Fundamentals of Marketing Automation that Give Your Business a Boost

Five Fundamentals of a Successful Marketing Automation Strategy That Give Your Business a Boost

As part of a business, you understand the value of good marketing.

You also know marketing takes a lot of time, work, and money.

With the right marketing strategy and strong marketing campaigns, you can see positive changes in your business, such as a growth in leads and sales.

Once you realize how important good marketing is for your company, you are ready to invest in the tools and practices that will make a difference. One effective tool is a marketing automation strategy.

Marketing automation can make your company more efficient and give you more time to focus on your customers.

What Is Automated Marketing?

Automated marketing is when a company or individual uses technology to automatically control certain marketing tasks.

Automation is used in many parts of a successful marketing strategy. However, five fundamental principles make marketing automation really pay off.

Apply These Five Principles in Your Marketing Automation Strategy

There is a right way and a wrong way to use automation in your marketing. Focus on principles like these to make sure you get your message to customers in a way that feels natural and customized.

1. Focus on Dynamic Content

Whether you are sending out emails, crafting an ad, or creating a new section on a website, dynamic content is designed to change based on the behavior or interests of your customer. A common example of dynamic content is an email that will insert the customer’s name into the body of the text.

One stunning example of the success of dynamic automation is from Capterra, a business software vendor. After investing in automated marketing technology, the company was able to increase its sales by 400%.

2. Make Collaboration Automatic

The workplace environment with different departments is an ideal place for people with various skill sets to shine. Unfortunately, communication and collaboration between departments can often be difficult and inefficient, especially when it comes to customer data. Automating collaboration seamlessly brings all the information together. This lets the accounting department know what the marketing department knows, and vice versa.

3. Decode Your Analytics

Your marketing analytics offer invaluable information about your customers and your business pipeline. For example, you can look at your analytics to see how much time it takes for a potential customer to buy your product.

A marketing automation strategy can identify where buyers can get stuck in the process and can help you reduce conversion time.

4. Use a Drip Campaign

A drip campaign is one of the best ways to implement automated marketing. Instead of sending out the same message to each of your subscribers, a drip campaign sends messages that correspond to a particular customer’s behavior.

As an example, when a lead first signs up for email messages, the drip campaign will send a welcome message. If they visit a specific page on your website, it could trigger another email with specific promotional messages.

Drip campaigns can quickly grow your sales. The best drip campaigns deliver 80% more sales while saving you one-third of the usual costs.

5. Let Automation Do Your List Segmentation

You have a lot of information on your leads. However, these potential customers do not have the same needs or want the same products. The best way to organize them is through list segmentation. This can be done manually, but it takes a long time, and you can end up with errors.

Marketing automation software performs this hard work for you and groups your leads by whatever settings you choose. You can sort them by the level of engagement, demographics, buying behavior, or geographical location.

With this segmented information, you can create customized content for each group. PaperStyle.com was able to improve its email open rate by 244% with an email campaign focused on customers who were planning a wedding. The company also saw its revenue per mailing increase by 330%.

When to Apply Automation in Your Marketing Strategy

While the thought of not having to worry about your marketing can seem appealing, your business still needs a human touch to fully serve your customers.

Reserve automation for these key areas to get the best results:

• Sending messages during the purchase process: If a potential customer visits your site, adds items to their shopping cart, and then leaves without completing the purchase, this is an ideal time to use automation. It can send an email to the customer reminding them of their potential purchase.
• Sorting through data: Technology will always be more efficient at organizing vast amounts of data than a human. Turn data collection and organizing into an automated process.
• Doing repeatable tasks: You should consider using an automated process for anything your business does frequently. This could be sending coupons for frequently purchased items, reminder messages for upcoming webinars, or sending lead information to sales.

By letting technology focus on the mundane, predictable tasks of marketing, you are free to direct your skills and attention to things that need a human connection.

What Still Requires Human Attention

Your marketing automation strategy is off to a great start, but there are still some key areas where your customers will need and appreciate human interaction.

• Handling customer complaints: If a customer is having a problem with one of your services, they may not want to chat with a bot. It can be beneficial to have customer service available around the clock, whether through messaging or the phone.
• Monitoring social media: Your company’s social media accounts are an important part of connecting with current and future customers. While some social media controls can be automated, you should always have human eyes monitoring your accounts. They can respond to customer questions, handle problems, and report trolls. You do not want a bot accidentally responding to a compliment like it was a complaint.
• Crafting content: It is an excellent idea to use automation for things like dynamic content. However, you still want a human creating the bulk of the creative content, while the computer fills in the blanks.

With the ideal combination of automated and human-controlled marketing, you should see your business growth start to accelerate.

Watch Your Business Succeed with a Versatile Marketing Strategy

These marketing strategies and tips are designed to be adaptable. With a bit of work, you can find the right blend of automated processes and creative input to accelerate your business.

Is your business ready to take its marketing into the future? Televerde is here to serve you. We offer a range of services and products that help your business grow.