Imagine I give you a fancy expensive sportscar and now I expect you to win all the championships, but blame you on every crash you make. The problem was that I did forget to ask you if you had a driver licence ....

That's exactly what happens when a marketing automation tool is acquired. We expect that now that we have this fancy tool, it will run smoothly, by just one click of a button in maximum 1 month time.

Now reality is that a lot of marketers feel stress to fail or even begin implementing it. There is a huge reality gap between management expectations and marketing operations.

A marketing automation tool is just a toolbox. You still need the strategy to fit it into your business strategy. You will need to integrate in your global technological landscape. Plus you need to train your staff not only in how to opperate the tool, but understand the underlying capabilities of it.

So plz, take your time to learn and surround yourself with experts helping you to define how you can make optimal use of your new super technology.

Marketing automation is for sure NOT plug and play and if they want to sell you that, I would challenge ;-)

​For a while now I'm a huge fan of Econsultancy. Always great content, to the point and very hands-on. This new article about the unsubscription process of Zalando, I really had to share.

It's describing perfectly what I've been preaching for years now in all of my projects. Not everybody is convinced by it and sometimes companies are even afraid to use it, concerned about the consumers reaction.

Now that Zalando is doing it, I hope that they will be convinced that this is exactly the way you should approach an unsubscribe. 

Unsubscribes are mostly generated by: bad or irrelevant content, frequency of the communication or even the use of a new email address. So the best way to deal with it is to gently ask people if they want to change their subscription preferences. That could result in a huge win-back or at least give you an insight on why people are leaving you.

You can find the entire article here

So on Sunday, I went over there. Everything was smoothly prepared. I had opted for a XF and I even could choose the available type at the location. During a small 15 minutes introduction over coffee, a very enthusiastic Jaguar representative gave some insights on the origin of the brand. He admitted that they had been through some rough times, but that since TATA invested in the brand, everything was getting much better. Even some sales figures and production details were shared.

Ok, of we go in a small group of 20 people. First a small slipping course on the slippery track (me at the wheel, some instruction via intercom). This was their way to show off the dynamic driving programs of the automatic transmission. Followed by a drifting session with the F-type (damn, with professional driver and me the passanger). The entire experience lasted some 45 minutes.

Now it was time for some of track and some standard on the road driving. We switched cars (I got my desired model) and get to drive it again for 45 minutes on a pre-defined tour. The next group was already starting the track experience. No show off at all until now. Just a great experience, for what I must say, an impressive car.

Getting back at the track location we got plenty of time to do a thorough inspection of some showroom cars and ask questions to the very friendly, enthusiastic crew. And yet, stil no sales pitch, they let the car speak for itself! All that heavy work made us hungry, so there was a small walking buffet and drink. We all got handed a thank you package with personal voucher of 1500 EUR, some nice looking brochures and the singlet we were wearing had apparently a hidden USB stick with show reals of the cars.

Basically I had a great morning, experienced a great car and had never the feeling to be the hunted prospect.  Exactly 3 days later I got a friendly email with a small survey on my personal impression of the day. And yes for sure, they reminded me that I had my personal assigned contact I could call for extra info. They definitely got an A+  

I am totally impressed by the professionalism of the staff, the perfectly timed communication and the experience selling principle. There was no extra sales call, nor communication following to it. I love the  feeling that I am appreciated as a consumer and that this company is giving me the time to decide on my own tempo. But I'm still curious to see what will follow.

Great job guys !!! 

How to combine customer intimacy, product leadership and operational excellence.
This spot is the perfect example how you combine an iconic brand with modern customer values.