Marketing automation is a great tool to help grow your business. This kind of software helps nurture the seeds of marketing that are already in place, by automatically repeating usual tasks to help bring in leads and keep current customers. It allows your company to spend less time sending out emails, updating social media posts, and improving your CRM, without taking time away from other things. Though the ultimate goal of marketing automation is to have things be “automatic”, it’s essential to utilize your software to the fullest. Here are some tips to enhance your marketing automation.
1. First Things First – The Welcome E-mail
The first thing you should ALWAYS do with your marketing automation is set up your welcome email, so a lead who signs up on your website gets an email right away. Right after they sign up, there should be a pop-up that says “check your inbox” (or something along those lines), and they should be able to immediately refresh their tabs and see that email happily waiting for them like a kid at a candy store. Marketing automation will allow you to automatically add these contacts, and start your relationship with this new people.
2. Get Ahead of Yourself (In a Good Way)
Marketing automation is supposed to do the work for you. But, if you get too lazy with this and rely on it too much, then your potential leads will notice. It’s important to maintain a relationship with your marketing automation software as if it were your secretary, who happens to be your buddy’s niece who needed a summer job. Don’t be that person who gives five important tasks out to be done right at 4:45 on a Friday. Take care of it way in advance. Marketing automation allows you to prepare your Christmas email around Thanksgiving, and advertise your Back-to-School products well before prom night.
3. Pay Attention to a Lead’s Actions
Did you notice that someone came to your landing page several times, but didn’t register? Did you happen to see that a customer added something to their cart, but hasn’t bought it yet? Did someone spend more than ten active minutes on your website, but didn’t sign up for the newsletter? You need to pay attention to these actions, and figure out how to deal with each one individually to bring in these “hot leads.” Your marketing automation will help you analyze these figures, and discover what solutions you can implement to lock these guys in. Perhaps it’s changing the language on your landing page, or sending out an e-mail to remind the customer that their product is still sitting in the cart, ready for them to buy.
4. Don’t Forget to Personalize What Marketing Automation Can’t
A great aspect of marketing automation is it allows you to easily handle a variety of sales and marketing tasks. But, it will need your help personalizing emails, so that you can reach out to those who matter most. A good way to do this is by sending out personal internal sales reminders, that include specific information and of course, your customers’ names. For example, let’s say someone comes to your site every time there’s a sale or discount, and they almost always make a purchase to save themselves money. But, you just had a huge 30% off discount up for a few days, and the customer hasn’t come through. Send out a personal reminder beforehand, so this loyal customer of yours never misses a deal. This can also go for things like event reminders, or even creating targeted advertisements for potential leads.
4. Always Say “Thank You”
A customer just bought something and you should use your marketing automation to thank them for their purchase. Not only that, you should use the software to analyze what they bought, and notify them of other items they might also find interesting. This has two benefits. One, it allows the customer to remember a positive experience they had buying from you, and two, it gives your company a chance make yet another profit quickly off of the same customer.
5. Be On Top of Social Media, Within Reason
Social media is how most people get their information. Whether they prefer Facebook, Twitter, or even Snapchat, not all of these are going to fit your business. However, it’s important to utilize one or two branches of social media to notify leads of what your business is doing. Social media posts can be scheduled in advance with marketing automation, and depending on the likes and shares, should be re-posted again and again. That being said, don’t ever over-due it. Some things are not meant to be posted too often or too in advance. (Like if you are celebrating your 50,000 followers on your blog, before you even reach that number). It’s easy for a lead or customer to tell that something wasn’t done with a personal touch, so just be on top of it.
Mission Suite can help bring your business a reliable marketing automation tool to help you with these tasks, among others. Request a demo to learn more.