Tell us about your role and the industry/technology you handle at GetResponse.

As the Director of Marketing, I’m responsible for driving the company’s Marketing strategy in North America. My role spans positioning, competitive analysis, lead generation, customer engagement, and brand awareness for the GetResponse Enterprise platform.

How big is your Product and Marketing team?

GetResponse has a growing, global team primarily based in Poland with offices in Brazil, Russia, Malaysia, Germany and in Boston, MA where I’m based. Today, the company has a team of more than 300 highly-skilled employees to create an innovative Marketing Automation platform known for great design, simplicity, and unmatched user experience.

How much have Marketing Automation tools evolved since the time you first started here?

Throughout the industry, Marketing Automation tools have evolved a lot over the past few years. In fact, a recent Marketing survey conducted by GetResponse and Demand Metric shows that automation can yield 3X performance gains, yet fewer than 20 percent of marketers report full automation for any part of the funnel. Realizing the benefits of automation, GetResponse has been continuously expanding from its roots in email marketing to offer a completely automated Inbound/Outbound Marketing platform with autofunnels, social media and digital advertising, e-commerce, landing pages, webinars, and CRM.

We hear a lot about the exciting opportunities in AI and Data Science. No one talks about the challenges and risks. What AI-related challenges do you deal with on a daily basis?

While we’re not experts on AI or Data Science, there’s no denying these technologies will continue to play an even bigger role in MarTech. I believe the increased use of AI in Digital Marketing will further identify and engage target audiences and streamline processes. However, AI won’t eliminate the need for marketers. Successfully employing AI as part of a Marketing strategy will also require a combination of automated inbound and outbound marketing tools and the intellect and experience of digital marketers.

Tell us about various research and analyses on the role of Automation on Marketing, Sales and Customer Support.

As I mentioned above, GetResponse and Demand Metric recently conducted a survey of B2B and B2C marketers about the role of automation. Specifically, we were looking at the current state of the Marketing funnel and the degree to which Marketing Automation reduces or eliminates friction in the funnel, especially as it impacts Marketing and Sales campaigns. Here are some key takeaways from that survey:

• Fewer than 30 percent of marketers have a precise understanding of the ROI on their Marketing funnel.
• The top of the Marketing funnel was rated as the best performing and the middle section was found to be the least performing.
• When Marketing tactics are automated, performance almost doubles with the biggest performance gains coming in the middle of the funnel. However, less than 20 percent of marketers reported full automation for any part of their Marketing funnel.
• Integrating Marketing tactics within the funnel has a powerful impact on campaign performance. The top and middle sections of the funnel saw a 3X improvement and the bottom of the funnel saw a 2X improvement.
• With the exception of two channels, Email, and Referral Marketing, the use of Marketing tactics decreases as the customer moves from the top to the bottom of the funnel. Email Marketing saw the most consistent and heaviest use throughout the funnel followed by Referral Marketing, which includes customer testimonials and case studies, peer review sites and word-of-mouth.

Which industries have been the quickest and most flexible in their adoption of Marketing and Sales Automation technologies?

We see every industry investing more in Marketing and Sales Automation technologies though there’s definitely been an uptick in retail and online commerce.

How can GetResponse improve MarTech adoption?

By continuing to raise the industry bar with a complete Marketing Automation solution that delivers high ROI for our customers. While it’s one thing for us to say that, it’s another to hear it directly from our customers. Here are some quotes from them.

“I like that GetResponse lets you set and forget certain aspects of your marketing, giving you back time in your day. And it can integrate with your CRM, website, and social media ad campaigns – which can otherwise be a big job within themselves.” – Harold Johnson, Finer Touch Entertainment

Below are two more customer quotes, as posted on G2.

“What I like about GetResponse is the wide variety of automations that you can configure to leave most of your Marketing processes running on autopilot in a simple way. On the other hand, its Workflow Editor makes it much easier to create Email Marketing campaigns with well-designed templates to obtain optimal results and its tools to measure the statistics are quite complete and very useful to analyze the behavior of our customers and thus improve our campaigns.” – Kevin K. Validated Reviewer

“The best thing about GetResponse is the level of automation it shows, which has been very productive for us. The number of templates that it offers saves you a lot of time in the design of the emails, boosting your efficiency by reducing a big headache and thus you will have more time to dedicate yourself to something else.’

‘Complementing the level of automation is the price that already this great feature would not be very functional without a good price. Hey, response offers you a generous amount of emails for a very acceptable price, further improving its value. But the cherry on the cake is definitely the commitment to the customer that we get a response. The fact of calling you to solve any inconvenience or clarify any doubt instead of sending you to an email or technical support page gives a plus to the relationship that proves the commitment they have as a company.” – Susan D., Validated Reviewer

Salesforce recently announced acquiring Tableau. Google is doing that with Looker. How do you see Data Science and Data Visualization becoming the core of every Analytics platform?

Essentially, solutions such as Salesforce are looking to offer or improve the visualization of metrics that matter most to their customer’s businesses. Data drives decisions from lead management to customer engagement and having a visual component or analysis of such data and tracked metrics means organizational transparency across departments and ideally, faster and more effective decision making.

Tell us about the most-impactful lesson that you learned in the last 18 years?

From the book by Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less,  “Essentialism is not about getting more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.” I live by that every day.

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Ryan Koonce, CEO, Attribution App