Automation is taking over the corporate world by a storm!
Each and every business today is looking for means to simplify their complex business operations and is thereby switching to technology-driven tools available in the market.
To be able to survive in the rat race at such a high pace, the only option left for businesses is to automate their regular mundane tasks that can be taken over by some tool in place.
Such a move helps them in the following ways:
- Gives the employees more time to focus on the areas of business that really matter
- Relieves them of the stress of the daily tasks which cannot be ignored.
Did you know?
Marketing Automation is said to drive a company’s sales productivity by a good 14.5%!
Yes, and that is exactly why you need to read this blog to be able to understand what Marketing Automation is, how to create it, and deploy it in your operations to get that 14.5% productivity boost.
What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing in the business world is not just one activity, but a set of tasks that are needed to be performed in a sequence to get the results you desire.
Employees are so preoccupied and burdened with so many tasks that it becomes difficult to manage each and every marketing activity taking place.
That’s where Marketing Automation comes to your rescue!
Marketing Automation is nothing but the process of deploying software in place to streamline and automate the tasks that take place in your marketing journey.
Such a process involves a few of the activities such as:
- Managing mundane tasks of the business to nurture leads for better sales performance.
- Personalizing content better for marketing right and thereby saving on time and effort.
- Target customers based on their collected data.
- Provide analytical insights and prepare reports.
It really has the potential to double your growth!
Let us understand what really actually classifies as a successful marketing automation strategy.
What constitutes a Successful Marketing Automation Strategy?
A successful marketing automation strategy aims to achieve a set of goals. There are a few metrics that act as indicators of an effective marketing automation strategy.
Here is how you can assess if your business has adopted a successful marketing automation strategy:
- If you tend to see an increase in the number of qualified lead generation
- If you tend to see an increase in the number of sales opportunities for your business
- If you see that your business’ sales productivity has increased
- If you see your business’ revenue growing
Similarly, you can also point out a few business’ overhead burden going down in the form of:
- A shorter sales cycle
- A decrease in the lost sales opportunities
- A decrease in the marketing overhead expenses
Now that you are aware of what really are the metrics to measure if your business has the right marketing automation strategy, let us get right into how to create an effective marketing automation strategy.
How to Create and Deploy a Successful Marketing Automation Strategy?
The only way you are able to achieve the results you aim for is by deploying and creating an effective strategy for marketing automation.
There are 3 major steps that you need to consider in this process. These are underrated but highly effective ways to create an automation journey that aims to fulfill your goals.
Step 1: Choose where you want Marketing Automation in your buyer’s journey and how.
Your customer is the key to your business’ success.
The only way to creating a powerful marketing automation strategy is by serving your customer in the best way possible.
There are many places in your buyer’s journey where you might want automation to take place. So, before you begin, you need to start by asking yourself this question: Where can automation possibly help you – before, after, or during the sales journey?
A buyer goes through various stages in your sales funnel and is nurtured differently during different phases. In order to make a conversion, you need to know the right areas where you need to deploy automation in your process.
One of the ways you can make your automation game strong is by brainstorming on the following 3 things:
- Brainstorm on how you can use marketing automation to get more leads onboard by educating people around you.
- How you can make use of automation to enable buyers in their decision-making journey?
- How can you make your customers remain loyal to your brand and engage with them regularly?
Chalking out a well-thought plan would really help you give some clarity on how you can make use of automation in your sales journey.
It will help you in mapping out a triggered workflow to help your lead skate through your sales funnel smoothly and thereby convert into a buyer. The potential for marketing automation is huge, you just need to make use of it the right way.
An example of this could be – An instance wherein one of your subscribers puts one of your products in the cart but does not make a purchase. You can instantly send him a triggering email with some special offer on that product or educate him about similar products that might help him. Such automated workflows can boost your conversions tremendously.
Step 2: Focus on setting your Goals right!
Once you are done with your first step of the process, you get a clear idea how you want to use marketing automation in your operational journey and thereby can focus on setting your goals right.
This part of your journey involves setting goals and measuring the success of your efforts.
Here’s how:
- Define your objectives for your strategy
- Accordingly set benchmarks
Go on adopting a SMART strategy for measuring the success of your marketing automation goals – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound.
An example of setting a SMART Goal would be – Aiming to increase revenue by 20% with email marketing automation by the end of Q2 in 2020.
You need to follow this strategy until you have some data to work with, which would need adjustments over time to achieve your goals. This is not a one-time step but a process that evolves over time to make the best out of your marketing efforts.
Step 3: Repeat the Mantra – ‘Optimization’ for Results!
Focus on the most important aspect of your business’ journey – Customer statistics.
Now, at this stage, you have some data to play with and get some insights.
Not just that, focus on optimizing your marketing automation efforts by over and over going through your customer’s experience and responses.
For that, you can try to use personalization in your content and making your content dynamic to make the most of your marketing efforts as these are a few effective tactics.
Then, focus on executing optimization around your marketing efforts!
- By Regularly assessing the performance of the marketing automation tools that you may have employed
Stay current on the trends by making sure that your tool is updated and is focusing on driving your ROI. Be sure to be regular at assessing the performance and analyzing areas that need changes. - Do not focus on misleading metrics
It is a human tendency to often focus on small metrics that may give you false conclusions such as the social likes and comments on your blogs or posts. Instead of focusing on these parameters, try to have a big picture view by focusing on real parameters like email conversion rates, lead generation, acquisition costs, etc. Focusing on important parameters which actually matter will help you focus on improving your marketing automation efforts. - Keep ‘customer feedback’ at the core of optimizing your automation efforts
The best way to improve your business’ performance is by hearing out what your customers have to say about your brand or your products/ services. Ask for their inputs to know what’s going on in their minds and how they feel about you and what they expect and make room for changes.
You can gather your customer’s feedback through regular surveys and polls around your marketing efforts. Tweak your efforts to give maximum customer satisfaction.
Conclusion
No one today wants to invest heavily on tools that are of no use and invest time in efforts that don’t matter. But having a well thought and well-defined strategy for your marketing automation in your business can really boost your ROI and drive your business’ sales.
Now is the right time to tweak your existing marketing automation approach by trying something new or adding onto your existing approach to give your business the results it deserves.
Follow the pointers mentioned in this blog to work around a marketing automation strategy that works in your business and always keep a close check on the analytics to keep some room for improvements.
Once you do this well, you are good to go for deploying a powerful marketing automation strategy for your business!
About the Author
Shivani Goyal is a content writer at PeppyBiz, where she writes SEO articles, blogs, and guest posts to improve website ranking on SERP. She follows a balanced approach for the quality of content and its marketing and loves being creative. Shivani graduated with an English major in university.
