THE BLUEPRINT FOR MARKETING AUTOMATION

Transcription

1 THE BLUEPRINT FOR MARKETING AUTOMATION

2 Marketing automation adoption will grow by approximately 50% by Sirius Decisions, How Marketing Automation Has Evolved in the Last 12 Months, 2012

3 Way More Than a Lead Generation Tool Why Marketing Automation? Generate new leads Marketing Automation is a strategy that helps you streamline your marketing efforts, drive revenue growth, target your communications, and better measure impact. It s pretty common knowledge that audiences engage more with messages that are targeted toward their interests and behaviors. Yet so many organizations seem to forget that and resort to blasting mass s out to their entire list, trying to rack up the number of the alwaysimportant touch point. The more messages you send that are not relevant to your customers, the less they pay attention to your brand as a whole. Thus, the less they read those specific messages that might actually resonate with their interests. The key is segmenting your customers and targeting content that aligns with each segment s interests. It s all about delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. It sounds simple, but few organizations take the time or have the expertise to truly pull it off with impact. That s where Choptank can help. Nurture relationships and qualify leads Capture behaviors indicating what key audiences care most about Engage customers at a key moment of influence Drive sales, adoption or donations Reconnect with less engaged customers Increase measurement of overall marketing strategy and impact

4 What Marketing Automation Looks Like Marketing Automation is an extremely versatile tool that can be leveraged to serve any industry in a variety of ways. From driving donations and membership in the non-profit sector to delivering an educational content marketing strategy to insurance subscribers, Marketing Automation is a flexible platform that supports your marketing goals with a tactical, targeted approach. As you might have guessed, Marketing Automation is largely based on campaigns, but ideally includes multiple other tactics (landing pages, web banners, etc.) depending on the behavior of your target audiences and needs of the campaign. Additionally, it relies heavily on analytics and data to measure impact and drive systematic changes to increase effectiveness. This is one of the biggest benefits of digital communications on the whole, and a big focus of Marketing Automation.

5 Without marketing automation, you are just guessing just hoping that people will take the bait and be ready to buy your products. Statistics show that buyers don t do that. They want to learn at their own pace and be reached when they need more information or are ready to buy. A wellconstructed marketing automation strategy makes that a reality. John McTigue, Kuno Creative

6 What Marketing Automation Can Tell You , as with most digital channels, is a great way to get hard-and-fast metrics. Although critical to an integrated marketing strategy, other channels like direct mail, earned media, and advertising make it more difficult to know exactly who is interacting with your message and how. With and Marketing Automation you can not only see who and how, but you can track an individual s or group s engagement with your brand over time. Whether you are generating new leads or simply nurturing your relationships, these metrics can help you be more effective throughout your engagement with a potential lead or help you know the right things to say to your customer base. Not only can you get your standard metrics (deliverability, open rates, click-through rates, opt-out rates, etc.), but Marketing Automation helps your learn so much more about the behaviors of your audience. Also, with proper tracking and applied analytics, you can very concretely determine your program ROI. You can create a more predictable revenue cycle by ensuring you use customer-preferred tactics and channels which result in higher conversions, and strongly support relationship nurturing which accelerates the sales process. Additionally, for future campaigns, you should have a much better idea of what will resonate with your target audiences. With this powerful information, you can more accurately calculate potential ROI to make your business case, or make revenue and profit projections.

7 Examples of How to Leverage Marketing Automation As we said before, Marketing Automation can be used in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes. Below are a few examples of how you could use Marketing Automation: Welcome Series You may have a new customer sign up for a service or a membership, and you need a way to deliver critical information about their new status. Ditch the paper-based welcome folder stuffed with brochures, and set up an automated welcome series with convenient links to the information your customers need. You not only deliver relevant information at the most opportune time, but you save tons on printing costs. Event Campaigns If you are hosting a fund-raising event or an online webinar, you can use an automated campaign to drive sign-ups, capture sign-up information via forms on landing pages, and send reminders and thank-you messages. Content Marketing Strategy You have content and you need a way to get it out to your audience. Marketing Automation is a great tool to deliver key pieces of content to your customer base and to target to your most relevant segments. Behavioral Follow-Ups If a customer interacts with an or call to action in a certain way, you can track that behavior and provide a follow-up specific to that customer s interest. It s also a great way to thank your customers for interacting with you.

8 Launching Pads for a Campaign You can use almost anything as a jumping off point for a Marketing Automation campaign. It s important that you use an already popular channel in order to maximize your reach and impact. Below are a few examples of good places to start: Digital launch points are the easiest Start from an link, newsletter article, web banner ad, or a landing page action / form. From your list You don t need a launch point from another tactic. If you have an existing list, you can launch your campaign just like you would any other . Even launch from paper-based marketing (direct mail, letters, etc.) Drive customers to a digital tactic (landing pages work best in this situation) from a mailer or signage, and launch the campaign from there. You ll have a smaller list, but due to the effort it takes on the customer s behalf, you have already identified your most heavily engaged leads. On average, only 20% of leads are sales-ready when they first come in. This means you need a disciplined process known as lead nurturing to develop qualified leads until they are sales-ready. Done well, nurturing can result in 50% more sales leads at 33% lower cost per lead. -Marketo, The Definitive Guide to Marketing Automation, 2013

9 When to Gracefully Bow Out Multiple touch points with customers are important; when you get your brand in front of them you stay top-of-mind and increase the chances that they ll interact with your message. But there s a point where you need to gracefully let your customers ignore you, if they so choose. It s in their best interest, but it s also in yours: Don t pester your audience If a customer has ignored your s thus far, it s likely that a standard communication is not going to engage them and they ll likely start perceiving your brand as annoying. Try something different: a direct mail campaign, a social media effort, even a new approach with a creative campaign optimized through testing. Find new ways to target It s alright that some of your customers won t engage with your . While is the universally preferred channel of communication 1, not everyone prefers it. Segment your list by behaviors and preferences and approach people by their preferred channels. If it s not , try something else. Monitor your online reputation Everyone has different definitions of spam. While nothing you or Choptank would ever send to your customers would fall into the spam category in the legal sense of the word, some contacts are more likely to report your messages as spam if you continue to send to them after they have indicated they are not interested in hearing from you. Choptank also recommends that our clients avoid purchased lists. Mailing to purchased lists is typically not as effective and can potentially destroy your sender reputation. Improve your metrics It s simple math that the fewer non-engagers you have on a list, the higher your engagement rates will be. Removing those who don t engage gives you a better idea of what is resonating with your target groups, and skyrockets your open and click rates. Save money Keep list maintenance a top priority in any type of digital marketing campaign, particularly with . Removing non-engagers will keep your deployment costs down. 1 Litmus, Preferred Communication Channel; Commands More Clicks & ROI, February 20, 2013

10 What Marketing Automation Is Not Marketing Automation is not a comprehensive marketing strategy. It s part of your marketing program and is largely a tactical approach. It can be used as a strategic fulcrum to deliver your content marketing program, to grow your sales leads, or to simply drive engagement through a targeted campaign. While it does provide your marketing group with extra arms and legs, it will not replace your internal marketing staff or eliminate your need for vendors. It is also not a spam platform. It is a dynamic tactic that can help drive your marketing strategies for years to come with data-driven insights and behavioral segmentation.

11 Contact Choptank to Get Started Choptank can build your Marketing Automation strategy from the ground up. Whether it s to support your other direct marketing campaigns or to be the driver behind a new one, our experienced team of digital marketers, strategists, and developers can help you meet your objectives through a targeted and evolving strategy that adapts to your customer s demands. We want to talk to you about how Marketing Automation can support your organization. Contact us today. 243 N Fifth Street / Suite 120 Columbus / Oh / E: info@choptankagency.com