Migrating to a brand new development advertising platform would possibly look like a frightening course of, except you will have a bulletproof plan readily available. Over time, you’ve little doubt amassed a considerable information repository with a (now snug) schema and messaging technique along with your present device.
But, as so usually occurs, you attain the purpose the place you want extra. More flexibility. More scalability. More options. More of what can optimize your advertising efforts.
And quite than leaping in blind, you will have researched your choices for a contemporary, progressive development advertising platform. Soon, it will likely be time to tug the plug and migrate over to your new device.
Are you prepared?
You can’t dive in head first with out understanding what you’re getting your self into. Making that mistake will discover you again the place you began.
Below, we are going to present you precisely how one can put together your self (and your information) for a clear platform migration course of.
This platform migration information lays out the steps you need to take for planning a profitable migration technique. From organizing your messages to cleansing up your information to understanding what to anticipate from a technical integration, it’s doable to have a easy migration that transfers your pertinent info and units you up for rapid success in your new platform.
In half one, we stroll via the way you and your workforce can put together for the migration course of by organizing your workforce and messaging technique in these three steps.
1. Gather Your Team
The first step earlier than you progress ahead with any migration planning is figuring out the individuals who can be concerned. The workforce you set collectively is contingent upon the kind, dimension, and organizational construction of what you are promoting.
For instance, when you’re a big enterprise, you very effectively may have a workforce of 15 people who find themselves all assigned specialised roles. If you’re a small enterprise, you’ll doubtless solely have a workforce of 2-5 people who find themselves all sporting a number of hats.
Both of these conditions can work, however what’s necessary is that you just designate an individual (or individuals) who can personal the next duties:
- Business Champion: This particular person will personal the general imaginative and prescient of how the brand new platform can be leveraged and can set the objectives and KPIs for the complete workforce. They will even handle the connection between your organization and your new supplier.
- Marketing Champion: Your platform professional. This particular person can be within the platform frequently. They’ll guarantee the proper messaging technique and use circumstances are being carried out to align with each the enterprise’s objectives and the objectives of the platform migration itself.
- Technical Champion: This would be the developer who oversees the technical integration. They ought to have an excellent understanding of your technical panorama and information construction they usually might want to change into accustomed to the brand new platform’s APIs and total technical talents.
- Project Manager: This particular person will outline the scope of the platform migration challenge and lay it out right into a challenge plan for the aforementioned champions and stakeholders. They will hold all workforce members on the identical web page and guarantee duties are being accomplished by the specified timeline.
If you do find yourself having a number of individuals filling these roles, it’s really useful that you just decide one champion who can oversee, delegate, and supply updates to the challenge supervisor on the duties at hand.
Each of the primary champions needs to be as concerned as doable within the analysis of various development advertising platforms. This won’t solely assist you to cowl all of the bases in figuring out the correct platform for what you are promoting, however will even be sure that the ultimate determination is finest for everybody concerned, making for a a lot smoother migration.
2. Audit Your Messages and Use Cases
Once you will have recognized your workforce, it’s time to prioritize the campaigns and messages that want transferring.
Listing out every of the messages you’re at the moment sending to your customers would possibly look like a fairly apparent factor to do, however you’d be shocked by what number of groups don’t do that. The message audit is the primary actual step in figuring out the general scope of your platform migration.
It additionally provides you an amazing visualization of the entire sorts of messages that you just’re at the moment sending. Whether you’re categorizing your messages by sort (transactional or promotional) or by channel (email, push, SMS, junk mail, and so on.), it’s essential to have a holistic view of your messaging.
It’s finest to make the most of this train as a possibility to scrub up your messaging technique.
First, let’s have a look at what you need to embody in your listing.
Create a Messaging Master List
Putting your present messaging right into a grasp listing doubtless isn’t as simple as you’re anticipating it to be. Some groups find yourself realizing they’ve messages being despatched that they didn’t even find out about.
This usually happens when corporations have triggered messages constructed into their very own methods, which require engineering work to replace or disable. It’s simple for advertising groups to lose sight of those.
When diving into this course of, it’s necessary to notice that auditing your messaging technique may not be so simple as wanting on the campaigns in your present platform; it may contain assembly along with your engineering workforce relying on the complexity of your present platform setup.
As you start to listing out the entire messages you’re at the moment sending to customers, it’s useful (and necessary) to tag these messages with the next info:
Channel Type
- Is this an email? Push notification? In-app? SMS?
Campaign Type
-
Batch Message: one-off or recurring campaigns that you just ship unexpectedly to an viewers
-
Triggered Message: messages which can be despatched to particular person customers, usually motion or time-based
-
Series: a number of messages which can be despatched to a consumer over a time period. Series are usually a handful of triggered messages mixed collectively, similar to a Welcome Series.
Message Type
- Is the message a advertising/promotional message or a transactional one?
You could have to find out these primarily based on what’s necessary to what you are promoting objectives as these usually are not common. For instance, some corporations could have tighter delineations inside promotional messaging similar to Welcome, Cart Abandonment, and Browse Abandonment messages relying on use case and lifecycle stage.
Lifecycle Stage
- At which stage of the shopper lifecycle is the message being despatched?
As an instance, your buyer lifecycle phases is perhaps Activation (constructing curiosity), Nurture (participating with prospects), and Reactivation (driving retention).
Audience / Trigger
- For batch campaigns, which viewers is receiving the message?
- If it’s a triggered marketing campaign, what’s the set off that might trigger a consumer to obtain this message?
- When it’s a collection, what would trigger the consumer to start or full that collection?
Required Data
- Do any of your messages embody sure consumer information in them or maybe want particular info to ensure that the messages to be triggered in any respect
As an instance, when you’re sending a transactional buy affirmation email it’s doubtless you would wish to incorporate the product info of what the particular person bought throughout the message.
3. Clean Up Your Messaging Strategy
Once you will have all your messaging laid out and tagged appropriately, it’s time to audit the general messaging technique.
Here are some questions try to be asking your self to find out which messages ought to keep, which ought to go, and which want updating.
- Which advertising messages not performing effectively?
- Are there batch messages that might be higher off as action-based triggered messages?
- Which messages is perhaps off-brand or poorly designed?
- Am I sending too many or not sufficient messages at a specific lifecycle stage?
- Is my call-to-action nonetheless related?
- Does the collection circulate in the best way that it ought to?
In doing the message clean-up, you put together your self for a extra refined technique as you migrate into your new system. It’s the right alternative to refresh your efforts and begin off with a clear slate.
At the tip of your message and use case audit, you need to have a listing of what you will have, the place you will have it, and which areas want enchancment. Building a listing with detailed message info provides you a way of the general work required as you put together to your platform migration.
Keep Your Platform Migration Tidy From the Beginning
Migrating to a brand new development advertising platform is about greater than taking your information and transferring it from one system to a different. It’s a possibility to evaluate and enhance, to tidy up.
By designating a workforce of champions and cleansing up your messages, you’ll set your model up for fulfillment, from migration to implementation and past.
Save this submit for later by downloading the pdf model. Interested in studying extra about making a swap to Iterable? Schedule a customized demo as we speak!
(*1*)