Effective marketing consists of many repetitive tasks. Such as online campaigns, social media management, and email marketing. If done well, all of these activities are highly time-consuming. Which leaves less time to cultivate powerful messages that attract your target audience. Enter marketing automation – this is the use of an intelligent technology platform to automate repetitive marketing activities. In the digital era, marketing automation isn’t just nice to have – it’s vital for an effective marketing strategy and execution. In essence, it allows you to focus on nurturing the right customers with personalized and relevant content on a consistent basis. Instead of spending time on the tasks, you can spend more time on the message and the big picture.
Nine out of ten marketers use at least one marketing automation platform. With marketing automation, you have an easier time nurturing your leads. Yet, there’s more. If you want to keep your customers engaged, you need to interact with them regularly – but there are only so many hours in the day. The good news is that marketing automation can help.
Where does automation fit into your marketing strategy?
The objective of marketing automation is to improve both efficiency and productivity. When tasks require precise expertise, automation gives you the time to do it, such as enhancing client interactions. From lead nurturing to market research and analytics – any task that doesn’t require human involvement can benefit from marketing automation.
Further, core tasks can be completed more quickly, getting the most out of your human employees. If you want to focus on campaigns that provide the highest ROI, you can. The last thing you want is for your team to spend all day managing emails. Yet, with marketing and sales automation, you can still make sure all your communications are sent promptly. Just configure the rule, and that’s all there is to it. Customarily, customers will feel more supported and engaged.
There is also the component of lead, sales, campaign, and customer analytics that can help you predict which strategies make the most sense. As a result, your team can use data to continually learn and improve so that you can optimize your impact. Let’s get started on some ways you can use marketing automation.
10 Marketing Automation Examples
Welcome emails
If you have landed a new client, then you want to build on that momentum. The next step is to create loyalty. The initial task at hand is to send a welcome email to maximize your first impression. While the customer is just as excited, a welcome email can lead to clicks and opens. With email workflow automation, you can welcome every new customer without fail and build upon all-important brand awareness.
Win-back programs
Let’s face it, you’ve got competition and your customers are aware of this. Even the most successful companies do not have 100 percent customer loyalty. Nonetheless, you can certainly strengthen your retention rates by automating your win-back programs to reconnect with your former customers. Every company experiences growing pains, and perhaps you made a few mistakes with your customers. Well, there isn’t any reason why you can’t reignite their interest after you’ve addressed all the issues. You can also use win-back emails for at-risk clients. Thankfully, you don’t have to spend an entire day doing it.
Gated content
Not only do you get to generate new leads, but you also get to provide users with helpful information. That’s why downloadable gated content is a proven strategy for lead generation and another example of marketing automation.
Your customers expect you to be a market leader. As such, they want to download relevant content from your brand. There isn’t any question that gated content is a proven method for lead generation. Gated content is much more focused and used as a guide for a specific topic. Moreover, to download gated content, all users need to provide are their names and email address. It’s a win-win for both parties.
Lead magnets
You can’t close sales without leads, and all organizations need leads to propel their operational engines. The problem is that getting leads takes a lot of time. A lead consists of customer interest and their contact information. Getting leads takes a variety of tactics from social media postings to advertisements, videos, and even podcasts. Live chat bots like Mobile Monkey are another marketing automation example for lead generation. You know you need leads. You also know they can take up valuable time. So then, why not automate lead generation?
Customer quizzes
Modern consumers expect hyper-personalization delivered through their digital devices. If you have hundreds or thousands of customers, you certainly couldn’t meet with them personally every day. In addition, during the pandemic, it wouldn’t be prohibited or advisable. Even if you use video conferencing, you still couldn’t provide personalized recommendations to every one of your customers without automation. One popular method for learning more about your customer’s wants and needs is through quizzes. These work because they result in customized recommendations that are truly relevant.
Social media automation
Many businesses could use a few extra hours in the day. It seems the workload keeps getting longer and longer, and stress levels continue to surge. Something has to give. Frequently, social media is the first on the list of expendable tasks. Do you really need to take another product photo for the ‘gram? In a word, yes. Social media management offers long-term benefits. In the digital age, you need to be where your customers are. They can be found using social media platforms. What if you could manage social media in less time? With automation, you can achieve the following:
- Consistent content for building a large following.
- Boost engagement.
- Improve your reputation.
Salvage abandoned shopping carts
Global surveys show that the average rate of cart abandonment is 75.6%, but around 48% of cart abandonment emails are opened. If you could cut your cart abandonment rates in half, would you? Use marketing automation to motivate your shoppers and tweak your targeting outreach. As a result, your shoppers complete their purchases and you boost sales. Sometimes, a cart is abandoned simply due to distraction. An automated email can serve as a reminder with a convenient link directed right to their cart.
Customer onboarding
Just like businesses, consumers are bombarded with data. Marketing isn’t just about acquiring new customers; it’s also about creating loyalty. To keep your customers around takes time. They want attention and deserve it. Personalized messages can maintain engagement. They are busy and don’t have time to stay apprised of all your new products and services. Reminders, sent at the right time, are an effective marketing tactic.
Transactional messages and updates
When your clients shop online, they want to know that their orders have been placed successfully. They also want to know when they can expect delivery. These types of expectations are standard. Imagine having to manually send confirmation and delivery details to every customer after every purchase. You wouldn’t have time to do anything else. On the other hand, you can automate transactional messages and updates such as:
- Order acceptance
- Shipment details
- Delivery confirmation
Omnichannel experience
Customers appreciate the flexibility to shop in different ways. They might see something in-store that they want to purchase for a family member, then they complete their purchase online later and vice-versa. Still, different channels require different marketing tactics and campaigns. For instance, you don’t want to convey the same messages simultaneously on all your channels because this starts to feel like spam. Instead, it’s critical to create a unique campaign for each channel.
In conclusion
If you need cost savings, greater productivity, better customer engagement, and improved productivity, you can achieve them with these marketing automation examples. It would help if you didn’t have to engage in hurried processes and time-consuming work in the digitally-driven era. Use automation to ease the burden of repetitive marketing tasks. Indeed, the potential is limitless, making it an exciting time to implement marketing automation.
