Real time delivery of data is the key to a better Customer Experience (CX)
Over the past month I’ve had at least 4 conversations with prospects about integration and ongoing conversations with customers about their existing integration. Each of these conversations focus around Oracle Eloqua Marketing Cloud and their CRM or other enterprise systems.
Why integrate?
The fundamental reason you want your Marketing Automation system integrated is to empower the Marketing team to deliver real time communications. The obvious candidate would be trigger based campaigns. For example: a known contact visits three website pages covering Product A. Through integration to your CRM, Oracle Eloqua Marketing Cloud knows this contact already has product B and C. You can immediately engage with this person via email via a trigger based campaign.
Other triggers could be information in your CRM. For example: You may provide services on a 12 month contractual basis. The expiry date of a customers current contract could be up in 90 days. A dynamic segment within Eloqua sweeps through the CRM every hour and picks these people up and begins a five step retention campaign to ensure this customer realises the value of the service they’ve been accessing for the past 9 months and prepares them for renewal. The key here is to ensure the first communication is not “show me the money” but a recap on the service you offer and the value it delivers.
But isn’t integration a hefty investment?
In the past yes, integration was a significant undertaking for many organisations, it was costly, time-consuming and required constant maintenance. In the age of The Cloud and other developments, integration is something that can now be done in a day or two. Oracle Eloqua Marketing Cloud has an integration suite that essentially enables users to execute their integration via little more than a field mapping exercise.
For example you may have First Name and Last Name in the CRM, you map these to Eloqua as First Name and Last Name. In addition, you may add rules that mean any updates made by a contact e.g. correcting the spelling of their last name via an Eloqua asset i.e. a registration form for an event, will push through an update to your CRM.
This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as examples go. A criteria I use in my conversations with customers is quite simple:
“What data do you have in your CRM today that would add value to the Marketing team as they segment contacts for a specific campaign? In addition, what data do you have in the CRM today that could be used as a trigger point for a campaign?”
The power then comes when you start to have far for relevant conversations with customers and prospects. Taking customers as an example, you may include specifics about them in a communication, for example:
Dear [First.Name]
Since [Contract Start Date] [Organisation Name] has been using [Product/Service Name] to help your business grow. At ACME Pty Ltd we believe the value of our products is driven by the success your organisation experiences.
Your contract with us expires on [Contract End Date] and your Account Manager [Contact Owner] will be in contact with you this coming week to review your business strategies for the coming year. [Contact Owner] will be in [Contact City] visiting customers and would like to schedule a time to meet with you.
Please contact our Customer Support team in 1800 555 555 to secure a time a meet. Or, you may want to Click Here to visit our online meeting booking form.
Sincerely
[Dynamic Content can insert an image of the email author]
[Business unit director First Name & Last Name]
[Director email address] [Director phone number]
[Director Job Title]
I use the integration aspects of our own instance of Oracle Eloqua Marketing Cloud every day, without it my ability to personalise and engage with prospects and customers would be very limited or at least outdated with old data.
