Struggling to keep up with all the online marketing tasks for your business? Marketing automation can be your solution. It optimizes how you manage your marketing activities, leading to better results.
But marketing automation isn’t just about saving time. It also helps you create more impactful campaigns.
By automating repetitive tasks, you’ll have more time to personalize your interactions with customers, ultimately making your marketing efforts more effective.
However, there’s more to this. Keep reading to find the key steps to build efficient marketing automation processes that deliver real results you can measure.
1. Define Your Goals and Objectives
When choosing to use marketing automation, it is important to determine the objectives that are likely to be achieved.
Define your objective with your automation—do you want more leads, to retain customers, or to sell more? It’s important to set tangible objectives, which will serve as a basis for creating the work process and measuring its effectiveness.
“Aiming at lead generation may lead you to automate lead capture forms, nurturing sequences, or follow-up emails,”
— says Youssef Hodaigui, Founder of Mindflow Marketing.
“Specific goals also guide the action and allow you to determine the effectiveness of the automation plan for achieving the company’s objectives” Youssef adds.
2. Identify Your Target Audience
“Audience acquisition is essential in the establishment of an efficient approach to raising marketing automation solutions. Section your audience by demographic splits, buying behavior, and other tastes.
Develop stalker profiles to keep abreast with your buyer’s wants and the issues that you are likely to solve. This information will enable you to address your audience with automated campaigns that will feel close to home”
— says David Schwartz, founder of Orion Entertainment.
For instance, if your target audience comprises young professional individuals, your content and information dissemination could be hinged on issues to do with career progression, relevant applications, and other useful tips among you.
Correct audience classification enhances the probability of having effective communication, showing your message to the right audience that will, in turn, produce the necessary actions you desire.
3. Map Out the Customer Journey
“Understanding who the customers are and their needs is crucial for the identification of touch points and the planning of subsequent interactions. Map and list out the different stations and/or contacts where the customer engages with the brand across the spectrum, from the first time to the last time.
This is your guide to automation; identifying each of the stages in the customer journey means that you are in a position to communicate to the customer in a relevant way and in good time”
— says Derek Bruce, Director of the Mental Health First Aid Course.
Consider the different stages of the customer journey: pre-purchase, purchase, and post-consumption stages of consideration.
For each of them, define what kind of content and what kind of interactions lead the prospects to be converted.
For instance, it is necessary to use informative materials at the awareness level and at the decision level – stories and experiences of others.
4. Choose the Right Automation Tools
“Choosing the proper tools in marketing automation thus plays a central role in determining the efficiency of your flow. Currently, the option can be met frequently, and there are many platforms with various features and tools.
It is important to assess the stakeholders’ requirements and select a tool that meets the set objectives and can be easily integrated into the current system. Some of the commonly used tools are HubSpot, Market, WANotifier and Pardot among others”
— says Corey Longhurst, Head of Growth at LegalOn.
While selecting the automation tool, some criteria one has to look at encompasses usability, expandability, compatibility with other tools, and customer service.
Also, the tool must offer good analysis and reporting functions to observe the results of the campaigns that were run and make decisions based on the facts.
5. Develop Engaging Content
“The foundation of every marketing automation system is the content. Share top-quality and captivating content that fulfills the needs and desires of the targeted audience. This includes writing formats such as a blog, ebooks, white papers, and videos, among others.
It is essential to consider matching your content to the stage of the customer journey that the individuals are in so that those who are in the awareness stage can be taken through the various stages to the decision-making stage”
— says Lisa Ockinga, Chief Product Officer at Ling.
For instance, when at the awareness level, a company can create blogs, posts, and explainer videos.
It is hence recommended that during the consideration stage, one should provide the deepest ebooks and webinars. In the decision-making phase, it is necessary to offer case histories and product shows.
While it draws prospects’ attention, it also guarantees credibility since consumers are aware that they are dealing with an authoritative resource.
6. Set Up Lead Scoring and Segmentation
“Lead scoring helps in identifying the best prospects to communicate with while segmentation assures targeted messages. Introduce lead nurturing to work hand-in-hand with the scoring system, this will help in ranking the leads to accord them the necessary attention. Make a distinction of your target group through the use of factors like behavior, age, and buying patterns.
This enables you to share messages that the customers would be interested in hence making more customers out of the segment. Lead scoring is a qualification process that gives a point value to leads according to their activities such as visits to the firm’s website, opening the emails they receive, and downloads of other related content”
— says Daniel Foley, Founder of Daniel Foley SEO Consultancy.
The leads that have scored high may be followed up more closely for direct selling, while those that have scored low may be followed with more material.
The segmentation process guarantees that every single piece of communication is relevant to the receiver’s needs and concerns.
7. Automate Email Campaigns
“Even today, email marketing is one of the main tools of messaging in marketing automation. Ensure that you incorporate an automatic email marketing system for following up on the leads, communicating with the clientele, and compelling them to take action.
Employ triggers and Workflows, to send separate emails to the users on their specific actions like the download of a resource or even leaving items in the cart. Make certain that your email is designed properly while traveling and is friendly for mobile recipients with attractive calls to action”
— says Sasha Quail, Business Development Manager of claims.co.uk.
For example, you can set up a drip sequence for new and existing subscribers, an email broadcast for nonactive prospects, or a thank-you series for buyers.
Such variables as the personalization tokens and dynamic content can also be incorporated to increase the level of relevance of the emails sent to the recipients to increase their rated engagement and conversion levels.
8. Analyze and Optimize Performance
“Understanding the marketing automation processes as dynamic also helps keep the workflow strong and evolving hence requiring constant review and improvement.
Supervise the functionality of your automated campaigns with the help of analytics tools and parameters. Measure each sent message and look at the open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and ROI.
Apply it to finding ways of improving, and making work-related changes supported by data to optimize effectiveness. Being able to analyze the working of the automation workflows frequently intelligent you on the efficiency of such automation”
— says Gemma Hughes, Global Marketing Manager at iGrafx.
This allows for A/B testing of the various strategies to establish optimal usage. Since campaign modifications can be precise, you need to set up a way to keep your marketing automation as effective and goal-oriented as possible.
Conclusion
Now, you have the key ingredients to build powerful marketing automation processes! Remember, the most important thing is to set clear goals upfront.
This will ensure you target the right audience and guide them smoothly through the buying journey.
Finally, don’t forget to track your results! Regularly monitoring your campaigns’ performance helps you see if your marketing automation efforts are aligned with your business goals.
If needed, you can always adjust your approach along the way.
By following these steps, you’ll be well on your way to creating marketing automation that boosts your campaigns’ effectiveness.
