The Next Phase of Marketing Automation: Lessons from Dreamforce and HubSpot

Hannah Kelly: Welcome to the Marketing Automation Moment podcast. I'm Hannah Kelly.

Mike Maynard: And I'm Mike Maynard. Um, this is Napier's podcast to tell you about the latest news from the world of marketing automation.

Hannah Kelly: Welcome to the Market Automation Moment podcast. I'm Hannah Kelly.

Mike Maynard: And I'm Mike Maynard.

Hannah Kelly: Today we talk about whether market automation as we know it is over.

Mike Maynard: Salesforce cutting support roles but hiring more salespeople.

Hannah Kelly: The top takeaways from Dreamforce HubSpot, inventing

Mike Maynard: the concept of loop marketing and when

Hannah Kelly: you should give up on a campaign. Hi, Mike. Welcome back to another episode of Market Moment. How you doing?

Mike Maynard: Hi, Hannah. Good to talk to you again. And we've managed to connect despite the outage with Amazon Web Services today.

Hannah Kelly: I know it has been a bit of a busy morning just trying to get things to work and I mean, it's. Is everything back up now or not? I'm not sure.

Mike Maynard: Well, I hope so. I haven't had a chance to play Fortnite, but I'll definitely get to try that later on.

Hannah Kelly: Damn. But at least I can log my lunch and fitness pal now, so it's okay.

Mike Maynard: That's okay.

Hannah Kelly: Well, let's kick off because it's been a little while since our, uh, last episode and we've got a lot of news to get through. And I want to start with activecampaign. You know, I love a good marketing headline, and they've actually come out with a really strong statement that the days of classic market automation is over and they are viewing that as a good thing.

Mike Maynard: Yeah, I saw this and I thought what a great bit of marketing hype. Actually, it's true. Marketing automation is changing. AI is definitely having an impact, particularly in some markets. And so for sure, we're not doing marketing automation like we did 10, 15 years ago when the, you know, technology was just starting. But that was changing anyway. And I think what they're trying to do is they're trying to get some attention around their AI tools. But realistically, does it mean that, you know, market automation is radically different? I don't know. I think it's going to be easier. I think it's going to be quicker to run. I think it's going to be less painful to manage campaigns, but I'm not entirely sure it's really changed that much.

Hannah Kelly: I have to agree, Mike, and I think I'm going to be the cynical one for this time m around, but they talk about new agents and they talk about it, you know, helping with segmentation, personalization, goal setting, channel selection. But to be really honest. This is something that we've seen the last six months. Like the last six months, we've seen lots of market automation platforms do this. We haven't heard loads of stories raving about the capabilities. And I actually think it's just the norm now that actually even if you aren't using it within market automation platforms, you're probably going to ChatGPT to help you with goal setting or segmentation. So I do love how they've tried to do the story. I just don't think it's actually talking about anything new.

Mike Maynard: I agree, I think it's great pr, but actually if you're a marketer, it's just part of a trend. And everybody's following that trend.

Hannah Kelly: Absolutely. Well, let's move on because we've got a couple of points to talk about. Salesforce. Now, Salesforce have been a little controversial in the headlines recently and their CEO actually came out and announced that they were making redundancy. So I think it was about 4,000 support roles were being made redundant to bring in AI, but at the same time they're also looking to hire 5,000 sales staff. So I'm a little bit confused. I mean, what do you think?

Mike Maynard: Yeah, actually I don't know if you can hear, but it's raining really hard here. So if any listeners are wondering what the background noise is, we're okay. It's just raining hard. We're in the uk. No, great story. I mean, my first thought was, you know, hiring all those salespeople, can they get themselves a decent CRM system? Who knows? I mean, I think some of this is hype, certainly. For sure. I think one of the things AI has done is it's really, really helped in terms of self service, customer support, so people more and more can get answers without having to go to customer support agents. And, uh, maybe this is what's driving the Salesforce move. To be fair, video helped an awful lot as well. So as video became more and more accessible, you know, you actually had walkthrough videos. I'm sure that dramatically reduced the requirement for support. Now AI is, you know, the next stage along there, so I can understand maybe that they don't need as many people. The interesting thing is though, if you hear anybody, they're cutting support people for current customers. Hiring more salespeople doesn't sound like they're doing particularly well. And I'm not saying that's the case with Salesforce. I'm just teasing Salesforce before you get upset, but you know, it does feel like they really need some more customers.

Hannah Kelly: Yeah, I have to say I do agree, Mike, because it's. It's interesting. You know, we have clients in this space who are providing these kind of like, AI chat support services, and they are really great. But, you know, when it comes to the level of support that people actually need with M automation platforms, I do wonder how much support these AI services are going to be. I mean, we work with a market automation platform and we're constantly going to them for help. And actually, I think if I wasn't speaking to the human, I'd be like, please let me speak from m. A human. So it's really interesting and, you know, we could look at it that there actually. There's so much business to chase. There's so much opportunity. That's why they think they need more salespeople. But I guess we won't really know until more information comes out.

Mike Maynard: Yeah, I mean, it'd be interesting to see. I mean, the other thing is who's not bought Salesforce, who might be in the market for it. I mean, it strikes me as, uh, you know, these guys have done pretty well. Maybe that market's becoming saturated. Maybe it's becoming a lot harder for them to sell because there's fewer, uh, um, potential customers.

Hannah Kelly: I fully agree. And I also have to say I wonder again if it's more of a PR marketing ploy, because we have actually just had the Dreams Force event the Salesforce holds. I think that actually took place last week. So all of this news has come out of it. But I wonder, are they just doing it to maybe boost some more PR around the event? I don't know. What do you think?

Mike Maynard: I'm not sure layoffs necessary is a good thing, even if it's trying to hype the benefit of, um, AI support. So I don't know, maybe it is. It doesn't, you know, excite me. I mean, obviously one of the big takeaways from Dreamforce was the fact that it's all about agents. It's all about AI agents now, um, particularly in the enterprise. And, um, I think that's definitely true. So maybe there is a case that, uh, you know, there's a link between Dreamforce and the announcement.

Hannah Kelly: Absolutely, Mike. But let's dive in a little bit deeper into what actually came out of Dreamforce. And one of the things that stuck out to me the most, and I guess this isn't surprising seeing is that Salesforce own, um, them is that Slack was really being shouted about as that platform to use AI agents. With now, you know, we as a company use Microsoft Teams. We know many of our clients use Microsoft Teams. So do you think that there's a disadvantage that if you're using Salesforce, you're not using Slack? What do you think?

Mike Maynard: Well, considering a lot of Salesforce's clients, uh, that they're um, big enterprises who probably are Microsoft houses, I do think this push towards Slack is interesting. Obviously Salesforce is basically trying to get people off Microsoft, trying to get them more onto, um, the Salesforce platform. So in some ways it makes sense, but in others you've got to look at it and think, well, perhaps you'd be helping your customers a bit more if you more proactively supported teams. So I do think it's an interesting question and obviously Salesforce has made a strategic decision. It'd be interesting to see how it goes for them. You know, as I mentioned earlier, they've got a pretty good market share and so they can probably afford to do things that maybe smaller vendors couldn't do.

Hannah Kelly: Oh, 100%. Because, I mean, one of the things I'm actually looking at now is that, uh, Dreamforce really took center stage and talked about pricing and the pricing of Salesforce. And one of the claims that they actually made was that, uh, 12,000 customers experimenting with Agent Force and so they're creating this Agent Force city. So to me it really seems like they are taking that money, you know, and they are really experimenting. But I would be interested to see if they are even struggling with that saturated market as you mentioned earlier, or actually they're like, no, we're good. We're just going to keep plowing ahead and see what picks up.

Mike Maynard: Yeah, I think you've got a really good point there. I mean, probably where Salesforce see a lot of their oxygen, maybe this is, you know, goes back to the hiring of the sales team. Maybe it's all around getting existing customers to adopt more features and more capabilities. I mean, I did have to smile when I saw one of the case studies is Dell who are, uh, using Agent Force to cut supplier onboarding. And apparently it took 60 days to onboard a supplier previously. I mean, that's kind of incredible for anyone who doesn't work with, uh, you know, large enterprises or in a large enterprise, because clearly, actually the amount of work is probably a couple of hours. You know, it's not like. But it gets strung out in these long, complex processes. So maybe it's all about getting big enterprises to take advantage of some automation that can then speed up processes that have been Kind of drowned by bureaucracy.

Hannah Kelly: Definitely. That would make sense. And, um, I actually want to relate this to our next point because I want to talk a little bit about HubSpot. Now HubSpot, I think are doing that exact thing and basically positioning something to overcome these long strung out processes where decisions have to be made. And they have introduced what they called the loop marketing. Now I have to say I did laugh a little bit at this because we've been through HubSpot, we've both been to Inbound throughout the years, Mike, and we've been there where they've talked about customer journeys. I've sat front row when they've talked about Flywheel and that, uh, this is the newest thing and this is what you've got to follow to be successful. And now they are talking about loop marketing. Now the general consensus of loop marketing is that it's basically how you combine what you are doing as you as a marketer with the efficiency of AI. What did you think about it?

Mike Maynard: I think in a way it's kind of interesting because actually it's very specifically marketing. If you look at what HubSpot did with the Flywheel, that was much more around customer lifecycle. And now loop marketing is really focused on marketing. I mean, I'm not convinced it's necessarily revolutionary, the idea that you don't just say who you are, but you also tailor it to your audience. I mean, it kind of doesn't feel like it's the most stunning insight ever. And I'm not entirely sure why they have to do this in a, uh, in a loop, other than the loop looks cool. But I think, you know, HubSpot's great at producing these systems and selling them and marketing them, really simple processes. And you know, we were HubSpot partners for a while and you kind of get into that HubSpot cult and you really believe in it. And I'm sure that if anybody listening here talks to a HubSpot agency over the next couple of years, they'll get this whole loop marketing pitch related to them because those agencies really take on these HubSpot approaches. So I don't think it's a big deal. I think it's a massive change. But I do think it's kind of interesting that again, HubSpot's trying to create a process and then market that, um, and brand it.

Hannah Kelly: Definitely. And I think as well, you know, they're trying to be leaders and they're trying to be the leader of like, okay, AI. We've talked about it, we've Got this. We've got all our competitors. What can we do different? Oh, wait, here's a process that you can follow that's going to help with AI. And as a marketer, I do love that because even though we aren't HubSpot partners anymore, sometimes I do still fall into the cult and I'm like, ooh, this is really cool. And then I realize it's not teaching me anything new.

Mike Maynard: Ouch. That's pretty brutal, Hannah. I think it's, you know, I think they're good at doing it. I also think that one of the big issues we see with a, uh, lot of marketers and agencies is the lack of process. And I think if you've able to use process, that can actually make you more creative. Most creatives are not short of ideas. It's more about whittling down to the best one. If you have a process, it's much easier to get down to the one that's going to be most effective. So I think, you know, there is some value in HubSpot trying to do this. I just. I've got to be honest, I don't really get how loop marketing is so related to AI. But hey, I'm sure we'll hear more from HubSpot and they'll explain it.

Hannah Kelly: I'm sure we will. Now let's move on. Unconscious of time. Mike. So let's talk about our insightful tip of the week. And I want to talk about when you're running a campaign. So say you're running a campaign. You're running a campaign for the right reasons, but it's not working. Should you just give up? Should you just say no, okay, I know this is a really good idea, but we're not doing anything. It's not working. We should just give up on it. I mean, personally, before I hand over to you, I think there is, you know, let's relate that to process. Part of our process is enhanced, and that's all around optimizations. Now I think companies can fall into the great. This is such a good concept. The messaging is right, the audience is right. Okay, I'm running it. Damn. Didn't achieve anything. Okay, I'm just going to stop. But are they actually listening to the data? Are they actually optimizing what they're seeing? Actually, is the audience becoming too broad because they've actually maybe put in a sector that isn't quite right? I think there's lots of things that companies give up with because they just don't understand that what they're actually doing is wrong.

Mike Maynard: I mean, that's an interesting perspective. I think you're right. If you're doing something for the right reasons, you probably should try and make it work because it's obviously important or it was important. Sometimes circumstances change. If, uh, you work for a large business and you're promoting a particular product and that business unit gets sold, I mean, clearly give up on the campaign, don't promote it anymore. But I do think that you can potentially get too hung up on trying to, um, flog a dead horse and keep trying to optimize a campaign that doesn't work. You know, the first thing to do is, if you feel the campaign's not working, take a step back and look at why you're doing it and whether that is the right thing to do and whether your assumptions are correct. So to me, first, I'd actually stand back and take a big look at the campaign before I then really dive into whether or not I decide to cancel it.

Hannah Kelly: You do make some good points there, Mike. I think there is that level to it. I also think sometimes, though, uh, you could take a step back. You can see everything is right in that picture, but without actually digging into that data, you still don't figure out what you're doing wrong. And then you run that risk of also it being wrong for your future campaigns.

Mike Maynard: Yeah, I mean, I guess you're right. At some point you've got to look at, uh, how you're optimizing it and improve those optimizations. I think everybody is tweaking campaigns. I mean, one of the things that really interests me is you can kind of go down a dead end of optimization. And if you head off in the wrong direction, sometimes it's not obvious how to, you know, re. Optimize the campaign. And actually you need to make quite a big change rather than just, uh, a small tweak or a small optimization. So, you know, again, it does come back to, again taking a step back, but at a different level here, you know, more at the actual tactical level and just make sure that actually the tactics you're running really do fit with the campaign goals. So I guess you're convincing me that we shouldn't give up quite so quickly. But I do think that, uh, you know, really making sure you understand, um, the reasoning behind what you're doing, that that's super important.

Hannah Kelly: I think that's a really good point, Mike. And, you know, I can't resist. I'm in sales. So I am going to say, you know, we do have experts at Napier that do this really, really well. So if you're listening, you're thinking, and you're relating to a campaign and going, I just don't know, Drop even your micro and email. We're always happy just to have a look at the data and see if we can help.

Mike Maynard: Well, I love that sales pitch, Hannah. That's great. And if anybody's got any comments about the podcast or anything that they'd like to hear us discuss again, feel free to drop us a note. You can always get hold of us on the website napierb2b.com Brilliant.

Hannah Kelly: Well, thanks so much, Mike. It's been a great conversation, as always.

Mike Maynard: Thanks so much, Hannah.

Hannah Kelly: Thanks for listening to the Marketing Automation Moment podcast.

Mike Maynard: Uh, don't forget to subscribe in your favorite podcast application and we'll see you next time. Something.