In our other marketing automation blog, we highlighted the benefits of marketing automation to business owners and marketing managers, such as;
- Alleviating the requirement of manual input in some marketing activities
- Personalisation of customer experiences
- Prevention of drop offs, as well as control customer exits
However, we felt that demonstrating what marketing automation actually looks like, would help to provide a clearer picture of how it could work in your business.
Marketing Automation Workflows
Before starting to use marketing automation software, you should think about your marketing automation strategy and map out your marketing process(es) workflow offline.
Ensure you have a view of the full customer journey from a lead generation/marketing perspective. Once you are happy with this process, this can then be mirrored within the software itself.
Note, multiple workflows can be created within the software for different marketing activities or campaigns. For example;
- by customer or prospect
- by product type
- by country
- or however you need to divide your marketing campaigns.
Example of a Marketing Automation Workflow
Example A (source - Autopilot)
Example A is a simple marketing automation workflow based on a process to manage new prospects. It maps out marketing activities, timescales and triggers which will work based on conditions set within the marketing automation software.
Once the prospect is added to the software through submitting a website form, they are subsequently exposed to a number of email communications, triggered at different times, based on certain criteria (or conditions) set up in the admin portal.
The marketing touch points will happen automatically, meaning marketing teams can concentrate on other activities, letting the marketing automation software do some of the work for them in the background.
Types of Marketing Automation Workflows
Marketing Automation can be utilised for many marketing activities, some of which are detailed below.
Lead Scoring
Lead scoring is a method used to rank prospects against a scale that represents the perceived value of each lead. With some internal values set and agreed within a business, these scores can be allocated against different types of marketing activity and prospect behaviour (again, based on criteria) and input into a marketing automation workflow. This is typically done in a company’s CRM system, however, with integration in place, it could be managed within the marketing automation software, or the two softwares integrated together depending on your software preferences.
An example may be, once a prospect is entered into the automation workflow, they have a score of 0. They are sent a welcome email, and if they click through to say a web page via a link on the welcome email, they get a score of say +10 for engaging with your brand. The more communications they receive and engage with, the higher their score becomes, allowing the sales team to identify whether they are a qualified lead ready to follow up.
Abandoned cart / basket
Abandoned carts are frustrating for many businesses with an e-commerce website, however, they are not lost opportunities. Through marketing automation, you can follow up with people who have abandoned their carts without having to manually do anything in real time, of course there is work involved in setting the workflow up.
Downloadable / gated content
Capturing prospect information can be achieved through gated content such as registering to access a downloadable document. This prospect information can enter a marketing automation workflow where they will firstly be sent the document, and then can be contacted with relevant communications in the future.
Marketing automation can be utilised for other types of activity such as enquiry follow ups, or even cleansing your database. How you choose to use your software is entirely up to you and what’s best for your business.
If you think marketing automation is something you’d like to implement in your business, please get in touch with one of our digital specialists to find out more about how to get started on 01772 591100.
Alternatively, you may find the following articles useful as you investigate further about marketing automation.
