Marketing Cloud Quick Wins
18 Dec 2016 » MSA
Imagine the following situation. You are working as a Multi Solution Architect, specialised in the Adobe Marketing Cloud. A big company, which has never used Adobe’s products, has purchased most or all Adobe Marketing Cloud products. Your task is to lead the implementation of the project and put together all products in a way that delivers maximum benefits for the customer. What do you do next?
AEM-led project
Let’s consider that AEM is part of the deal. If you are like me, with a technical background, the first thing you will consider is AEM. Delivering the website itself is going to take very long, maybe a year, so you start planning this part first. Then, in your plan, you add Analytics, AAM or Target, when you think these other products can start using the AEM website. This is what I call the AEM-led project. From a technical point of view, it makes a lot of sense: you go step by step. It does not make any sense to put any Analytics if there is no website to measure; or implement AAM before Analytics.
Once you have your plan ready, you show it to your customer. You are happy, because all products fit perfectly well. Your are expecting a smile from your customer, but somehow he is looking serious. He then asks you: “when will I start to see a return on my investment?” You answer: “in 18 months”. Your customer’s face changes for the worse and you realise your plan is not that good.
Back to the drawing board.
Quick wins
After that first meeting, you wonder how you can squeeze the project in less time, but your AEM expert tells you that it is not possible. You need a different angle. You need to make sure that some money starts flowing back to your customer very soon, but how? In fact, it is easier than what you initially thought. This is what I call the Marketing Cloud quick wins
Most of medium to big corporations have a large database full of customer data (i.e. CRM), which they only use to congratulate their customers on their birthdays. How about loading that data into Adobe Campaign and start a fully-fledged email campaign? Remember, you do not need the full Adobe Marketing Cloud to run Campaign. Get an Adobe Campaign consultant right from the beginning and, in a matter of weeks, you can start sending customised emails. As I am sure you already know, email campaigns are still one of the most successful marketing activities.
You go back to your sponsor with this plan, backed with some data, and, all of a sudden, his face changes. He will start making more money soon, money which will be used to fund the long AEM implementation.
But this is not all you can do. Unless your customer is still living in the stone age, there is probably a website already running. It might be old, but is functional. Nothing prevents you from adding only Adobe Target to it. This solution can be used as a stand-alone one. For sure you will not get all the goodies that come from integrating it with other Marketing Cloud solutions, but you will do that later in the project. Start by just adding the basic code, via DTM if possible, and you are good to go. Now you can start creating A/B tests on the existing website. Not all of them will work, but if one shows a clear winner, different from the default experience, it could be worth millions.
All projects are different (this is why we call them a project) and I am sure these tips cannot be applied in all circumstances, but if you can use one or both, you are one step closer of a happy customer.
Do you have other quick win tips that you can share?