2018 EDSIGCON Proceedings - Abstract Presentation
Implementing Trigger Automation Activities in Business Marketing Courses
Victor Berardi
Kent State University at Stark
Donald Thacker
Kent State University at Stark
Abstract
It used to be that connecting disparate or external computer systems and tools together to create workflow automations and integrations required high-level technical and programming skills that often were beyond the capabilities of most non-technical employees. Now, trigger automation tools—such as IFTTT (If-This-Then-That), Zapier, and Microsoft Flow—provide the capability to connect hundreds of services, tools, and applications using a mostly graphical interface with dropdown boxes, etc. thereby bringing these capabilities to ordinary employees. The basic logic for trigger automations is trigger ? action, with conditional branching and compound actions also possible. Consider a couple simple examples. A marketing team wants to respond quickly when a prospect completes a survey or form (trigger) answering questions in a way that indicates a strong likelihood of purchasing (condition). The information is copied to a marketing database (action) for recording and analysis purposes while the appropriate marketing associate is alerted via text message (action) for near real-time follow-up. Similarly, suppose a tree trimming service wants to quickly identify individuals from their area (condition) when they post on Facebook or other social media platform (trigger) that a recent storm has knocked down trees in their yard (condition). An advertisement is generated and delivered to the prospect with an appropriate enticement (action). In this presentation, we investigate possible implementations of trigger automation learning activities in business marketing courses. Identification of appropriate scenarios, developing course, student and instructor resources, along with a survey instrument to gather student feedback are considered.
Recommended Citation: Berardi, V., Thacker, D., (2018). Implementing Trigger Automation Activities in Business Marketing Courses. Proceedings of the EDSIG Conference, (2018) n.4795, Norfolk, Virginia