In recent years, Marketing Automation has turned into quite the buzzword.
From business tycoons to small-scale business owners, its use has been quite versatile. The goal of these software and programs are simple: automating marketing actions; in other words, simplifying repetitive tasks.
The ideal goal of marketing automation is to approach prospective customers in a higher perspective manner using relevant data (of said customers) and give them the best service possible.
This sort of marketing generally generates more revenue as it is highly specialized and provides an excellent return on investment.
However, as lucrative as it may sound, if not used correctly, the results are pretty unsatisfactory. In this article, we will learn how to fix some basic marketing automation mistakes effectively.
Effectively Fixing Marketing Automation Mistakes.
1. Laying Down the Groundwork
The first mistake that is most commonly made is that; business ‘owners’ start using marketing automation without even knowing what or how it operates.
Marketing automation put, it is the use of software or a web-based service to implement, manage, and automate marketing jobs and systems. What is essential does is simplify repetitive tasks. For example: sending emails, keeping tabs on social media, monitoring website activity and so on. Marketing automation is mainly geared towards performance.
Now, as fancy as it sounds, marketing automation is not for every business. Just purchasing an app with a hefty price is not enough. Whether or not it will work with your business depends on multiple factors. These include; your advertising channels, size of your sale, sale cycles, and many more.
Most people tend to think that since marketing automation is expensive, and it mostly benefits large scale businesses. However, research has shown that businesses that profit most from marketing automation are small and mid-sized businesses.
Companies with revenue ranging from $5 million to $500 million are seen to benefit the most.
The best way to decide would be to try out online demos or free software and check if it indeed fits for your business.
2. Look for recurring or repetitive tasks
Now that you know if you need marketing automation, you need to find out where to efficiently implement it.
The first step to achieve that is by looking for repetitive or recurring tasks. This can range from email marketing to updating a CRM, list out all the tasks you can use it for.
Automation of these tasks not only saves time, but it also does the job better than humans anyway. Knowing what tasks require the software is how you can efficiently use your marketing automation.
3. Designing Email Campaigns
Emails have been a vital tool for effective business communication since the 90s, bridging communication gaps, all while being easily accessible.
Although it is nothing sensational, mailing lists have helped business owners serve their customers by providing them with the latest products and services all while being inexpensive. However, if they are not designed efficiently, it will not be able to compete newer the newer applications in the market.
Marketing automation can easily send countless emails at any given time, but the quality and the content should be determined beforehand to make the campaign successful.
4. Tracking ‘Prospects’ Activities
One of the most essential and useful features of your marketing automation is its ability to keep track of the potential ‘customer’s footprint on your site. This can be done in many ways, including using cookies stored on the ‘prospects’ web browser, the email buttons or links on the web page, and so on.
‘Here’s where the marketing automation comes in. The MA can track the ‘customer’s footprint and report on the number of hits indicating relevance or popularity. The key takes away from this is to make sure to include loads of sharable and clickable content on your site that can help generate these data.
5. Reaching Customers on Peak Hours
Most marketing automation has access and can record ”real-time” monitoring features. This shows you when you have visitors on your site, what action they are performing on the site in real time.
The data helps you gather data and choose a marketing scheme accordingly. For example, with this feature, you can post on social media, and it will ensure the maximum number of hits, giving your post the boost you need.
6. Reducing Time and Energy
This is probably the most prominent and vital tip so far. Marketing automation can take different features and use them in one campaign, thus reducing the time and effort required to do them separately.
However, it is crucial to filter a few functions. Not every click or hit is from a prospective customer; some are just from window shoppers or idlers who stumbled upon your site.
From the data collected about the users, it is vital to pick out whom the actual potential customers are instead of treating every person interested equally. This optimizes your marketing campaign and makes it more profitable.
The best way to do this is to choose an MA that allows you to modify its functions to your needs.
With an integrated eCommerce platform, Odoo allows you to create automatic and targeted marketing campaigns easily. Why bother have a separate app for each detail when you can have an all-encompassing umbrella app for all your specific needs.
Odoo also integrates different apps for communication, email marketing, and marketing automation all into one to provide an all-in-one, out-of-the-box solution to all your e-commerce needs. Odoo’s unique value proposition is to be user-friendly and fully integrated at the same time.
‘What’s more, you can completely design your campaign to suit it to your needs.
Syncoria is an Odoo-Ready Partner in Toronto, Canada. Our team consists of business analysts, solutions architects, project managers, delivery managers, and quality assurance engineers, all of whom are trained experts in Odoo.
We can help design and develop the marketing automation solution for you and fixing marketing automation mistakes you might have. For a free assessment, call +1 (416) 628-5522, or send us an email at [email protected].