Here are some ways to boost your marketing efforts with automation tools.
For businesses, there are endless strategies and trends to incoporate. This includes optimizing different business fields and staying up to date on marketing automation trends to successfully enjoy the business benefits that come with it.
When it comes to marketing automation, tech-savvy business owners are implementing software at an unprecedented rate. These tools offer endless benefits and can come in handy at each stage of the sales funnel. A marketing automation statistics report shows that marketing automation software was a $3.3 billion market in the U.S. in 2017, showing an annual growth over 30 percent. The report also states that 67 percent of marketing leaders currently use a marketing automation platform.
Despite marketing automation’s benefits and impressive adoption rate by tech-savvy businesses, many businesses still lag behind in this trend. A recent report by Three Deep Marketing revealed that around 58 percent of marketers find it daunting to use automation tools because they failed to develop a robust plan.
With the numbers and facts displayed by recent marketing automation statistics, it’s a trend no business will want to miss out on, especially because it shouldn’t cost a fortune to implement. It only requires a good knowledge of the right tools and strategies and the best ways to go about them. The following marketing automation strategies have proven to be effective over time.
1. Increase engagement with terrific content.
Customer retention goes beyond closing a sale. It’s imperative to take certain steps so that they will stick to your brand. Marketing automation can be used to renew customers’ interest and facilitate repeat purchases. The issue of abandoned shopping carts is quite rampant. One of the factors responsible for this is high shopping costs. The good thing about marketing is that you can always discover fresh opportunities for any situation. Well-timed follow-up emails can encourage customers to make a purchase, especially if they contain exciting offers.
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According to Demand Gen Report, the demand for high-quality content is getting higher. Designing a content marketing strategy is a must, whether you’re offering a product or service. Maintain consistency on all platforms to project a uniform brand image and develop trust.
2. Organize drip campaigns.
Drip campaigns have the capacity to improve your click-thru rate drastically compared to regular emails. It involves sending follow-up emails that align with the preferences of each lead. A simple action like sending a welcome email as soon as lead signs up means a lot to them.
Organizing successful drip campaigns isn’t rocket science. Brands that maximize them usually experience more sales and ROI in the long run. This approach can establish you as a force to be reckoned with in your industry in no time.
3. Nurture quality leads.
It’s impossible to convert every lead to a loyal customer, so identify the ones eager to know more about your product and services. This is a sure way to better market your brand to your prospective customers and prevent waste of resources. Gather valid contact details via lead forms. A forecast by Forrester showed that lead nurturing results in over 50 percent increase in sales at a reduced cost of 33 percent.
Target automated campaigns to quality leads and reveal your unique selling point subtly. They are bound to grab irresistible offers like special discounts. Sales agents can be assigned to send follow-up emails like product recommendations at the right time.
4. Segment your contact lists.
Parameters for segmenting leads include geographical location and demographics. Another way to break them down is to research the factors that influence your customers’ purchasing decisions. Marketers who prioritize list segmentation often discover that they get the most out of their digital marketing campaigns. As long as you address clients’ needs, it’s the key to boosting customer retention. Ensure that you send the most suitable message at each stage.
5. Learn from top performers.
Top performers exist in all sectors of the economy. You need to do your due diligence if you’ve yet to identify them in your industry. They have a wealth of experience because they’ve tried different approaches. Subscribe to their newsletters and observe the content they share on different platforms. These top performers can range from individuals who are experts in their field and have shown good knowledge on the marketing automation trend to tech-savvy businesses who have long implemented the trend and are reaping huge benefits from it. Although this strategy can be time-consuming, it will teach you a lot and promote better relations with your target audience. Consider paying for intensive training to enjoy hands-on knowledge and experience.
6. Boost employee performance.
Several brands rely on marketing automation to share data and foster collaboration among team members. It’s common for different departments to depend on each other. Hence, to reduce errors due to human inefficiency, your organization can leverage CMMS software to ensure total productive maintenance. This makes it easy for an organization to prepare the necessary tools and allocate tasks to competent employees while the software handles the rest.
Make sure that you carry everyone along and organize workshops if necessary. A detailed automation plan must be in place before you start attracting customers. Anything short of this will fail to produce the desired results.
7. Monitor results.
Tracking your business’s performance is very important, and this entails more than checking weekly or monthly reports. A marketing automation strategy is incomplete if it lacks well-defined goals and objectives. Any goal that you set must be measurable. There are many tools for tracking results and performing A/B tests, and more still will emerge. Some marketing automation software even comes with preinstalled tracking tools. Take advantage of them to know how to evaluate the engagement level of your audience and uncover the effective strategies. This can go a long way to boost the efficiency of the support team and other concerned departments.
Opt for a vendor that can provide instant customer support, and test the software before buying it. Eager as you may be to maximize marketing automation, you must tread with caution to retain the human touch. The bottom line is to use automation to manage repetitive tasks in email marketing, upselling, social media marketing and the like.
