A marketing automation process for your customers’ benefit

When you start the marketing automation process, first consider how your customers can WIN. Don’t just jackrabbit up your email frequency…

like the hare who lost the race. The amazing thing about marketing automation is that it can make you a more thoughtful, reliable marketer. This is Step 10: the last, best step to get going faster with SharpSpring. (See Step 1 here.)

Task 1: Think about ways marketing automation can benefit your customer before creating your first list.

• Personalized reminders
• Onboarding or training for a newly acquired service or product
• Salespeople following up at the best time

In fact, when starting the marketing automation process with a platform like SharpSpring, it’s a great time to analyze your audience and improve the segmentation of your contacts. At E6 Solutions, we recommend that you first select the contacts with whom you most need to reconnect. Then group the ones who need the same type of message. Then use the groups to create your lists.

Task 2: Analyze your goals.

Now that you have your feet wet, and before you begin emailing, consider your goals. Marketing automation platforms have so many features, it’s easy to be overwhelmed. By focusing on your company’s needs, you are less likely to be distracted by all the shiny new beads.

The primary benefits of marketing automation include

• Marketing activities are set up to run automatically
• Prospect information is better captured and tracked
• Campaign performance is measured and enhanced.

If your company has a healthy flow of good leads, you may need automation to help with their nurturing. If poor quality of the leads is holding back your sales department, then look at lead scoring. If you have a well-oiled sales machine, then improving your email campaigns could launch exponential growth. But remember, if your marketing gets too far ahead of sales follow-up capability, then you may end up lowering your return on investment.

Task 3: Review the integrations you need to get data flowing through your company.

• Will your salespeople be able to quickly see what marketing messages have been sent?
• Will sales teams be able to work together and communicate with other departments, such as resource scheduling?
• Will the service department have information about the customer expectations?

At E6 Solutions, we specialize in integrating applications that help different departments succeed together for your customers.

Task 4: Orient your teams.

And check in to make sure the system is working for them. Often, the marketing department doesn’t realize that sales and service are not using the system until the customer data is damaged.

Task 5: Go for quick wins.

Here are a few things that can have a big impact based on a very simple setup. Of course, they still demand good strategic thinking. Remember to aim carefully before you pull the trigger!

• Welcome emails for new customers
• Automatic notifications for sales
• Scheduling of social media posts
• Landing pages with performance tracking
• Abandoned cart follow-up

Task 6: Try something new.

Remember in Task 1 we recommended you make a list? Now is the time to plan a new campaign for that list. Don’t just send one email. Think about the entire journey your contacts will make on the way to becoming customers. Use your marketing automation platform to define a flow of messages and actions that will lead to a new sale.

Task 7: Learn from the reports.

Finally, establish the habit of reviewing your reports. The reason that marketing automation has become so popular is that it allows companies to improve their marketing efforts, not just increase them.

SharpSpring provides a wide variety of automatic and custom reports. Every time you send an email, set up an automation, or share on a social platform, you have the opportunity to see how it worked in context. Good report usage leads to good marketing performance.

SharpSpring also offers the “Life of the Lead” feature on the contact record. Your salespeople can see exactly what the contact has seen and done. Soon they will also have strong opinions on which marketing automation process works best!