Marketing automation is what every Marketing and Sales department needs. With adoption rates climbing up steadily, we are not surprised that you are considering a marketing automation tool for your own company.
If you want to invest in marketing automation, you should consider reading the 10 commandments of marketing automation first.
We think that this will help you get the best out of this MarTech tool and avoid rookie mistakes that often set back everything despite adopting marketing automation.
#1: Choose the Right Marketing Automation Platform
Marketing automation is not a one-size-fits-all tool. You need to consider the needs and requirements of your organization first before implementing an automation platform. You need to assess your present setup and situation in your company first.
With so many vendors out there, it is difficult to make a choice. Take a look at what every platform has to offer. Create a checklist for yourself. See which ones are the most suitable for you. Then weigh the pros and cons to take the final decision accordingly
#2: Strategize Before Implementation
You have got to develop a game plan before you implement anything. More so with something like marketing automation. It takes a lot of preparation on your side to implement marketing automation. You have to prepare your organization so that you can get the most out of your latest acquisition.
Don’t jump into the bandwagon, just because everybody is. Take your time, prepare yourself so that your implementation is a successful one. The key to marketing automation success lies in correct and successful implementation.
Many a marketer have regretted being too hasty with the implementation process.
#3: Appoint a MarTech Leader
If you want to achieve success with marketing automation, you need to appoint one team leader to lead the entire team. The leader will be responsible for the implementation process as well as ensure that the team learns how to go about using the system.
He/she will chalk out strategies so that every decision is accounted for and the goals of the Marketing department align with that of the company.
#4: Create Well-Defined Buyer Personas
Customers are your lifeblood. They are the ones who can make or break your business. A buyer persona is basically your ideal customer. This persona will be everything that you look for in a customer.
Marketing automation helps you predict prospect behaviour, and with the personas mapped and ready, you can use them to identify and score prospects.
You can use buyer personas to identify trends when you map them into your marketing automation platform. This will further help you tweak your buyer persona.
#5: Review Your Content
Content is the fuel for marketing automation. In order to make the most of it, you need to review your existing content and map it according to your future requirements. You need to make sure that you produce your content not according to your tastes and preferences but keeping in mind the requirements of your customers.
Create content that solves their problems. Map your content according to the different possible lead positions in the sales funnel to distribute your content better. This task is easier than it sounds with the help of marketing automation, but you have to have the right content first.
Many marketers fail to get the most out of their marketing automation platforms due to lack of original and relevant content.
#6: Ensure CRM Integration
Although most marketing automation platforms offer seamless CRM integration, but it is always better to make sure that your marketing automation platform of choice offers it. CRM might appear to be a commonly used tool, but you can get more out of your CRM system when you integrate it with your marketing automation platform.
In fact these two platforms go hand-in-hand. If you have an in-house legacy CRM or lead management system you can leverage that data and use it to offer better service to your prospects and customers.
Such an integration is extremely beneficial as it helps you understand your customer better.
#7: Collaborate with Sales
Marketing automation is as much as a tool for Sales as it is for Marketing. In fact, at this day and age, considering Marketing and Sales as two separate entities do not make sense anymore. They should be working together more than ever.
Sales and Marketing both know each sides of a lead. When put together everyone can get the complete picture. This will help score more leads, nurture them with more efficiency and ultimately close the maximum amount of deals.
#8: Regular A/B Testing
A/B testing is a must when using marketing automation. Not because marketing automation platforms have it, but because it lets you run multiple A/B tests at the same time.
To get the most out of your platform, running continuous A/B tests will help you identify what content works for you and what does not. It is an effective method to figure out which landing pages are more conducive to lead generation as well. It will help you find out which version is converting more and generating better ROI.
#9: Track your Campaigns
If you are using marketing automation to craft your marketing and sales campaigns, you should use the onboard metrics tools to measure the results of your campaigns.
You can track everything from landing page conversion rates, email metrics, downloads etc. Not only will this help you realize how your campaigns are performing, but it will also help you improve your campaigns. Further you can use these tools to see what appeals to your audience.
#10: Create an Effective After-Sales Service Module
A business can thrive only when it can retain its customers. Marketing automation offers features that will help you create an effective after-sales service.
Just like you would track, nurture and qualify leads, you can use the lead management module to effectively do the same with your existing customers. This will help you run a quality after-sales program that will keep your customers delighted. And, there is nothing better than a happy customer.
Upselling and cross-selling too becomes easier when you run engagement and drip campaigns continually to keep existing customers engaged and satisfied.
Now that you know these, you know what to do and what not do. Following these commandments are not a sure-shot way of achieving success with marketing automation, but it will help you out in a big way.