Could an RPA robot be the next star team member on your marketing team?
Whenever automation technologies like RPA (Robotic Process Automation) are suggested as being good fits for various corporate functions, there’s often initially a hesitant reaction to such suggestions by those responsible for performing the professional job.
There’s an understandable apprehension about having computers or robots perform work that humans normally perform. On another level, there can be some indignation at the suggestion that a computer or robot is even capable of performing the work to which seasoned professionals have dedicated their careers. But once business users understand that a software robot is simply an assistant to handle the repetitive, low-skilled tasks so they can spend their time on more meaningful work, then most are happy campers.
In this article, we’ll discuss how RPA robots can be used effectively to support the marketing function in virtually any organization.
The Many Faces of Marketing
When people think of marketing, particularly if they don’t work in marketing themselves, they often have images of funny or inspiring TV commercials or major corporate rebranding efforts – the kind of work that takes a team of creative, insightful, and culturally aware marketing professionals to pull off. Indeed, such activities do fall under the purview of marketing teams. But a lot of the day-to-day work of marketers involve tedium and minutia.
If part of that big branding overhaul involves a refreshed social media presence, someone needs to create and manage all that social media content, including responses to customers and other stakeholders. Even online content channels need careful attention to ensure high-profile placement on search engines.
And while marketing certainly has a creative and qualitative face, it is also heavily driven by objectives, quantitative data that can be a real chore to sort through and analyze.
The beauty of automation tools like RPA is that they can help take care of the tedious, boring work, leaving more time for creative professionals to do the work that requires a genuine human touch and is much more rewarding.
RPA for Content Management
Social media has emerged as one of the most important marketing channels available over the space of just a couple of decades. The challenge is that there are so many social media platforms and so many individuals interacting on those platforms around the clock. It can be a daunting challenge for marketing teams to keep social media content fresh and stay actively engaged with social media audiences.
RPA robots can be used to post social media content on pre-determined schedules. They can even help in creating content based on frameworks and instructions provided by the marketing team. RPA robots can also be used to help stay engaged with customers by responding quickly to frequently asked questions or gathering and presenting data to the organization on trending topics from customers – such as specific areas of interest in a new product or service.
Data Management
Marketing teams collect a lot of data – data on competitor companies, competitor products, and services, target markets, current customers, social media engagements, etc. One tremendous application of RPA generally is the ability to capture data from a variety of sources and process it consistently, regardless of the initial format.
This ability not only saves a lot of time for someone who would otherwise need to process all that data manually, but it also helps avoid the inevitable human errors that sneak in with any large-scale manual data entry process.
Competitive Monitoring
One of the many marketing business processes that can be automated is scanning the internet for data on competitors. For example, an RPA robot could be set up to gather pricing data on competing products or services and provide regular reports to key human stakeholders. That kind of market analysis might take a business user, hours to perform, but it can be completed virtually instantaneously by a computer.
RPA robots can also flag when competitors are adjusting prices – for example as part of a sale or inflation-driven price increase.
The marketing function is considered by many to be a creative one, better suited to right-brained humans than unfeeling robots and computers. But, as with any corporate function, there is a lot of tedious work in the data-driven marketing world of today. Why not let automation technologies like RPA robots handle the grunt work while the humans on the team can contribute the full benefit of their creative abilities?
Ready to learn more? Get in touch to learn more about NITCO’s RPA solutions and services