Let’s Talk… Automation, Email & AI with Lauren Clements of DotDigital

“As customer expectations evolve, creating a memorable and positive experience for them is more important than ever.”

Today we’re joined by Lauren Clements to chat all things email marketing and customer experiences with dotdigital.

Lauren just so happens to be the Partner Marketing Manager at Dotdigital! After starting her career in the media industry she has now been with Dotdigital for about 10 months.. Her primary role is to facilitate activity between Dotdigital and its partners, including events, content, and more. One of her most significant achievements so far has been pulling off the company’s big awards event, The Dotties, last November.
Dotdigital is an all-in-one platform for growth marketing. From email to live chat and much more, the platform is designed to transform the customer experience.

Leon:

Thanks for joining us Lauren.
Tell me, how does Dotdigital differentiate itself from the complex market of ESPs, automation, and CRM marketing providers out there?

Lauren:

The Dotdigital platform offers a range of tools and technology to enhance customer experiences and identify new opportunities. It is user-friendly, with a logical and intuitive design, eliminating the need for guesswork or unnecessary steps. Additionally, the platform’s customer support team is available to assist users when needed, as evidenced by our high satisfaction rating of 99% in 2022. This ease of use and readily available support can save marketers valuable time, allowing them to focus on other important tasks.

One of the challenges we have faced is that many businesses (of all sizes) have really struggled to embrace and maintain consistent CRM strategies.  How does this impact the work that Dotdigital and its partners do?

Staying up-to-date with digital marketing can be challenging as technologies and customer attitudes evolve. That’s why it’s important to have a flexible approach that can adapt to changes in the industry. At Dotdigital, we understand this and constantly update our technology to keep up with the latest trends and regulations. For example, when GDPR came into effect, we adapted by changing our focus from open rates to clicks.

We also understand that our customers may need help adapting to these changes, which is why we are committed to providing support and resources to assist them. Our team of experts is constantly researching the latest industry trends and creating valuable content such as blogs, cheat sheets, ebooks, and reports, which are available for anyone looking for inspiration and guidance on new strategies and trends.

What are the key changes and challenges in the marketing world that Dotdigital is adapting to?

As customer expectations evolve, creating a memorable and positive experience for them is more important than ever. In today’s crowded marketplace, customers also tend to prioritise brands that align with their values. At Dotdigital, we understand this and are passionate about promoting sustainable and ethical practices. In 2020, we became the first carbon-neutral and ISO 14001-certified marketing automation platform in the world, and have committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2030. This aligns with the values of many of our customers, who can feel good about using our platform.

We also understand that in order to retain customers, their experience with our customers’ brands must be exceptional. Poor experiences can easily lead to customers turning to competitors. That’s why we are continuously innovating our platform to offer functionality that enables our customers to deliver personalised, seamless, and intuitive experiences to their customers at scale.

You mention scaling… what advice would you give to customers who are relatively new to automation – and are perhaps worried about how they might operate with 10x or 100x contacts in their funnel, and a great deal of activity happening under the hood?

• The great thing about automation is it’s the same amount of work, the initial outlay of setting up the automation, whether there are 5 contacts going through it or 5,000. 
• The more customers you have, the more data you’ll have on different personas, and the more you can personalize and increase the variations in your automations – but you don’t have to! Do what feels right for your brand and team. Automation is to make your life easier, not harder. 
• We have lots of content on our website on automation, and our support team is always happy to help out. Automation can feel daunting but test it, start slowly, and you’ll soon want to automate everything!
• Always ensure you’re looking at the bigger picture/customer journey. You don’t want people to be in lots of automation programs at once. Have exclusion triggers so that people aren’t getting multiple emails a day. (e.g. exclude them from BAU promotional emails whilst in the welcome series automation program).

The marketing world is currently excited/scared/intrigued by the possibilities presented by AI – and that next level of automation.  Dotdigital is obviously an advocate of automation – but how does this map out for the next 5-10 years for DotDigital?

• AI is the unknown, isn’t it. Is it going to take our jobs? Is it going to conspire and overthrow us all? Most of us have learned about AI from sci-fi movies. The fact is, AI is just the next step in tech. It’s to make our lives easier, remove human error, and spot things we don’t have the ability or time to spot ourselves. It’s something to embrace and work with, not be intimidated by. We’re still in control; we are creating AI and choosing when to implement it after all. 
• I can’t predict the future, 5-10 years, so much could change. Tech is very adaptive, at Dotdigital we’re always evolving and we do this based on the market trends and on our customers’ feedback. Ultimately marketing needs to appeal to the consumer, and consumers’ lives and expectations are always changing.
• We will continue to develop and innovate based on what our customers want, and the trends in the market. We’ve found AI does things we couldn’t possibly do ourselves such as process lots of data to uncover relevant product recommendations for example.

And finally – what other areas of marketing interest you, personally?

The rise of personalisation in cross-channel marketing is a really interesting one to me. There’s so much scope on how we can personalise content going forward, and it can have such a huge effect on not only enticing new customers but encouraging loyalty too. With technology improving all the time – there’s a lot to look forward to!

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Connect with Lauren Clements on LinkedIn / Visit Dotdigital to learn more