A token is more than what you get at the arcade.

Imagine creating a landing page program that usually takes around an hour to build in less than 30 minutes. Multiple that by the number of programs in your company and that’s some serious time and cost savings. In Marketo, tokens help marketers streamline marketing operations and become automation wizards.

We have released ten marketing automation tips  to make you a little more productive. Like presents, some are small, some are big–but enjoy them all.

Tip #9 – Cut Marketing Effort in Half with Program Tokens

I’m not sure what I love using more, tokens or snippets. Both take marketing automation to the next level by streamlining processes and personalizing content.

In simple terms, a token is a reference to content that exists someplace else. Tokens are meant to save time and to personalize. The most popular example is a lead token like “Dear FIRSTNAME” that personalizes the salutation in emails and letters. Today, we will dive deeper into program tokens.

Streamline with Program Tokens

The use of program tokens is where the real power of marketing automation comes in from a marketing operations perspective. Program tokens separate the great digital marketers from the rest of the pack by streamlining marketing operations, reducing errors and saving time.

So what is a program token? A program token is a reusable piece of content that marketers can use across multiple assets within a specific program. Program tokens are like lead tokens, except that they are specific to the program, not the lead. Rather than edit content multiple times, the content is created as a token ONCE and the assets reference that token value.

When used properly, program tokens cut down the time marketing spends creating programs in half (or more).

Spin Your Wheels: Webinar Example Without Tokens

A popular program token example is a webinar which uses various landing pages, thank you pages, autoresponders, invites and more.

Without tokens, marketers must edit each of the many assets separately. Generally, marketers will copy/paste the “Best Practices – How to Build Your Own Blinds” title into all of the landing pages, reminders and other assets. That alone isn’t a ton of effort but when you factor in the webinar’s time, date, subheading, etc, the moving parts dramatically increase.

Then someone comes into your office to talk about last night’s Parks & Recreation episode and you can’t remember where you left off.  Was the title “Best Practices – How to Build Your Own Blinds” or “Best Practices on Building Your Own Blinds?”  Was the time “2pm ET” or “2pm PT?” It’s those little details that can cause inconsistencies and errors throughout your webinar.

This whole webinar process is time consuming and error prone.  Believe me, I’ve experienced all of the above throughout the years.

Save Time: Webinar Example With Tokens

There has to be a better way, right? Step in Marketo’s tokens.

Rather than setup the content in each of the assets, tokens allow marketers to create it once. Using the title as an example, the marketer would enter the “Best Practices – How to Build Your Own Blinds” value into the Program’s {{my.Webinar Title}} token.

Instead of placing the title into all of the webinar’s assets individually, the marketer can rely on the the token to populate all of the assets dynamically–no need to worry about data inconsistantcies.

If done right, a marketer can setup all the values as tokens and never edit the autoresponders and other content. Imagine cutting that effort out of your workflow on a regular basis.

Of course, the first tokenized webinar you create will take a significant time to build as the infrastructure needs to get set. Here are a couple of tokens to get started but I definitely recommend bringing in your top Marketo expert to develop the architecture.

• {{my.Webinar Title}} – The most used token in a webinar program. This is the title that is used in every asset, sometimes multiple times.
• {{my.Webinar Date}} – The date of the webinar that is used in various confirmation emails, invites, landing pages and more.
• {{my.Webinar Time}} –  The time of the webinar that is used in various confirmation emails, invites, landing pages and more.
• {{my.Webinar Image Banner}} – Link to the image file that is used for all the thank you and landing pages.
• {{my.Webinar Hereo Image}} – The hero shot for the landing page
• {{my.Webinar Detail}} – The copy used for the landing page.
• {{my.Webinar Phone Info}} – Phone info for the webinar that is added to reminders.
• {{my.Webinar Registration Link}} – The link that comes from the webinar provider so the registrant can attend the webinar.

Summary

A lot of planning is required to develop a token strategy. After that upfront investment, program tokens significantly streamline marketing operations while reducing errors.

Additional Resources

For great resources, check out…

• Read Jeff Shearer’s article titled {{my.Favorite Feature of Marketo}}.
• Watch tip #5 in Shearer’s 15 Marketo Pro Tips 2014 Marketo Summit presentation.
• Read Edward Unthank’s text vs rich text tokens.
• Tokens Glossary and Guide in Marketo Community (Login Required)

Other Tips from the Series

• Tip #1 – Add Time Zone Link to Webinar Invites
• Tip #2 – Improve Your Global Form Experience
• Tip #3 – Build Reusable Offers With Snippets
• Tip #4 – Celebrate Wins and Build Alignment with Sales
• Tip #5 – Arm Sales with Intelligence with Sales Insight
• Tip #6 – Don’t Forget Your Plain Text Email
• Tip #7 – Put Down the Pepto: Reduce Marketing Automation Stress
• Tip #8 – Gain Insight into Your Lead Lifecycle with Date Stamping
• Tip #9 – Cut Marketing Effort in Half with Program Tokens
• Tip #10 – Improve Results with Global Suppression Lists

The post Tip #9 – Cut Marketing Effort in Half with Program Tokens appeared first on RevEngine Marketing.