Every day we receive loads of emails from businesses offering us new ways to part with our cash. Marketers call these emails electronic direct mail (eDM), and they can be a really valuable business communication channel.
Automated marketing
Marketing automation is fundamental to successfully reaching out to large numbers of prospective clients quickly. Using the latest eDM software, it is possible to configure and automate marketing campaigns across email, social and digital platforms.
A valuable automated marketing campaign has the entire client journey mapped out – in other words, the steps you want prospective clients to follow, resulting, hopefully, in the generation of a lead. Automation makes it easy for you to provide highly personalised information that targets specific potential or existing clients.
Why automate?
Simply put, automation gives you a structured process for campaigns. The benefits of automating your marketing are threefold:
1. Cost effectiveness: An automated campaign is considerably less resource-intensive when compared with a manually operated campaign. It will involve less of your time, and will hit more potential targets
2. Accuracy: Removing the human “manual” element increases the accuracy of the campaign. Using automation, you’re less likely to let a prospective lead slip through your fingers. It’s also much easier to manage your client database
3. Pipeline management: Not every client will be ready to buy from you as soon as you make contact. Using an automated campaign means you can push prospective clients along the sales funnel, putting your message in front of them regularly and keeping them engaged. This results in a much better conversion rate than one-off email blasts.
To read a detailed explanation of the pros and cons of automation, marketing software provider Hubspot has delivered a valuable blog worth reading.
How do I get started?
Microsoft founder Bill Gates once said: “The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency”. Read it again slowly, it makes a lot of sense.
Gates is essentially warning against rushing into an automation program without planning. So, here are a few steps to consider before launching into marketing automation:
1. Build your strategy. There’s no point using automation if you don’t have a solid go-to-market plan in place. Before hurling yourself into automation, you need to know who your ideal clients are and why you’re valuable to them
2. Decide how much you can do yourself. If you’re not a marketing expert, there are two options available to you:
• Purchase an automation software platform and do it yourself
• Work with a marketing automation consultant
3. Crawl before you walk: Start by testing out a campaign to ease your way into automation.
A good marketing consultant will help you through that process – there are plenty worth checking out. If you don’t have an internal marketing resource or marketing automation experience yourself, then the chances of making a marketing misstep are high
Marketing automation is a massive new trend in business and I’ll follow up in future posts about how you can maximise its advantages to generate more sales leads for your business.