You Have a Special Delivery — Three Busted Marketing Myths

Hello again, dear truth seekers! You’re reading the “MythBusters” series, where we debunk popular marketing myths. But today, we have something special for you… A special episode based on our LinkedIn Live Broadcast event series where we invite marketing experts to join us in debunking marketing myths. Your host is Olha Olifirenko – Product Marketing Lead at Retainly with extensive experience in B2B marketing, including projects for giants like Microsoft and Ciklum.

So, combining our expertise, we’ll provide you with top-notch information and debunk such myths as:

Are you intrigued? Then let’s get started.

A few words about our guest

Cardin Campbell is the CEO and founder of trac.co — a startup helping artists accelerate their growth and maximize their success using data analytics and automation. Cardin has some big players on his resume as a marketer and IT engineer, working for Intel Corporation, Nike, and Expedia Group, among others, before founding his startup. And when he started his business, he put all of his experience and knowledge into providing quality marketing automation services.

One of the steps for trac.co was to build an ecosystem that enabled automation in marketing. Tracers — as the staff are known — pulled down the history of opens and clicks from all their customers and, using the basic principle of data science, defined “golden hours” — the time customers most frequently open their emails. 

I think we saw an above 10% increase in open rate and click-to rate across the board on all campaigns that we used this on. Cardin Campbell

Meanwhile, this wasn’t the only innovation by trac.co — the team also found a way to automatically collect data and use the database to personalize every single message by adding a name, tailoring the subject line, or reminding the customer about abandoned products in their shopping cart. 

You might think: “So, what? Most companies do this.” But Cardin and his team were using the available tech stack to apply these methods before there were digital marketing automation technologies on the market. It was like taking a good selfie on Nokia N95 back in 2007 — difficult, time-consuming, but possible.

So, we believe that Campbell has every right to join the ranks of our myth busters as an expert. Let’s bust!

Many people think that the marketing automation process means bombarding your customers with spam. Why? Probably because they once were targets of companies that use automation like this — sending irrelevant information 24/7. 

Cardin gets straight to the point in debunking this myth when we asked him if he agrees with the statement:

The question probably should be rephrased: "Are human spammers? Yes. Are marketing automation tools spammers? No. Cardin Campbell

This is the essence of the myth and its busting — marketing automation is like a fire: it can cook a juicy steak or burn down a house if you’re not careful. 

In Campbell’s opinion, nobody would call you a spammer if you have a company and a community that wants your content and you’re adding value every day. We agree. 

Even more — automation tools help you collect data on your customers’ interests, backgrounds, and previous interactions and increase the relevancy of the delivered information. That means automation actually decreases the chances of spamming. It helps you tailor your marketing efforts to each prospect’s needs and preferences, leading to a higher chance of conversion. 

“Nah, we’re too small to afford automation marketing tools” — is something we’ve heard many times from clients. But we’ve repeatedly proved that they are mistaken. 

Cardin agrees with us and gives an example from trac.co’s experience: the startup helps several artists to engage their growing community of fifty people with great success. 

I think there should be no fear,” says Campbell. “If you have a growing community, you should want to talk to them and engage with them weekly, at the very least. Those people will ultimately become evangelists for you and your brand. And there's no better marketing tool than word-of-mouth, but it starts with your intent, and using platforms helps you reach those people at scale. Cardin Campbell

Moreover, to some extent, automation tools can be even more affordable and useful for small companies. Surprised? Let us explain. 

Most tool automation providers, including ourselves, offer packages for different needs and at different prices. Some marketing automation platforms even offer free options if the limits on interactions and users are sufficient for your business. For example, Zoho Campaigns offers email marketing automation tools you can use for free if you have less than 2,000 contacts.

As for usefulness, it’s much easier for companies to collect and analyze the data of fifty people than five hundred. They have more touch points with the customers, less bureaucracy, and can see results in a much shorter time. 

So, if you’re a startup or influencer, don’t be afraid to smash the piggy box open and spend a few coins on marketing automation tools.

No, they definitely are not. 

These are often mixed up because CRM and marketing automation software both work with your leads and prospects. But while marketing automation tools help you generate traffic, attract customers, and lead prospects to your company, CRM enables you to convert prospects into customers. That means they cover different parts of the sales funnel and can’t replace one another.

If you need more details, just follow this link — we already busted this myth in the first article of our “MythBusters” series.

But if you’re an expert in this, let’s talk about a more profound issue — tricky situations that pop up when using marketing automation tools and CRM. 

In Cardin’s opinion, the trickiest part of setting up and applying marketing automation software is customer privacy preferences.

A word about future

Although we’ve already debunked the myths, we couldn’t leave without asking Campbell about the latest hot topic — artificial intelligence (AI) technology in marketing. 

Today most people take extreme positions: “AI is useless for marketers” or “AI will put us all out of work.” But what’s actually happening?

The truth lies somewhere in the middle. On the one hand, the technology is not yet advanced enough to replace people. On the other hand, it can already facilitate marketers’ jobs. If you feed, for example, ChatGPT with quality information, it can write marketing content for you or even build a marketing plan or strategy.

BUT! It’s crucial to use it as a tool rather than a substitute.

The beautiful thing is that zen use your human mind, intellect, intuition, all the things you know about the world to edit and curate it down Cardin Campbell

Talking on a larger scale, Cardin also noted that if we embrace the technologies and advance them to automate reverse ETL (a process of copying data from a warehouse into business applications like CRM or marketing automation tools), marketing automation will undoubtedly benefit all industries.

So, what can you take away from our myth-busting? 

First, marketing automation is a good thing for your business regardless of size if you use it with knowledge and follow trends wisely.

Second, don’t neglect AI technology because of fear of the unfamiliar. Don’t be like an oldie who still uses а push-button phone and puts the TV remote control in a plastic bag.

Finally, hop on the train of progress right now, or you’ll lose out to companies that adopt these technologies to their benefit.

Watch the recording