Marketing your business is all about keeping up with current trends and strategies, and marketing automation strategies are no different. Letâs discuss the three types of automation that can help you stay on the cutting edge of technologies to attract and retain new customers.
What Is Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation uses sales and marketing software to automatically keep in touch and send information to potential sales leads or your existing customers. This could include email messages, social media posts, blog content, point-and-click ads and other customizable applications like chatbots.
New ideas are being developed constantly, so itâs critical to keep clients interested and engaged in what you offer. Freeing up your salespeople for more personalized, face-to-face interactions with your customers is key, and itâs important to take advantage of every tool possible to let them do what they do best.
The three types of automation software cover marketing automation, marketing intelligence, and workflow automation. Each of these is important to a successful marketing campaign.
Marketing Automation Strategies
This includes automatic emails and text messages, as well as tracking customer purchases and behaviors and ranking them accordingly. Personal targeted correspondence gives you a greater chance of reaching your target audience.
1. Keep it personal
Your customers are inundated with information, so tailoring your marketing collateral to their particular needs will draw their attention. By tracking spending habits, online behavior, and social interactions, marketing automation software pinpoints exactly how you should target your efforts and design communications that create impressions.
2. Mobile marketing
Take advantage of on-the-go customers with a more mobile marketing approach. Web notifications, SMS, mobile wallet and in-app notifications are only growing in popularity.
Make sure your website looks great on mobile devices, too. A visually appealing site will let customers click right into a website, follow you on social media, and opt in on texts. Take care with your approach to this newer strategy because it’s easy for customers to come and go.
3. Email pruning
Your software should regularly sort through your email list to either purge non-responding customers or change the focus of their correspondence to better align with their interests and behaviors. This allows you to concentrate on engaged customers who regularly follow you and are more likely to make purchases.
4. Quality content
Unique and engaging content is a must if you want to get your customersâ attention and keep them connected to your business. Freshen up blog posts and provide information on the latest trends and related topics.
5. Re-engaging customers
Customers can become disengaged for a multitude of reasons, often through no fault of your campaign. Follow-up emails, or replenishment emails, can bring them back to reconsider making a purchase. Reminding customers to reorder something they might be running low on is another re-engagement strategy that can lead to sales.
Marketing Intelligence Strategies
Tracking your customersâ online behavior regarding purchases, website clicks or social media gives you insight into their interests, which then gives you direction on how you should engage them. Some strategies to accomplish this include:
1. Chatbots
Chatbots are widely used on websites and can be programmed to anticipate questions and provide answers to a variety of inquiries before forwarding customers to a live person once they are serious about a purchase. Chatbots that appear quite personal encourage customers to click further.
2. Voice bots
Along those same lines, interactive voice response (IVR) allows âchattingâ with your customers via voice using artificial intelligence technology. Being able to answer your customersâ questions using these computerized resources creates a desired personal experience and gives customers the information they need to click further.
3. Recommended or dynamic blocks
Get familiar with your marketing softwareâs recommended blocks or dynamic content, which can be dropped into your customersâ emails and landing pages to help personalize messaging based on past behavior. Recognizing your customersâ preferences and focusing on promoting these items is a great forward-thinking strategy.
Workflow Automation Strategies
Targeting customer behavior is crucial, but donât ignore your internal operations. Choosing software that tracks your customer data and performs all of the functions of marketing automation ensures a successful marketing campaign.
1. Single customer view
When choosing marketing automation software, pay attention to how customer and lead data is organized. An easy-to-read, user-friendly CRM interface, along with all of the automation options, allows you to run an effective marketing campaign, serve your customersâ needs and share prospects across channels.
2. Visual automation workflow builders
Itâs important to have a good visual diagram to plan each step of communication to your customers. From the initial contact to follow-up emails, a visual automation workflow builder saves a lot of time and makes communication easier.
3. Cross-channel marketing
Cross-channel marketing opens up the lines of communication among your organizationâs different departments. If you sell a particular product to a customer, you can offer that same customer a related product or service from another channel.
4. Focus on your conversion rate
Conversion rate calculates the number of sales that result from visits and clicks on your website. A conversion rate optimization (CRO) strategy that includes email campaigns and personalization in emails will lead to more sales. Keep track of this number and overall campaign analytics to drive the focus of your efforts.
5. Pay attention to customersâ personal data
A host of rules and regulations dictate what you can and cannot do with customer data and when you need to ask permission. Cookies on your website, cross-selling permissions, and how you correspond with a customer are all important marketing tools, but make sure you follow the rules.
6. Follow through
All of the emails and marketing strategies mentioned here wonât help if you donât follow up with customers. By using sales and marketing automation workflow tools and ultimately personal contact, your business can grow exponentially.
Time to Take Action
These are just some of the marketing automation strategies available in a marketing automation plan. The beauty of marketing automation is the ability to customize a strategy that fits your particular needs.
