Every other week we see someone claiming to AUTOMATE their clients’ marketing. And every one of those pitches is nonsense. Sure, you can automate an e-mail campaign. Yes, you can automate some social posting. And having a solid process for outreach is really important. But you CAN’T automate your MARKETING. Without exception, the premise is false, because that’s not what marketing IS.
Marketing is creating a mutually satisfying exchange between a brand and a human being. And despite Pavlovian behavioral theory, you can’t automate human responses.
Imagine you’ve been invited to someone’s home for dinner. The door swings open, a robotic voice asks “how are you?” and a computer waits an appropriate amount of time before offering you a beverage & asking another polite question. You’re alone in the place, because the owners have gone out. It’s OK though. They’ve AUTOMATED an appropriate discussion and soon you’ll hear the microwave tell you that a meal is ready. They’ve even set a timer to dim the lights and put on a jazz playlist shortly after your food is served. Do you think you’ll visit them often? If so, we need to get you some more interesting friends.
You see, to the degree we WITHDRAW the criteria for a mutually satisfying exchange, we’re no longer doing marketing. We know more than ever what that criteria is. People want to identify personally with a brand; they want empathy; they want to feel like they’re engaging the world around them; they want the sense of doing good, and they want someone to pay attention before they have an issue.
We create those feelings in CONJUNCTION with our clientele. That’s how they BECOME a clientele. And that can never be automatic.
If you want to get better at DE-automating your marketing, reach out to MadPipe. What your brand does will be effective – not because it’s automatic, but because it’s human.
Disclaimer: The word ‘robotic’ refers, in this case, to a particular philosophy of marketing rather than any specific marketing service, company, brand, or mark. The word is indicated according to the common use definition of “operating automatically”. We are saying that we disagree that automated forms of marketing are effective.
