Marketing automation systems can effectively automate company’s key marketing and sales activities, saving time, reducing human error, improving efficiency and, above all, increasing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. How to use marketing automation in business?
- Instant confirmation of customer queries
Customers expect from companies immediate responses to their enquiries, so it is a good practice to send automated messages confirming that the enquiry is delivered and thanking them for the contact. The content should include information about the date of the getting back to the customer – preferably “As soon as possible.”
- Live chat automation
It is often the case that customer service employees cannot immediately answer the question asked on the chat in real time. Then it is worth automating the task with chat bots that allow you to schedule a sequence of questions and live messages. This makes the chat available to users 24/7.
- Automatic delivery of ebooks, films, or other resources on request
Marketing automation gives you the possibility of sending automatic messages with any content. To deliver on-demand content immediately, it is worth setting a scenario in the system, so that we don’t have to worry about sending messages manually.
- Welcome message for blog subscribers
A good way to create the image of a blogger or company is to send welcome messages after the user signs in to the subscriber base. It is worth including links to interesting articles and materials in the body of the email and to inform the recipients what content they are going to receive in the future.
- Delivery of email courses
Free educational materials and online courses represent an added value for subscribers. With marketing automation, you can send links to the course registration by email. Free resources and constant communication with users can be the basis for future, positive customer-brand relationships.
- Lead nurturing for contacts showing interest in the company
Joining a subscriber base, downloading an ebook, or filling out a form by a user does not necessarily mean that they are interested in the company’s offering. To encourage potential customers to shop, you often need to provide them with additional information. In the lead nurturing process, educating your audience and delivering valuable content is of crucial importance. This is, of course, a task for marketing automation systems.
- Re-engagement of non-responding contacts
It is a good idea to take action to reactivate leads to interact with your business. If a user does not open emails, you can send them a message saying e.g. “Are you still interested?”, “Come back to us”, etc.
- Automatic data completion
Comprehensive data on potential customers represents a great basis for future marketing and sales activities. It is a good practice to regularly update and improve your audience base. It would be good to automatically assign information to contacts from different sources. These can be phone numbers, email addresses, or zip codes.
- Lead categorisation
Based on established criteria, you can categorise leads and evaluate the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns. It is worthwhile to set alerts in the marketing automation tool to monitor the change in the user status – if they perform a given action, they will qualify as a potential customer that is worth contacting.
- Auto-saving contacts as blog subscribers
Marketing automation systems allow you to automatically assign contacts to a specific segment. People who have registered on the site or made a purchase can be added to the subscriber base and receive blog content that matches their interests.
- Set up email sequences for events
By configuring the marketing automation tool accordingly, you can create email sequences for people interested in an event or its participants. By dividing your audience into groups, you can send personalised messages according to actions taken over a specified period of time.
- Identification of hot leads in the database who are showing interest
Marketing automation allows you to evaluate leads in terms of readiness to buy. Lead scoring is a system of score that is given to users after a given action has been performed. If the lead receives a certain number of points, he or she may be classified as ready to buy.
- Notifications of actions taken on the website
When using the marketing automation system, it is worth establishing rules for reacting to actions performed by the user, e.g. he or she receives a customised email or a push notification when they visit a page with a price list, form or a given product category.
- Engaging inactive leads
If users have stopped opening emails, clicking on links or visiting the website, you can set custom message sequences that will be automatically sent at a specific point in time, e.g. if the contact is inactive for 1 month.
- Automatically assign contacts to specific categories of blog articles
Rather than sending the same message to all subscribers, it is better to create segments based on their interests. In this way, each user will receive personalised content that meets their needs and expectations.
- Automatic assignment of leads to sales representatives based on specific criteria
By using the marketing automation tool, you can assign leads to employees in accordance with established criteria, e.g. location or sector. Thanks to this, each salesperson will have a specific user base with similar characteristics, which will certainly facilitate contact and enable sending content adequate to the needs of potential customers.
- Identifying influential prospects
It is worth taking advantage of the opportunities offered by marketing automation and creating a separate category of users having a large reach in social media. By setting up alerts, you can track the behaviour of potential customers and contact them through customised messages.
- Tracking events
It is a good practice to get in touch with participants of webinars or other live events. You can arrange the message sequence according to your criteria, e.g. active users or people who left during the event.
- Sending SMS
Marketing automation systems allow you not only to send emails or push notifications, but also text messages. They can be a perfect complement to other communication channels – in the case of brick-and-mortar premises and stores, it is worth using geolocation.
- Automated sales tracking
While taking users down the shopping funnel, at each stage a different communication model should be adopted. Thanks to the marketing automation software and CRM system, you can create different message scenarios and send them to potential customers according to the level of engagement.
- Alerts for sales opportunities that need follow-up
Alerts are an important functionality that aims at reminding the sales staff about the activities or inactivity of potential customers. For example, you can set an alert for contacts who received the offer, but did not take any action, e.g. for a week.
- Requests for phone contact or meeting
In the B2B sector, it is worth encouraging potential customers to contact you by sending an automated email that may contain a link to the calendar, thereby allowing a potential customer to book an online meeting.
- Bid follow-up
Thanks to marketing automation tools, you can automate email scenarios in order to present supplementary offers to potential customers. It is a good idea to send reminders at appropriate intervals so that the user does not feel overwhelmed by an excessive number of messages.
- Refreshing outdated promotions
All information directed to potential and existing customers should be kept up-to-date. In order not to make them feel bored, it is worth refreshing promotions from time to time, offering new benefits. In this case, the novelty effect may prove useful, giving better sales results.
- Encouraging customers to return to the site and continue shopping
In order to reduce the number of abandoned carts, emails or push notifications to remind of unfinished purchases work best. If a potential customer is still not convinced to buy, it is worth offering an added value, such as free delivery or discount.
- Thank you messages after purchase
The sales process does not end with the order completion by the customer. It is worth maintaining the contact and taking care of after-sales support by sending a message saying thank you and possibly offering a discount code for future purchases.
- Requests for service or product review
Customer satisfaction surveys can give your business valuable information. It is worth asking the customer about their post-purchase experience and encourage them to leave an opinion or review.
- Customer surveys and NPS feedback
NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a short online survey that allows you to evaluate customer satisfaction with the product or service purchase. Surveys can be automatically sent using the marketing automation tool at a specific time after completing the transaction.
- Welcome program to increase retention
Retention refers to the percentage of customers who purchase again. It would be good to target multi-stage reactivation campaigns that will encourage customers showing declining activity.
- Automated cross-selling
Cross-selling is a strategy of offering the customer complementary, additional products. The marketing automation system allows you to send messages automatically according to some established rules.
- Up-selling – offering more expensive products
Up-selling is a complementary sale that aims to offer customers more expensive products than the ones they have chosen. It does the job especially in the case of regular store customers. It is worth encouraging them to buy another product by sending automated emails or push notifications.
- Maintaining relationships with loyal customers
It is worth taking a closer look at customers who frequently buy or spend large amounts of money in the online store. You can send them special marketing campaigns that will keep them interested and reward their loyalty. In line with the idea of Customer Experience Management, you should invest in engaged customers with a high retention rate.
- Account renewal reminders
The marketing automation tool allows for sending automatic, regular messages to customers who usually make purchases at specific intervals.
- Workflow for expired accounts
Workflow campaigns can be very effective for reactivating customers – with marketing automation you can send messages to users who have not been using the account, e.g. for 3 months.
- Sending usage reports
In the marketing automation system, it is possible to adjust reports showing the usage of given services, e.g. software producers can determine how many different functions are used by customers.
- Reminders for repetitive tasks
Marketing automation perfectly fulfills its functions in the internal environment of the company, reminding of regular activities – it is enough to set an alert for a specific date.
- Automated alerts and actions based on open tickets
Thanks to this function, it is possible to register and handle customer inquiries and send automatic alerts within the organisation, e.g. processed requests or completed tasks.
- Request for company recommendation
The recommendation system is an increasingly often implemented solution in the process of lead generation. It is worth sending customers a request for an online store recommendation, e.g. in exchange for a discount code for subsequent purchases.
- Automated invoices
By integrating the marketing automation tool with other internal corporate systems, you can improve the processes related to orders and payments. It is worth setting reminders encouraging, for example, quick payment.
- Payment reminder
Setting messages in the system for customers who are late with the invoice settlement is an effective solution – everything is done automatically, with no need to manually send reminders.
- Reaching dissatisfied customers
If we get negative feedback from a dissatisfied customer, it is worth reacting immediately – you can set an alert that will inform the employee about the need to take further action.
- Maintaining the engagement of satisfied customers
Customers with a high NPS ratio should be rewarded for their loyalty and positive feedback. These can be freebies, discount coupons, gifts added to the parcel and other benefits for loyal customers.
- Case study portfolio
In the case of the B2B sector, a good solution is to create case studies based on customer experiences. You can send automatic messages asking for credentials, reviews, or effects which resulted from the introduction of e.g. a given service at the customer’s.
