Yes, that's Richard's chili

If you’re a frequent reader of The Mouth of the Funnel, you’ll know that I like to relate Marketing Automation posts to my everyday activities like building a shower or making salsa. That’s because the process of implementing a successful Marketing Automation program can be broken down and implemented just like you would a construction project or a recipe. There are ingredients or materials that need to be combined in a particular manner to end up with the desired result.

Every endeavor that you take needs to have basics in place to make it successful. For example, if you want to create an entry for your next Halloween or Fall Festival chili cook off then you need to assemble the right ingredients and then put them together in the right way to get a great-tasting combination. Marketing Automation, just like chili, can be as complex or as simple as you want it to be. Using the same ingredients you can create anything from acceptable to award winning, but if you don’t use them to their potential they can also create a miserable failure that makes you not want to even try it again. Now you might think this post is like the one I did for Salsa back in 2012, but not entirely. That one talked about refining and tweaking your process. Today we’ll talk more about the structure of a good marketing automation program and how it all comes together for savory goodness. (more…)