When you walk into a store and a sales representative immediately approaches you, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Probably some variation of "Let's hear how he's going to try to sell me this."

On July 1, 2017, the Private Right of Action (“PAR”) provision of the Canadian Anti-Spam Law (CASL) allowing individuals the right to file suit against spammers takes force, bringing with it fines of up to $10M per violation. For those of you working in associations, with membership open to Canada, there are some things to keep in mind, to ensure compliance when interacting with Canadian subscribers after the upcoming cut-off date.

There seems to be this struggle between IT and Marketing teams; each feeling the other is a threat, which causes tension. The fact of the matter is we need each other! This trend isn’t new, it has been creeping its way from tread to reality as more and more organizations are accepting they need to be data-driven. But who controls that data? IT? Marketing?

Marketing automation is a great tool that can be used in all stages of the buyers' journey.  Email is still the preferred channel that marketers use to communicate with prospects and customers.  Marketing automation that is used for email campaigns works extremely well and generates great results.  However, marketing automation isn't just for email anymore.  While it's true that automated emails continue to be the backbone of marketing automation, you need not stop there.  If you're only using marketing automation for email, you're missing out on other communication channels it can be used for.  We have found an article at Act-On, written by Pam Neely, that lists 8 channels, in addition to email, with which to use marketing automation.  Pam explains how using marketing automation with each of these 8 other channels will benefit you.

Marketing Automation is scary powerful and can also be scary expensive but I have a few secrets that can help you add marketing automation but also keep the cost down.