Marketing Automation for Commerce - The Journey Begins!

As of Sunday, May 22nd, the Bronto 2011 Spring Release is officially live!

This is the biggest and most exciting Bronto release in recent years, and it represents a key inflection point in Bronto’s evolution. It marks the beginning of Bronto’s journey from a single-channel email marketing solution to a multichannel marketing automation platform.

This opens up new and exciting possibilities for deeper engagement with buyers—and it’s only the beginning!

You’ve heard the drumbeat for a few weeks now, but here’s another glimpse at what’s new in the Bronto platform:

• Mobile/SMS Messaging—Professional Edition users can now add mobile/SMS messaging campaigns to their marketing mix. This includes being able to send and receive SMS messages, as well as build SMS into automated campaign workflows that span email, mobile and social channels.

• Social Integrations—You can post messages to Facebook and Twitter directly from within the Bronto application. You can schedule these messages, track shares and retweets, and get a more complete view of engagement across channels.

• Workflow Automation—There’s now a drag-and-drop interface for building cross-channel campaign workflows. This takes automation to a new level—it enables you to orchestrate high-impact, highly personalized campaigns that increase engagement and drive transactions.

So how can you begin to take advantage of these new capabilities? Here are some ideas for how to get started.

Define your mobile strategy

Mobile/SMS is definitely an area to start exploring—and there are advantages to being an early adopter!

One advantage has to do with keywords. SMS is different than email. To send and receive SMS messages, you need a short code. Bronto has a short code that we’re sharing with our clients. This will greatly simplify mobile/SMS adoption since short codes are neither simple nor quick to obtain. The way contacts receive SMS from you is by subscribing to your keyword. Bronto SMS add-on clients will receive 10 keywords—and the choosing of keywords is first come first serve.

Start thinking about the role you want mobile/SMS messaging to play in your acquisition and promotional campaigns, and the corresponding SMS volume. The pricing for the mobile/SMS add-on has two components—a fixed annual license and an annual SMS commitment (just like with email). Contact your account manager to learn more!

Use Bronto for Social engagement

If you’re using the Professional Edition, you can now create four types of messages in Bronto—email, SMS (requires SMS add-on), Facebook and Twitter. Each type of message has its own message view that is optimized for that channel.

Try posting Facebook and Twitter messages directly from within the Bronto application. There are three main benefits to doing this in Bronto:

1. Scheduling—You can schedule an individual message, or a message series, rather than posting them manually in Facebook or Twitter.

2. Tracking results—You can track subsequent clicks, shares, mentions and retweets in Bronto.

3. Gauging engagement—As you begin to interact with buyers on Facebook and Twitter through Bronto, you can start to track responses and ultimately use Bronto as a single view dashboard into engagement across channels.

Get an early peek at workflow automation

The workflow canvas is ready for you to explore! You can create and save workflows, and very soon (on June 13th), you’ll be able to activate them. Try the interface! It behaves more like a desktop application than a web application. Simply drag the nodes from the left onto the canvas, snap them together, and fill in the metadata where needed. Use your imagination! This will require some creative thought, but the more you think through your approach and the campaigns you want to automate, the more value you’ll realize.

We’ll continue the dialogue at our Spring Release Product Webinar on Wednesday, May 25th, 2pm ET / 11pm PT. Register here.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Damian Trzebunia (“Che-boon-ya”)
Product Marketing Manager
Bronto Software, Inc.