Creative commons by rpongsaj
The Boys of Spring have returned to hallowed stadiums throughout the nation this week, and with much anticipation professionals will be playing hooky to celebrate and watch this unique American Pastime. In these stadiums will be advertisements, vendors, jumbotrons and all sorts of marketing efforts to get fans to buy food, souveniers, and perhaps more tickets to future games. Young men and women will be sweating in silly looking mascot costumes, and the bugle call of “charge!” will rally the faithful of both the visiting and home teams. Double digit priced beer and the traditional fare of hot dogs, peanuts, and cracker jacks will continue to please the young initiates in their cute outfits brought to the ball park for the first time by their doting parents.
So, in full Friday and baseball spirit, here are 5 tongue-in-cheek reasons why Marketing Automation is better than baseball (and don’t get us wrong, we LOVE baseball and there aren’t that many things that are better!)
1. Marketing Automation allows you to have more than three strikes. Mistakes in your campaigns are a given. You will have “strikes” against you, but will be able to quickly recuperate and fix the wrong assumptions you had in your subject lines, design, content, timing, scoring, etc.
2. There are no “blind” umpires. With Marketing Automation, the analytics tell you exactly what is happening, no second guessing. No need for replays in slo-mo, no reason for anyone to throw beer bottles at you. Someone may not like the call that a platform gives you, but you will not have to kick dirt in anyone’s face either.
3. Marketing Automation professionals don’t need steroids. They are overworked, underbudgeted, undertaffed and generally underappreciated, but with Marketing Automation, they can look like they’re on steroids without having to lie under oath. While they also aren’t exactly heroes of American culture, they are nevertheless important to the survival of a company. They are people in the background who matter: the base coaches, the bat boys, and the statisticians, who give the folks at the plate what they need to make it to home.
4. Each contact in your database can supply a treasure trove of information. With the right content, you can get revenue opportunity related information in return. You can’t rely on everyone that walks through the ballpark gates to give you information you need just because you gave them a free miniature bat, especially after six beers or six innings, whichever comes first…
5. The cost of a Marketing Automation platform and salaries of its users are far less than an MLB player salary. The average 2012 Major League Baseball annual salary is about $3.4 Million. And they don’t even work a full year. You can extract a whole year of hard labor from a Marketer using a Marketing Automation platform starting at way less than $100K, and they won’t embarrass you off the field.
Play Ball!
