The very core of marketing automation is about creating personalized one-to-one experiences that are triggered by user-defined events. An effective campaign requires sending the right message, at the right time, through the right channel.
But, how does that impact your business? Even if you don’t sell anything through your website, marketing automation is still an effective strategy to deploy in order to nurture leads, garner online reviews, and grow your following on social media.
The most popular marketing automation strategy uses receipts and confirmation emails. Receipts get 70% open rates and 9% engagement rates on average. You can take advantage of this by offering upsells, asking for likes on social media, and giving out discount codes in exchange for social shares.
Source: recieptful.com
In addition to sending receipts, another crucial eCommerce tactic is sending cart abandonment emails automatically. CartHook is the leader in cart recovery email marketing, though some marketing automation tools have this featured baked in. We wrote an article on conversion rate optimization and cart abandonment here if you’re interested.
It is imperative to connect with potential leads in a timely matter, InsideSales.com says that 35-50% of sales go to the first company to respond to their inquiry. With various marketing automation tools you can respond immediately and personalize the content based on what page/form they use.
Source: act-on.com
Your nurture campaign should go as long as your average sales cycle, so that you stay top of mind with your leads and provide content that frames your brand as a thought leader in the industry. An effective lead nurture campaign (in part with Inbound Marketing) will turn visitors into warm leads, so that when you personally reach out, they’re ready to convert. If you’re not sure what Inbound Marketing is, read an article we wrote about it here.
Your campaigns need to be constantly evaluated and tweaked in order to increase their effectiveness. This can come in the form of creating new segments, or A/B testing your emails. As with most digital campaigns, one is never truly finished. You can always improve upon your list iteration in order to increase your KPIs.
Read more on CEO Mike Stratta’s thoughts behind optimization and better states of being in his recent blog post: Entrepreneur’s Zen: Search Marketing Optimization.