Identity
Interviewee’s first and last name: Couleaud Stéphane
Position: CEO of Webmecanik
Years of experience: 25 years in Software and Business Development, 15 years in Marketing Automation (creation of OdaïkO in 1999 – Marketing CRM solution).
Could you introduce yourself, please?
Founder of Webmecanik in 2012, I am an adopted resident of Annecy through my love of the mountains and the lake. We launched our Marketing Automation solution in September 2015, based on the open-source #Mautic framework.
Why did you choose to work in the field of Marketing Automation?
Webmecanik was originally a Web Agency. I have always worked in the software world (Oracle, BMC Software). In 2014, we acquired a company that resold NetResults as a white-label solution. We offered the solution to our clients, and in 6 months we went from 5 to 30 clients. So we wanted to have our own solution to bring flexibility to our clients, first in pricing, then in terms of functionality and integration.
What are your responsibilities?
We support our users in integrating automated scenarios that mimic the best of customer relations across all the company’s touchpoints: prospecting, trade shows, support, after-sales service, and many more.
We are supported by more than 50 partners (marketing and content agencies, call centers, integrators) who enhance the solution with added value.
In your opinion, what qualities are needed to work in this field?
You need to be strategic – change management accounts for more than 50% of the project’s success -, methodical – managing and sequencing several dozen scenarios nested within one another with multiple options -, and finally analytical – defining KPIs, analyzing them, and proposing changes.
What are the most frequent difficulties you encounter in this field?
A lack of targeted, segmented content, as well as a lack of alignment between sales and marketing (this is referred to as Smarketing).
How do you view Marketing Automation in general?
As a way to mimic the best practices of salespeople (B2B) or retailers (B2C). Recognize (segment and target, synchronize with the CRM), adapt (synchronize with the shopping cart, behavioral tracking), provide the right advice at the right time (statistical experience, targeted content).
Is it only a passing technique or does it have a future?
It is estimated that 80% of commercial relationships will be automated by 2021.
When you order your train ticket in 2 minutes on a site like Trainline, your calendar is automatically filled with your trips and a text message reminds you of your seat on the train 1 hour before departure, would you want to go back to queuing at an SNCF counter to get a paper ticket?
Can you assure me that in five or ten years, your opinion will be the same regarding this technique?
This technique does not date from the digital era, but from Philip Kotler. He sets out in Marketing Management (CLM-Publi Union, 1971) the basic rules: market segmentation, targeting, positioning. They have not changed one iota; we have simply rediscovered them after spending 15 years making showcase websites, which was a return to the Stone Age of 1960s marketing where it was enough to offer something for sale for people to consume.
So, I think this paradigm will remain true, but automation will be pushed to the extreme and integrated into the objects and services we consume (cars, stores, public services).
Will Marketing Automation always need humans to function?
Certainly not! Just like driving cars, humans are too great a source of risk and error to be left responsible for it. And their capacity for abstraction is too limited. Humanity’s best chance of survival is probably no longer to be alone in deciding its future and finally to have a species that can match it. Robots? AI? Transhumanism?
Data collection, what is your stance?
Does Marketing Automation simplify or complicate the customer journey through digital communication channels?
Marketing Automation must – to make sense – simplify the customer’s relationship at every company touchpoint. On the other hand, managing and coordinating Marketing Automation – from the company’s point of view – is a complex challenge.
Marketing Automation is a tracking tool; in your opinion, is it intrusive?
The question of intention is completely dissociated from that of action and objects, which by nature are free of value judgment. Is the car a lethal weapon (15,000 deaths a year in the ’70s, that’s huge!!), or a wonderful tool of individual freedom and collective growth?
Companies and organizations in general can choose to make it a tool for smoother relationships or for manipulating individuals. That is their choice, not that of Marketing Automation.
Do you think Marketing Automation goes beyond ethics?
Ethics vary over time and across geographies. For a long time, the chivalrous values of war required face-to-face combat. Killing from behind, or even without warning of the attack, was considered cowardly. Now people kill from a distance without any physical involvement and without even really knowing what they are destroying, and without a declaration of war. Obama was forced to change American legislation to allow his lethal drones to intervene in Pakistan without official engagement (declaration of war). So what ethics are we talking about?
Interview conducted by:
Nicolas GARGIULO
Marketing Automation / Inbound Marketing Project Manager, Kombiz Digital Agency
