Marketing Automation for Streamlining Your Business

Just hearing those two little words, “marketing automation,” can set off a wide range of thoughts and emotions, can’t it? 

On one hand, you might be thrilled about all the cool benefits it can bring to your business. 

But on the flip side, you might also be feeling a bit concerned about the potential challenges that come with it. 

And you know what? 

That’s totally okay and completely normal to have mixed emotions! In fact, if you didn’t have them, I’d be surprised. 

As coaches, entrepreneurs, and small businesses we engage in various activities to advertise and promote our products and services. This is the core of marketing – creating and implementing strategies to achieve your goals.

Alongside each of your marketing efforts, there’s marketing automation. This involves using software to automate tasks that repeat, convert customers seamlessly, and streamline processes. 

Not only can it free up your time by increasing efficiency, but it also provides valuable insights into your customers and allows for the growth of your business. 

I view marketing automation as not just a software tool but what’s the marketing strategy that is behind how and when to use that software.

This strategic approach becomes particularly crucial during product launches, where I assist and support clients with project management. By aligning the overall project vision and marketing goals with the capabilities of technology, you’ll be more prepared to handle the stress of launching a new product.

It’s about making your marketing work smarter, not you working harder. 

Why Bother With Marketing Automation?

You might be asking yourself this question, “why should I bother?” 

I get it, you’re swamped with tasks and responsibilities, or technology isn’t your strong suit. Maybe you’ve already got a system in place and it’s working just fine. Right?

Well, let’s take a moment to dive into the real benefits of marketing automation. This way, you can make your own informed decision for your business.  

Automating Repetitive Tasks:

Let’s start with those tasks that seem to be on a never-ending loop. 

I’m talking about sending similar emails to different customers or various opt-ins. There’s also scheduling social media posts and segmenting your customers to tailor your marketing strategies. 

This is where marketing automation becomes a must use tool in your online business. 

With the right software, these repeating tasks can be set up and run in the background. 

Emails can be set up once, from lead magnets to appointment bookings. Scheduling your social media posts for the week can be done in one sitting. Your customer records update as they progress through their journey.

Yes, this can be a huge time saver, but the benefit is more than that. It’s also about doing things right. 

Automating these tasks means they get done consistently and accurately, minimizing the room for error.

Improving Customer Engagement:

Now, let’s talk about your customers—the heart of your business. Naturally, you want to engage with them in the most effective way possible. 

With your software automation, you can tailor your communication to meet your customers’ needs and preferences.

Think of personalized emails that address your customers by their first name or a timely communication that hits their inbox just when they need it, such as webinar reminders. 

And it doesn’t stop there. You can also set up targeted marketing campaigns based on your customer’s behavior. 

Did a customer just sign up to be on a waitlist for your live online course?

Why not send them a tailored email with a special offer?

So, through automation, you connect to your customer on a deeper level, making communications more personal and become more effective with your marketing.

Increasing Efficiency:

As service providers, we know our time is a precious commodity. Anything that can help us save time and become more efficient is worth it. And marketing automation software, coupled with well-documented systems and processes, is your ace in the hole.

I see many business owners put this off, again and again, until they find themselves wishing they had one: an SOP (standard operating procedure) for their marketing projects.

Taking the time to build SOPs isn’t just a good idea – it’s essential for the health of your business. 

By documenting your marketing automation process, you’re streamlining operations and creating a valuable roadmap everyone can follow. That means less time fixing errors and more time getting things right the first time.

Ensuring everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals is what will make your business run so much more smoothly.

Enhancing Decision-Making:

Finally, let’s talk about decision-making. Your decisions impact the success of your business. And having the correct information at your fingertips can make all the difference.

That’s where marketing automation comes in. Yes, we’re automating tasks and streamlining processes, but you must also collect and analyze the data. 

Why? Because the automation in your marketing will provide valuable insights for your decision-making. Such as: 

Which marketing strategies are working?

Which ones might need a little tweaking? 

Who are your most engaged customers?

What are they interested in? 

And you can use these insights to improve your marketing efforts and to make more informed decisions.

So, why bother with marketing automation? Because it’s about making your business smarter, helping you make better decisions, and driving your business forward.

Decoding Marketing Automation Lingo

Alright, we’ve talked about the ‘why’ behind marketing automation. Now, let’s get into the ‘how’. 

In the next section, we will jump into streamlining your marketing campaigns with some specific strategies you can implement.

But before we do that, there’s a lot of terminology that gets used when automating marketing, depending on who you talk to. 

Sometimes terms are used interchangeably and can have slightly different meanings depending on the context and the specific platform used.

So let’s clarify a few key terms that I think are a good starting point to understand how does marketing automation work.  

‘Automation’ is the process of using software to perform digital marketing tasks automatically. 

These software categories may include:

• Email Marketing Software
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
• Project Management Software

A ‘campaign’ in marketing automation is a series of automated actions or tasks, often triggered by a specific customer behavior. 

We can break it down in this campaign example: 

Sample Campaign Example: 

Customer Action –> Comes to your website and opts into your webinar event.

Campaign Automation: 

• Automated action one: Trigger is the webinar opt-in 
• Automated action two: Add a tag 
• Automated action three: Send an email with confirmation and details of the webinar.
• Automated action four: Add a sequence for webinar reminder emails to opt ins.

 

A ‘funnel’ is the journey a customer takes from first interaction to final conversion. 

Simple Funnel Example:

• Potential customer opts into your webinar event, 
• They attend your webinar,
• During the event they go to your promoted sales page
• Customer purchases

A ‘sequence’ in marketing is a series of automated emails or messages sent to customers based on predefined triggers. 

They are part of the larger ‘campaign,’ which can contain multiple sequence triggers.

Using our webinar example:

• Sequence one example: webinar opt-ins (the trigger), send three reminder emails.
• Sequence two example: webinar attendees who didn’t purchase (the triggers), send two emails.

 

These terms help to understand what’s happening (the process) and why (the strategy) surrounding your marketing automation.   

Now, let’s explore some strategies using marketing automation platforms to enhance your campaigns.

 

Your Marketing Automation Playbook to Streamlining Campaigns 

Let’s roll up our sleeves and get into the nitty-gritty – the strategies. 

Here are some key strategies that can make your marketing automation more effective and your campaigns more streamlined:

Strategy 1. Email Marketing Automation

Email is a powerful asset and should be the first tool in your marketing arsenal, and it makes automation even more effective. It’s just a matter of thinking beyond the basic welcome emails and newsletters.

You’re the guide to your customer’s journey. 

You’re providing them with the specific actions you want them to take. So through your email software, when a customer takes a specific action, this is a trigger, and you can set up emails to automatically send out.

For example, if a customer doesn’t purchase and abandons their shopping cart, an automated email can be sent offering assistance or a special discount. 

Your goal is to keep your brand at the forefront of their mind and give them the best customer experience. And at the same time, you’ll have a measurement to help increase conversions.

Strategy 2. Social Media Automation

Social media is a fantastic way to connect with your audience, but managing multiple platforms can be time-consuming. With social media automation, you can prepare your posts ahead of time and schedule them in advance. 

There’s a social media automation tool out there for almost everything. 

Use the analytics for the best times to post when scheduling and as a metric for your post’s engagement.  Publishing automatically ensures you’re consistently engaging with your audience even when you’re busy.

For example, you might find that your audience is most active on Instagram in the evening. With this insight, you can schedule your posts to go live during these peak times.

The goal of social media automation is to help you manage your time more effectively. Allow yourself to focus on creating quality content and building authentic relationships with your audience. Utilize the platform’s provided data to track your audience engagement to help maximize your reach. 

Strategy 3. Tagging

Tagging is a valuable feature found in marketing automation tools, and I couldn’t help clients the way I do without tags being part of their email processes. 

So what are tags used for?

Tags are for labeling your individual leads, clients, customers, and students and grouping them based on their individual behaviors, preferences, or interactions with your business.

Tags can represent anything from a customer’s purchase history, to their interests, to what stage they are at in a sales funnel.

For example, you might tag a customer as “attended webinar” if they’ve attended one of your webinars. Or you might tag a customer as “enrolled” if they’ve purchased a course.

How effective a tagging system is largely depends on how you use it. 

You don’t want it to become cumbersome or confusing by creating too many tags or getting too granular.

Here are my tips to keep your tagging strategy manageable and effective:

Keep it Simple

Consistency is Key

Regularly Review and Clean Up Tags

Automate Where Possible

Strike a balance, and when used thoughtfully and strategically, it’s a very powerful tool when implemented.

Strategy 4 Customer Segmentation

Segmentation is a way to use your tagging system to create more targeted and personalized marketing campaigns.

We do this by dividing your larger contact list into smaller, more targeted groups (or “segments”) to be more effective.

When should you start a segment? Ideally, as soon as you have enough data to have meaningful, purposeful groupings.

When you see patterns and trends, even with a smaller contact list, these can form your segmentation strategy.

For example, let’s say you have a group of customers who have purchased a specific course from you

You can segment these customers into a group and tailor your emails to feature complementary courses or products, to enhance the customer journey.

If you’re just starting out, you might begin by segmenting your subscribers based on how they joined your list (through a specific lead generation magnet, a webinar sign-up, a coaching package purchase, etc.).

Or maybe you have a group of customers who haven’t purchased anything in a while.

Try segmenting these customers and create a re-engagement email campaign to bring them back.

When you take the time to understand your customers, segmenting is your tool to deliver more personalized and relevant content to your audience when they need it.

Strategy 5 Analytics and Reporting

It’s important to know which analytics and what kind of reporting you’ll need to track the performance of your campaigns.

Please don’t overlook this in the planning stage because it’s the only way you’re going to know what’s working and what’s not. 

There’s a wealth of information built into marketing automation tools, but the best part is that the data is collected and analyzed automatically, saving you time and effort.

For example, if you notice that emails sent at a certain time of day have higher open rates, you can adjust your email schedule accordingly.

If you’re running an email campaign, you are likely tracking open rates and click-through rates. On social media posts, you track which ones get the most engagement.

You can also track customer behavior on your website, see which landing pages they’re visiting, and how long they’re staying. 

Making more informed, smart decisions come down to understanding your data—decisions to improve your marketing and sales efforts and ultimately drive more success for your business.

Remember, the goal of these strategies isn’t just to make your life easier – it’s to make your marketing more effective. With the right strategies in place, marketing automation can assist you in streamlining your campaigns, saving time, and achieving your marketing goals.

 

Make A Marketing Automation Game Plan

Alright, let’s wrap this up!

We’ve covered a lot of ground in this article, haven’t we?

From understanding the ‘why’ behind marketing automation to the ‘how’ of implementing it in your business.

We’ve also clarified some key terms and explored some strategies to streamline your marketing campaigns.

But now, it’s time for you to take action.

Here are some steps you can take:

Review your current marketing processes: Look for repetitive tasks that can be automated and areas where you can improve efficiency. This can also be the perfect time to create or refine your Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).  

Research marketing automation tools: There are plenty of options out there. Think about where you’re at and what marketing automation software you need to help you move forward. And then, find the one that fits your needs and budget. If you don’t have email automation, this is a must! 

Plan your automation strategy: This is where you get to be creative and strategic. 

As you plan your marketing automation strategy, consider the customer path from their first interaction with your brand to the final conversion. How can automation enhance this journey? 

Implement and test: Start small, monitor your results, and adjust as necessary. Effective marketing automation is only as good as the insights you gain and taking steps to refine it.

Keep learning: Marketing automation is a vast field with lots to learn. There is no one correct strategy, so stay curious and keep exploring.

Marketing automation isn’t about setting it and forgetting it. It’s about enhancing it to reach a wider audience and maintain consistent engagement even with minimal resources.

So, as you take these action steps, you are making strategic decisions that will help you grow and succeed. Know that every effort you make is a step towards a more efficient, effective, and profitable business. 

So, are you ready to embrace marketing automation? Your business will thank you for it.