Annoying; aggravating; infuriating however you describe robocalls they have become part of our lives unfortunately.

I was watching John Oliver’s segment on robocalls a few weeks back and it got me thinking (you can view it here).

Just so you know, I am not writing this article from the perspective of we should do this but I am interested in the theatrics of it.

Do robocalls work? Are they all scams? Could they even be considered a marketing technique?

Well, it may surprise you to learn that I was a telemarketer when I was much younger – after coming back from a backpacking trip and needed some quick income (ahh the early 20s – a magical and depressing time; equal parts delightful and sobering when I wasn’t drinking, that is).

I was working for a charitable fund selling lottery tickets, being a charity did soften the blow a bit to whoever answered, but still copped my fair share of verbal assaults from the homeowner. I would put my average fail rate at about 95% which in industry averages is about standard.

It wasn’t a complete robocall because last time I checked I am still human; but there was a computer making all the calls and I and the other 100 people in the room had roughly about 5 seconds in between calls.

Surely, being non-robot must have helped the equation, as I took a quick (and rather unscientific) sample of friends and family and found that no one would respond to a robocall. In fact, as the technology to make the calls advances, so do the devices we use to answer them. Most people automatically screen a call that isn’t in their contacts but our phones more often than not now tell us the country of origin and/or whether it is a suspected spam caller which make it doubly hard to get through.

Most salespeople and marketers alike know that it’s a numbers game at the end of the day and if you throw enough mud at the call wall some will stick hence the preponderance of calls being made.

In the same John Oliver story, it was predicted that 45% of mobile calls in 2019 in the US will be robocalls – a staggering amount and with any numbers game someone is bound to lose and someone is bound to win.

So, is being annoying a viable option?

Stop the presses

I literally just received a spam call as I was writing this – I thought I would have a laugh and answer anyway – it was a tele-survey for the upcoming election – no harm no foul right besides everyone knows who I am voting for…

Make Australia Eat Bananas from r/australia

Now on with the show

When I look at it, there are two ways to being annoying – either being present at an inopportune place and time or doing something that antagonises.

The robocall more often than not does both perfectly, you know they are going to call you when you have just sat down for dinner and they are proffering things you do not want or and more likely still suggesting you will go to jail or worse if action is not taken (I’m pretty sure I paid my tax bill).

The sheer volume, zero human resources, relatively cheap software and calls make it a viable option for many scammers but on the whole, it doesn’t work for a reputable brand as trust and connection are two of the most important facets when making purchasing decisions for punters and companies alike. (These two facets are actually why social media is quite a great economical marketing solution – check out our latest podcast which deals with social).

And the flipside to this is of course, talking to a robot when you make the call yourself – like calling a telco, for example, trying to meander through the often-ambiguous automated questions that will hopefully lead you to the right department but invariably does not.

This causes immense annoyance to the average joe or jane and can lead to lost customers. Companies spend millions trying to figure this out. Recently, a friend called up a car insurance and was greeted by a human and then put into the automate call which softened the blow a lot and increased his happiness with the call.

At the end of the day as you might of guessed it letting a robot do the work in what is traditionally a human to human interaction hasn’t really found traction yet but as technology gets better and the robots get more human-like you can bet your bottom dollar that they will be able to get your bottom dollar.

On a side note, and because you’ve made it this far, annoying isn’t just relegated to the domain of our cyborg overlords some of the most annoying marketing techniques are the ads themselves – enjoy….

Coles Down Down camopaign

Sometimes people get so annoyed at the annoying ads they take it upon themselves to rally against them

Chevy Malibu

Mentos Nipples

There’s also jingles that are just so damn catchy that are annoying I am thinking banana make those bodies sing; banana boat and cottees my dad picks the fruit.
And this absolute gem:

Ashley madison

Staying in the know when it comes to digital marketing is hard. If you are looking for some great marketing podcasts to listen to at work or when you are on the go – look no further we have our top 3:

MARKETING OVER COFFEE

Marketing Over Coffee is an awesome podcast to keep up with. Every week, hosts John J. Wall and Christopher S. Penn record the show, which is 20 minutes long and is shared every Friday. This podcast is designed to be casual, conversational, and not “newsy”. They share tips on social media, SEO, search marketing, copywriting, affiliate marketing, and more – and they take listener questions.

https://www.marketingovercoffee.com/

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING PODCAST

Social Media Examiner’s weekly Social Media Marketing podcast is hosted by Michael Stelzner and other members of the Social Media Examiner team. Each podcast focuses on new social media features and strategies, which provides listeners with helpful tips that they can use to improve their social media results. The Social Media Marketing podcast is 45 minutes long and is shared once weekly, on a Friday.

https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/shows/

ONLINE MARKETING MADE EASY

Amy Porterfield’s Online Marketing Made Easy was created with small business owners in mind! Most marketing strategies can seem very overwhelming to small businesses first starting out, and it can be difficult to know where to start and how to apply vague strategies like “create an online course.” Sounds much easier said than done! Online Marketing Made Easy breaks down these big strategies into small, manageable step-by-step pieces so that everyone can execute them to get awesome results. Amy shares what will work, and what doesn’t work, in the world of digital marketing.

https://www.amyporterfield.com/amy-porterfield-podcast/

There it is – get listening. If you have any favourites let us know here.

The Data Cycle in marketing is closely linked to campaign cycle and social strategy but it is a bit more refined in scope in that it only focuses on the data and information gleaned.

PREPARE

You are starting a new campaign, it either started with the boss saying

1. we need more sales or
2. why aren’t we getting more sales or
3. we hit our sales targets but let’s do double this month or
4. we’ve had a good year so far why don’t you take a week off

Wait… What?… OK – just checking if you were paying attention that last one normally doesn’t happen but if it is usual for your boss to say that sort of stuff I can send you my CV or you can make an introduction… you know what, let’s just play by ear, we’ll figure it out, but seriously don’t forget.

So at this stage you have to prepare your marketing strategy whether it’s print or online, social or search yada yada yada. Then we have to make sure we know what success looks like how we measure it and most importantly for the data cycle – how we collect that data.

PRESS PLAY

Now it’s time to start, press the button – if you have ever run a marketing campaign through mailchimp you’ll know that this gif sums up the trepidation nicely.

Let’s make some noise.

INTERPRET

You may think the hard work is over – and ideation and creation is important don’t get me wrong but for a numbers geek like me the fun starts right about… now! It’s time to crunch the numbers.

Collect all your data

Look for meaning in the data

Turn it into information for others to understand

REACT

Some think that the reaction part is at the end of the campaign and inputting your learnings in the next campaign but having fast reactions is good. Seriously, your campaigns are like kids you may have set them up for success but you never know what can happen if you aren’t watching.

So, it’s wise to schedule in review times during the marketing campaign itself – it can be the key to a successful strategy.

Once you have obtained the information from the interpretation phase it’s time to implement it on the fly. Be it, finding out that one particular social stream is taking a liking to the campaign and putting money behind that or by tweaking your messaging to generate more action. It can save a campaign.

There you have it the data cycle in four* simple steps.

*There can be a fifth step and that is storage – store your data in a well collated way can be the key to saving hours looking for a piece of information or being able to aggregate the data so you can see trends emerging. Luckily in this day and age most of us use analytic programs (google, adobe etc.) that keep the history saved and accessible.

image credits from giphy except A serious man and hero image from unsplash

At its most basic, marketing automation is software that self-operates your marketing activities for you. When used correctly, these tools perform tasks in an effective and holistic way that helps convert strangers into customers, improve your bottom line and increase your operation’s efficiency based on their interactions with you online (mostly).

Types of Automation

Some people have a very narrow view of what constitutes marketing automation while others have a the more the merrier point of view.

I like to keep it simple with a list of 5 to be honest most of these have some crossover but they also can stand on their own two feet and perform automated tasks:

Email Marketing

Example: User action initiated email or series of emails to educate and nurture your potential customer.

Site Automation

Example: Live chat prequalifying/chatbots can save time and harvest data for you.

Social Automation

Example: Posts curators/sharers or chatbots not only can it save time it can give an answer and provide a nice user experience when your team are away from the desk.

CRM Software

Example: Master storer of all lead information that leads to personalisation for each customer interaction.

Programmatic Advertising

Example: Automatically display your ads based on data.

Some of the players

As I said above these can be quite intertwined for example your email marketing software being your CRM. There is a plethora of different tools out there to facilitate the various tasks, some of the most popular tools are:

Mailchimp: “Consider us your personal think tank.”

No longer just the worlds biggest email marketing platform they continually add features and they have a forever free plan for the smaller business.

Hubspot: “There’s a better way to grow.”

With a free CRM out of the box Hubspot goes from strength to strength with their inbound marketing and automation software and amazing training.

Marketo: “One Platform, Every Engagement, Any Channel”

Marketo can be expensive and is a true enterprise solution with all the bells and whistles.

Drip: “See your customers in full color.”

A user friendly tool that is a great entry into the automation sphere.

IFTTT: “A world that works for you”

This is for everyone not just marketers a simple computing concept is at the heart of this automation If This, Then That.

Salesforce: “Help your business grow with the world’s #1 CRM.”

Another incredibly powerful enterprise CRM with the mostest. It can build a complete customer journey for you and more.

Is marketing automation the death of the marketer?

You might be thinking with all this set and forget business that people will be losing their jobs to technology. And marketing is no different. These tools can very well take many of the labourious tasks that, as a marketer, can eat up a lot of your time.

This doesn’t mean you will be out of a job however, in fact in many ways this sort of technology can bring great advertising outcomes to ANYONE perhaps the greater the challenge for marketers is to apply their skills and push even harder for the attention of consumers and inspiring action.

But it also means that as a base line, your marketing can be “produced” more effectively and your time will be used by doing what you do best – that’s thinking of new ways to showcase the great work your company does.

The average automation flow still falls down in other areas like the ability to have a meaningful conversation with another human or keeping content fresh although AI is getting crazy good. CHECK THIS OUT

images credit unsplash 1 , 2, 3.