Back in 2009, Apple trademarked the phrase “There’s an app for that,” spurring a running joke that there’s a mobile phone application for anything a person might possibly need. If the joke was true more than 10 years ago, it’s even truer now.
Of course, the word “app” means something differently colloquially than it does in the marketing automation world. Sure, there’s an app that lets you fling angry birds from one end of your screen to the other, but there are many others running silently and unseen in the background. These are much more complicated software applications that require incredible amounts of development and testing to run smoothly. The world at large doesn’t see the whole picture of what goes into successfully developing and running apps — especially the ones without cute little animations.
As solutions and implementations architects, it’s my team’s task to implement new apps for marketing automation giants like Oracle Eloqua, a B2B automation marketing suite that helps businesses create dynamic personalized campaigns. When my team isn’t implementing new apps, they’re looking for the blank spaces where one might be needed to enhance marketing automation services. We operate behind the scenes, creating apps to serve unmet needs for businesses trying to be smarter about how they source and pursue high-quality leads.
Before Demand Generation merged with BDO Digital, custom app development wasn’t in my team’s wheelhouse. We had limited resources to produce robust custom apps, even when clients were asking for them. That was one of the key advantages of joining forces with BDO Digital, who have an entire team of dedicated custom app developers with years of experience. As it turns out, their talent and know-how were just the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface is an enormous ecosystem of capabilities and connections that make custom app development possible.
The Unsung Essentials of Marketing Automation Apps
Marketing automation giants like Eloqua, Marketo and Salesforce Marketing Cloud each have their individual value propositions. However, the services they provide their clients share the same essential foundations: getting their marketing materials in front of the right eyes and then smoothly reeling them into the sales pipeline.
The problem with automated marketing tools is that sometimes they’re too good at what they do — for every lead that’s reeled in, a salesperson must spend time and resources guiding them to conversion. Open the right marketing valve and you could be flooded with more leads than you could hope for, which, of course, only sounds good in theory. Not all leads are good leads, and although “data is king,” not all data is necessarily useful. Implementing the right apps in the right space is like placing an invisible watchman in front of those valves to filter out the leads who aren’t worth pursuing. To do that, a marketing automation platform would need some serious depth, with three key components for successful development: connectivity, flexibility and rigorous testing.
Connectivity
Connectivity is key for developing automation apps. Platforms like Eloqua, which have been around for a long time, have extremely well-documented Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). APIs are the software intermediaries that make it possible for one system to talk to the other, allowing data to be exchanged instantly and securely. These APIs connect marketing automation apps to important systems like your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms, providing seamless transfer of data from one system to another.
Flexibility
A marketing automation platform with extensive APIs is like a train station with connections to every single location a traveler could dream of — the more connections available, the easier it is to receive and send data instantly. This robust network of connections between systems gives clients enormous flexibility to build custom apps. A marketing campaign might need a webinar platform for expanding viewership, a proprietary app for transferring data to third-party systems or a platform that automatically creates accounts for email nurture campaigns. In any of these cases, a large network of connections allows app developers to be hyper-deliberate about the data they’re targeting and the benefits they can produce.
Rigorous Testing
Of course, invisible apps tend to bubble up into a user’s awareness when they go wrong. Those moments aren’t just frustrating, they can be incredibly expensive. Learning a new API or system involves significant ramp-up time and extensive testing to make sure the app runs smoothly without constant oversight. BDO Digital’s custom app development is successful in its built-in quality assurance for testing new capabilities, ensuring compliance with the proper regulations and closing any gaps in security before the app is officially released.
The Application Butterfly Effect
The incredible thing about marketing automation tools is how much impact even a small, seemingly insignificant one can have on a business’s bottom line. A single app doing its job well can have major implications down the road. Automation apps work behind the scenes, meaning it’s not always clear exactly what they’re doing to users. In fact, many end users don’t even know that an app is working in the background, even as it’s making their jobs easier.
For example, say there’s a company that uses marketing automation to source leads from other systems. They want an account restriction database to weed out unqualified leads so they can avoid spending time and resources on accounts who just clog up their pipeline. Rather than source all of those leads and manually remove accounts restricted from doing business with that company, they could instead develop a custom app that connects with other restriction databases and pulls that data back to their own marketing automation platform in real time. The app then flags restricted accounts before they’re created in their CRM, preventing company resources from being spent on a lead that has no chance of conversion. An app like that could potentially save a company millions of dollars — all while operating invisibly in the background.
The Sky Is the Limit for Custom App Development
When it comes to custom app development for automated marketing, there’s no limit to what can be created — and I don’t say that hyperbolically. My team’s job is to recognize where apps are needed to help businesses be smarter about finding and identifying their ideal customers so they can cut through the noise and use their resources wisely. B2B marketing automation giants like Eloqua already have an enormous base when it comes to marketing features and functions, but custom app development allows businesses to extend those capabilities for their exact purposes. Businesses can extend their marketing reach without hitting too many wrong targets by creating an exclusive app that runs behind the scenes. Additionally, if a custom app proves useful enough, clients can productize and publish it to the app marketplace, making it available for other businesses with similar requirements.
The word “app” is deceptively simple, but it encompasses much more than it did when it was initially coined. On one end of the spectrum, apps can entertain. On the opposite end, they can stand as invisible guards saving companies potentially millions of dollars by performing a single, simple — but critical — task.
When it comes to marketing automation software, there might not be an app for what you need yet — but with the right resources under the surface, there can be.
Bray Coleman is the head of the Eloqua practice at BDO Digital, expertly managing a team of Solutions Architects and Implementation Architects to help clients achieve their fullest marketing potential.
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