Marketers can use automation in different ways to maximize audience engagement, increase sales and free up bandwidth for more strategic pursuits.
Easier, faster and more accurate amount to the Holy Grail of business. No matter what market, industry or era, these have been constant objectives. That’s why tech always advances and why business always follows. Marketing automation helps companies generate leads and sales, while freeing up people for more strategic efforts.
The Sends of Change
Tech tools might be viewed as an “easy button,” but for effective marketing, you still have to do the work to get to know your customers and target audience. From junk mail to spam calls and emails, there are plenty of reminders in daily life of messaging attempts that aren’t targeted and finish way off the marketing mark.
With customer behavior tracking and proper audience segmentation, targeted emails can be an excellent way to use marketing automation to nurture leads, while also allowing marketers to track campaigns and measure ROI, according to Syed Balkhi, company founder and content management system expert. Targeted emails include content relevant to the receiver’s interests, thereby helping them get to know your brand more and increasing the likelihood of turning them into customers. Also, a personalized email drip campaign keeps recipients engaged over time at various touchpoints and thus more likely to proceed down the marketing funnel to sales conversion.
As discussed before in this space, getting a potential customer’s attention is not enough. By offering deals and incentives with marketing automation, i.e., email marketing, “you can give leads an extra nudge that encourages them to take the next step and become paying customers,” Balkhi writes. In a similar automation vein, push notifications can be used to seize the marketing moment by sending timely reminders to prospective customers who are about to leave your website or are exhibiting other visitor behaviors.
In Game
Outreach is naturally the main thrust of a marketing program, but prospective customers need to have a place to go when interested in your products and services. Creating custom landing pages is another great way to nurture leads via marketing automation, according to Balkhi. There’s a reason why they are sometimes known as lead capture pages. It’s not advantageous to direct targeted visitors to a general homepage; time is money or rather less money if you’re adding too many steps to the customer’s journey.
Custom landing pages should be designed to appeal directly to the needs and interests of leads. Depending on where the person is in the buyer’s journey, the appropriate landing page could offer a free trial, guide or other resources.
Right Time & Place
The idea of a blog post on a billboard is absurd, but companies do regularly churn out content without thinking of the proper distribution and engagement. “You need to repurpose your content or simply share it with the right people at the right time and through the right channels,” Balkhi writes.
A content experience platform can help. It allows marketers to tag content according to different factors, including buyer persona, sales funnel stage, channel, and content topic and type. Couple that with the customized landing pages and companies can be on the level with each segment of their audience and thus more likely to convert leads.
Of course, content marketing and distribution must involve social media. Automation platforms can help distribute, organize, and publish material in a much more targeted and comprehensive way. They help maximize valuable engagement by tagging or categorizing content based on the mood, intention, or type of post and then automatically assign pieces to different social media networks, saving lots of valuable time.
“The numbers don’t lie — spending on marketing automation software will more than double by 2031 to $11.2 billion,” said Marcia Homer, infinitee’s Director of Brand Management. “Marketers have to do more to connect with potential customers and with marketing automation they can actually do more with less. We are here, of course, to help with the extra time and resources you’ll have to devote to elevating your branding strategy.”
