Interview with Remo Girard: "Marketing Automation is like a V8 engine".

MK: Mr. Girard, on your LinkedIn profile you describe yourself as. "Digital Marketing Nerd" - why?Remo Girard: The way to the "Digital Marketing Nerd" began a good 15 years ago when I founded my first company. That was when I first came into contact with digital marketing and e-business. However, my career took a slightly different course. I worked in sales for a few years and later in business development and graduated as a sales manager, but I realized that I didn't want to do this job forever and switched to marketing. At that time, I was responsible for the website, among other things, and my passion for digital marketing was ignited. I started reading a lot of books and took various continuing education courses on the subject - hence the "Nerdy". I now work at AMAG and lead a team in the Digital Business Projects department.MK: Your presentation at SOM 2018 was dedicated to the topic of marketing automation. What are your experiences with automated marketing campaigns?Remo Girard: Three years ago, I started as Head of Marketing and Sales at a start-up that was developing software for an interactive digital out-of-home network. We were looking for a solution to get our inventory to the customer quickly and without a lot of effort.We saw one possibility in the programmatic area. That's when I started to look more closely at marketing automation. At AMAG, we started setting up trigger-based email campaigns in 2016, which means we use status messages from the ERP system to trigger emails, and we're working on implementing a marketing automation platform (MAP). I also run a small online store where I have implemented Marketing Automation.MK: When the keyword automation is mentioned, the fear of job losses comes into play for many employees. Is this fear justified?Remo Girard: On the contrary! If you imagine marketing automation as the engine of a sports car, it would probably be a V8. To make it work, it needs oil and gasoline. It is well known that the fuel consumption of a V8 is enormous. In the case of marketing automation, the oil corresponds to the data and the gasoline to the content. The more campaigns are implemented and the more personalized you want to address the customer, the more content is needed. With the introduction of marketing automation, additional new tasks and functions are added that have not existed in a classic marketing department until now. Basically, it is a transformation of marketing.MK: A company has absolutely nothing to do with automated marketing yet, but would like to automate its processes as quickly as possible. What steps are necessary for this? And is there a realistic timeframe for implementation?Remo Girard: Marketing automation is a change process that cannot be implemented overnight. Above all, it is a people business, so it must be examined whether a marketing department is at all capable of marketing automation.The following questions must be answered: What do you want to achieve with MAP? What know-how is available? What skills does a marketeer need? To what extent do you want to integrate MAP into your existing IT infrastructure? There is no one-size-fits-all approach. However, at AMAG we have chosen the following steps, which we plan to implement step by step once a comprehensive evaluation has been completed:1. Maturity analysis2. Development of a requirements specification and business plan (incl. roadmap)3. Evaluation of the platform4. Implementation and integration5. Education and trainingIt is recommended to start with small and simple campaigns and then successively expand the functional scope. First campaigns can be implemented after a short time. However, it can take months, if not years, before the full functional scope of a platform is used. You also have to be aware that success will only become apparent after a certain amount of time.