MARKETING AUTOMATION FOR BEGINNERS

What is Marketing Automation? Marketing automation is software that schedules tasks to run through completion. Each automation sequence begins with a trigger. Those triggers start conditional actions to reach a goal. Put another way; marketing automation puts all your workflow processes on automatic pilot. 

The good news is that you don’t have to worry about complexity when you automate your marketing.

Why Should You Automate Marketing operations?

Marketing Automation is not about technology. Automation will help your buyer complete her customer experience journey. 

Marketing Automation helps brands:

• Increase customer lifetime value by delivering consistent experiences.
• Create more time by multiplying productivity across all brand touchpoints.
• Reimagine the way you do business for personalized engagements at scale.

Are you ready to be a world-class brand?

What Workflows Can Marketing Automate?

Your marketing automation is dependent on your CRM platform. Your organization’s maturity will also impact how quickly you can automate everything.

All that said, here are a few things you can automate immediately:

• Landing Pages
• Lead Generation
• Email Marketing
• Contact Segmentation
• Lead Scoring
• Social Media Marketing
• Content Publishing
• Marketing Analytics
• Campaign Management

Automation is the pulse of your entire brand experience. Without a pulse, your business will slowly cease to exist.

What Are the Automation Pitfalls?

Consumers expect every brand to cater to their interests. Joel Bines coined “The Me-tail Economy” to share how businesses must transform for a me-centric consumer revolution. 

Your marketing campaigns will fail if you treat your audience as one group.

Your marketing campaigns will fail if you treat your audience as one group. You must remember:

1. Marketing automation is not an excuse to spam your audience while you sleep.
2. Adapt your marketing workflows to serve your customer experience. There is no set-it-and-forget-it button.
3. Marketing automation only works when you understand your customer’s behaviors that trigger your automation.

When Does Marketing Automation Make Sense

You can’t take a willy-nilly approach to automation. Like everything in your business, marketing automation requires a thoughtful plan. 

1. First, you should identify a business owner to sponsor the workflow transformation. This person owns the experience from end to end and understands the outcomes needed.
2. Second, what’s the nature of the workflow that needs to be automated. Are you modernizing manual processes that are people-intensive? Can you automate a customer journey to close in a new marketing funnel?
3. Third, do you have the talent within your organization to take on the marketing automation project? Do you have validated documentation of the customer journey on hand?
4. Finally, what’s your marketing technology infrastructure? Are you still using paper? Is your cloud software-as-a-service platform integrated into your other systems? 

Start Prepping Your Brand for Automation

Marketing Automation is core to Business 4.0 transformation. You can’t start leveraging artificial intelligence for predictive insights until your systems are interconnected. If you want your brand to outgrow your competitors, you must start prepping for automation now.

For marketing automation beginners, we recommend you start by automating one lead funnel from touchpoint to close. This project will help you validate the customer journey for friction points. You will also find missed opportunities that fall through the cracks of your sales execution.

This initial project will provide many vital learnings. Do a deep-dive post-mortem analysis to see what’s changed. Use the results to document how you can improve in the next iteration and start again.

Final Thoughts

It’s okay if you have more questions than answers at this point. That’s good. We love your questions.

Ask your questions in the comment section below. You can also message us directly. Visit our webinars OnZoom Events to learn more about Marketing Automation.