Marketing Automation Gameplan: Effective Strategies To Get Your Money’s Worth

By now you know about the time-saving, conversion-boosting benefits of implementing a marketing automation system. But along with your shiny new system comes the challenge of unlocking its full potential. Not to worry! Below you’ll find actionable strategies you can utilize to engage with your customer base, increase conversions, and get the most out of your MA system.
So let’s get started.

Implement a Drip Campaign

Take email to a new level by automating email messages in a predetermined sequence to land in your targets’ inboxes at just the right time. There are a lot of different takes on drip campaigns but this simple definition from autopilot blog explains the practice well:
“ A drip campaign is a triggered sequence of emails sent on a predefined schedule to targeted recipients or email subscribers to achieve a specific result.”
Drip campaigns are unique in that they are created and focused around the actions of leads. For example, say a prospect signs up for your mailing list. They are automatically sent a welcome email from you. Then this same person visits your product page and looks around on your website. This spurs your automation system to send a friendly and informational email with product insights and highlights. Then say a few days later the prospective customer adds one of these products to their online cart but leaves before completing the purchase. The next phase of the drip would be to send an automated abandoned cart email maybe even including a discount to entice them to return. Drip campaigns don’t have to center on a product either Check out the simple campaign by Yesware below.

Think Beyond Email

You have set up your email automation and are now saving time and sending targeted content to prospects. Hooray! But don’t make the mistake of only implementing marketing automation in email campaigns. Your customers interact with multiple platforms each day so take that into account when planning automated communication with them.
Quick Tip: Use your automation system to schedule social media posts at times when your follower base is most active and tailor your messages to fit the network you’ll be posting on so that your followers see a variety of content across your brand channels.
Once you develop a content pattern that works, you can craft a posting schedule.

Offer Value To Help Others (And Yourself)

In his world-renowned book How To Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie shared this short and thought-provoking anecdote:
“I often went fishing up in Maine during the summer. Personally, I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn’t bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or a grasshopper in front of the fish and said: “Wouldn’t you like to have that?” Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?”
Well said, Dale. The fact of the matter is, whether they realize it or not, everyone who comes into contact with your brand is thinking: in what way does this benefit me? Keep this in mind as you plan your marketing automation strategy. Marketing automation makes your life easier but it can also do the same for your customers. Use it to:
  • Schedule nonpromotional, valuable content relevant to your base.
  • Integrate with CRM to offer users the option to store data and not have to re-enter info each time they make a purchase.
  • Set emails to include a personal touch with the person’s name in the headline.
  • Allow people to choose what type of content they would like to receive news and messages about.

Stay Human

No matter how efficient and impressive your marketing automation strategy becomes, don’t forget the importance of real-time interaction with your audience. Funnily enough, automation can aid in this process too. You can set up alerts to notify you when there are new comments and interactions on your social media channels. If recurring alerts prove to be intrusive, another option is to set aside time that works in your schedule to catch up with the latest happenings on your brand’s pages.
Whatever route you choose, make sure you are interacting with your following often. If you are putting out content regularly but seldom responding to comments or going beyond posting, users will catch on quickly and think of you as disinterested. In this heavily digital age, people enjoy interacting with companies online.
And don’t just take our word for it. Twitter conducted a study that found, “ Customers that receive a response from brands on Twitter are willing to spend up to 20% more and are 30% more likely to recommend the brand.” You can see the breakdown by industry in the infographic below. While we are not suggesting you start a #twitterwar, we do think it’s important to acknowledge the powerful impact that engaging with your consumers online can bring.