Question: Do you pay for marketing automation every month but only use it for sending emails?
Marketers offer a variety of ways to capture and convert your leads, and marketing automation is one of the best tools available. However, it’s very easy to hear this and get swept up in an idea without a marketing automation strategy to support it. You must be careful of this!
Your target audience now has a wealth of knowledge and options available with the click of one finger. As a result, your marketing campaign better have a well thought-out plan behind it.
What exactly does this mean? According to a recent SalesForce study, “high-performing B2B marketers use an average of 13 tools and technologies in their marketing execution.” This means you better be using all the tools in your campaign toolbox in a congruent way, rather than relying on just one. In our opinion, marketing automation should be at the center of these tools, as the hub. But why make marketing automation the center, you ask? The answer – leads.
Marketing automation provides your sales reps with the most pre-qualified leads possible. If you think of the marketing automation platform as the hub of your campaign, all the spokes lead in.
Your marketing automation platform will house your lead information and activity log. You will be able to watch your leads as they interact and score them as they engage with you. It is important to bring your leads back through your marketing automation platform. This way, you receive valuable information on who they are and what information they’re seeking. You also develop an in-depth lead profile and know your leads before you ever meet them.
We’ve included some tips below to give you an idea of how in-depth these strategies can become.
Step 1: Reach your leads
There are many ways to reach leads in our ever-evolving media hemisphere. Email, social media, direct mailers with QR codes, shortened url links, apps, Google AdWords, etc. All these tools provide access to your leads. You just have to make sure your message is enticing enough for them to click through, download or visit your company website. Mostly importantly, you must connect your chosen media stream to your marketing automation platform.
Step 2: Score your leads
Marketing automation tracks your leads and allows you to score them as they interact with you. It is very important to develop a scoring system that increases a lead’s score as they positively engage with your campaign. For example, clicking through an email to download content = 7 points, visiting your website through a tweet = 3 points and filling out your contact form = 10 points.
Step 3: Create engaging content
Once you’ve defined what media outlets you’ll be using to traffic leads, you need to look at what content you have to offer your leads. No one is going to click through an ad simply because your button reads “click here.” You need to entice your audience. This is where content comes into play. Content is marketing automation’s best friend.
Step 4: Define the value of your content
Once you have enough content to span every phase of the sales funnel (awareness, consideration, justification and purchase), you must define how much each piece of content is worth. This goes back to your previously created scoring system in step 2. You want to make sure leads receive the appropriate score as they download your content. A piece of content in the ‘awareness’ stream should not result in the same amount of points as content within the ‘justification’ stream. When deciding how much content is worth, think through each piece. How desirable is it? How likely is it that a lead will download it?
Step 5: Put it all together
Now that you determined how you’ll be targeting your leads, decided how you’ll be scoring your leads and developed content, you must lay out your plans. Sit down and map out your campaign. Think through the campaign step-by-step using if this, then that logic.
These five steps are a very broad look at setting up marketing automation strategy and pulling in new leads. Creating a successful marketing automation strategy takes a lot of time, effort and logical thinking. It also takes a dedicated team to design, lay out and implement your programs. While this may seem daunting at first glance, know that if you’re willing to invest the effort into creating your marketing automation strategies, the leads will begin rolling in.
Interested in learning more about marketing automation? Our team at globalHMA can work with you to develop a custom marketing automation strategy based on your business and its needs.
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