium)

• Setting up social connections with image and text (title, description) (Premium)

• Google Sitemap creation in XML format occurs automatically

Yoast is therefore the solution to excellently optimizing websites for SEO and simultaneously obtaining validated results. However, it requires some familiarization and, above all, profound SEO knowledge. Not everything can be taken over 1:1 and must be professionally interpreted. Nevertheless, Yoast is a very good basis for structuring and professionally tackling SEO optimization.

What can't Yoast do?

Good SEO is primarily good and relevant content. We often deal with final websites that are to be SEO optimized. However, no one built the content for this in the framework of an SEO concept beforehand. No tool in the world can help with this. Good SEO content must be thought out and designed from the start. Yoast can then help optimize this content in a structured and valid way, but it does not create its own content, as, for example, AI tools do.