At this time, entrepreneurs have the world at their fingertips in relation to automation.
We are able to design complicated electronic mail sequences to exit on repeat, automate social media and show advertisements primarily based on buyer preferences, and ship deserted cart restoration emails with out lifting a finger.
However, this ease of use presents an issue:
Many entrepreneurs don’t have a ton of technique behind their actions. They get straight into the tactical element earlier than pondering by way of the strategic components.
On this article, we’re going to give attention to the latter.
You’ll uncover the 6 essential steps in designing a advertising automation technique and find out how that technique ought to inform automation ways and actions.Â
Desk of Contents
What’s a advertising automation technique?
A advertising automation technique is an overarching plan behind the advertising actions you resolve to automate and people you resolve not to automate.
So, let’s get 1 factor clear.
Advertising automation methods and advertising automation ways should not the identical factor.
Moderately, your advertising automation technique informs the automation ways you select.
The technique is the high-level strategy, encompassing buyer analysis, market evaluation, competitor comparisons, and goal-setting.
From right here, you may select the advertising efforts that swimsuit you.
A few examples of promoting automation ways embrace electronic mail nurture sequences and remarketing advert campaigns on social media.
Beginning with technique is essential to figuring out which ways will convert. Should you discover by way of your analysis that clients in your sector hardly ever buy from focused social media advertisements, as an illustration, then automating this course of could also be unsuitable.
With this in thoughts, we’re first going to take a look at the way to construct a advertising automation technique earlier than diving into the particular ways you would possibly use to achieve your viewers and convert gross sales.
How one can construct a strong advertising automation technique in 6 stepsÂ
Able to design a advertising automation technique to save lots of time and pace up workflows? Simply comply with these 6 steps.
1. Collect your mission-critical intelÂ
Step one is to tug collectively all the info you might have in your viewers, your opponents, and your market.
This consists of paperwork like:
- Whole addressable market evaluationÂ
- Competitor evaluation
- SWOT evaluation
- Ideally suited firm profile (ICP)
- Buyer personasÂ
To be clear, creating these paperwork isn’t a part of the advertising automation technique design course of.
Automation technique is only one a part of your wider advertising technique. As such, these duties ought to already be accomplished; that is merely a apply of collating the required info to tell automation choices.
2. Audit your present advertising actionsÂ
Check out the advertising actions you’re operating proper now, and ask 2 questions:
- Which of those actions could be automated?
- Which actions could be higher off not automated?
Say, for instance, that you simply’re at present operating a sequence of lead nurture campaigns for leads that aren’t fairly but sales-qualified. Based mostly on their interplay with sure emails, you reroute them (at present manually) to totally different sequences.
You possibly can automate this with the proper electronic mail advertising software.
You would possibly resolve, nevertheless, that it’s crucial for an account-based advertising rep to be concerned in writing that first electronic mail, because it must be extremely focused to the particular buyer’s curiosity. You would possibly select not to automate on this occasion, then.
3. Perceive how automation impacts the client journeyÂ
The buyer journey is a mannequin entrepreneurs use to map out the varied steps the everyday consumers undergo to buy.
It begins on the attain and interact stage (the place you goal your messaging to the discover prospects) and strikes proper by way of the convert and shut levels.
You need to have already got the client journey mapped out by now; your job right here is to know how automation would possibly influence that journey.
Take, for instance, the nurture and educate section.
You would possibly establish that your potential consumers spend a whole lot of time comparability posts between you and your opponents.
You might arrange an electronic mail automation sequence to ship in-depth comparability posts proper to them, saving them time and making certain you’re positioning your self as the best choice for a given want (i.e., reiterating your worth propositions).
4. Determine automation set off factorsÂ
After you have a good suggestion of the automation recipes you’d wish to create, you’ll should be clear on what triggers that recipe.
In some circumstances, it might be guide, equivalent to a social media advertising supervisor initiating a brand new automated advert sequence.
In others, automation runs could be triggered routinely—as an illustration, if a buyer downloads your e book and is routinely entered into an electronic mail nurture sequence.
5. Discover the restrictions of your advertising automation platformÂ
Advertising automation software program is your lifesaver right here, enabling all of these complicated automation concepts you’ve dreamed up.
However not all automation platforms provide the identical options (although there’s vital overlap).
Take the instance we checked out in step 2, the place you’d wish to automate dynamic electronic mail sequences primarily based on person interplay.
A whole lot of automation platforms don’t have this capacity. (ActiveCampaign does, by the best way).
You’ll want to verify your required automation recipes fall throughout the confines of your software’s capabilities or contemplate switching platforms.
6. Design a plan for reporting and evaluationÂ
The final element of designing a advertising automation technique is figuring out the way you’ll measure the success of your automation technique and ways.
This comes down to picking particular metrics to measure efficacy and ROI and scheduling a daily time to evaluation your advertising automation technique and alter as applicable.Â
Each 6 to 12 months is probably going applicable for many companies, although startups and quickly rising and altering firms would possibly wish to step as much as a quarterly evaluation cadence.Â
Use your advertising automation technique to drive these 7 ways
Now that you’ve got your technique sorted, it’s time to resolve which advertising ways will work finest for attracting your viewers.
Let’s discover 7 examples for instance how this entire factor works.
1. Lead nurture electronic mail sequenceÂ
The lead nurture electronic mail sequence is the quintessential instance of promoting automation in motion.
This automation sequence begins when your buyer takes a particular motion. That could be downloading your e book, signing up for an electronic mail course, or making their first buy.
Let’s say it’s the latter.
That buyer is then put right into a lead nurture sequence and receives a sequence of emails in sequential order. Say, for instance, they obtain 1 per week for 7 weeks.
Every lead nurture electronic mail sequence has a particular conversion objective in thoughts. On this occasion, it might be to transform that particular person to a repeat buyer by encouraging a second buy. The ultimate electronic mail within the sequence would possibly embrace a low cost code as a further motivator.
An efficient electronic mail sequence helps you flip extra subscribers into clients.
2. Remarketing advertisementsÂ
Remarketing (also called retargeting) advertisements are a advertising automation tactic triggered when a possible buyer browses a product in your web site however doesn’t undergo with the acquisition.
Your web site pixel captures their information and hyperlinks along with your advertising automation platform to set off automated advertisements for that precise product.
These advertisements are mostly displayed on social media platforms like Fb and Instagram however will also be efficient as digital banner advertisements.
3. Social media promotingÂ
Social media promoting is a well-liked advertising technique basically, but it surely’s even higher when automated.
For instance, let’s say you might have a sequence of content material you’d like potential clients to see. One advert isn’t adequate.
In your advertising automation platform, you would possibly arrange a sequence of three advertisements, every with totally different inventive and duplicate, and automate their show on platforms like Fb and LinkedIn in sequence.
4. Segmented electronic mail advertisingÂ
Probably the most highly effective electronic mail advertising automation sequences are segmented by key viewers attributes. This ensures that you simply solely ship highly-relevant content material to every viewers phase, thereby bettering engagement and conversion charges.
Say, for instance, that you simply’re a gross sales CRM with numerous totally different person profiles. Lots of your customers are actual property brokers and insurance coverage firms.
Whereas some electronic mail content material could also be related to each, not the entire content material you produce for actual property firms can be tremendous related for insurance coverage brokers and vice versa. Segmented electronic mail advertising permits you to ship the proper stuff to the proper folks.
Dynamic electronic mail content material may also help you are taking issues a step additional.Â
Take this electronic mail from Northern Path, as an illustration, which makes use of dynamic electronic mail to tailor content material primarily based on recipient gender.
With dynamic content material, as an illustration, you may ship a single electronic mail to your total viewers however automate a sure element to alter primarily based on person information.
5. Deserted cart emailsÂ
Deserted carts are the bane of the ecommerce world. Consumers add your merchandise to their cart (or bag, or field, or no matter you’re calling it) however don’t undergo with the acquisition.
Automated deserted cart emails are a strong option to regain a few of this misplaced income potential while not having to contain a advertising particular person each time.
Couple your cart abandonment emails with retargeting advertisements for a 2-pronged strategy to cart restoration.
6. Transactional SMS messagesÂ
Transactional emails (like delivery and gross sales notifications) are a good way to maintain clients up to date, however they typically get misplaced within the lots of of notifications your electronic mail subscribers obtain every month.
SMS advertising could be a highly effective option to minimize by way of. You’re sending the messages on to a buyer’s cell, stopping you from getting misplaced of their electronic mail inbox.
Homesick makes use of transactional SMS to tell clients about ongoing gross sales, for instance.
7. Welcome electronic mail sequenceÂ
Welcome electronic mail sequence are an ideal goal for an automation sequence.
This could be triggered when somebody indicators up in your electronic mail publication or rewards program after studying 1 of your weblog posts that speaks to a standard trade problem.
For SaaS firms, welcome electronic mail campaigns typically start when a brand new buyer indicators up in your product.
This electronic mail from Spotify is a good instance of an preliminary automated welcome electronic mail.
In any case, the concept of a welcome electronic mail sequence is to coach the client and get them to have interaction along with your product.
For instance, you would possibly schedule a sequence of emails that give customers walk-throughs on particular product options with the objective of accelerating characteristic adoption.
Often requested questions
What’s an instance of promoting automation?
One of the widespread examples of promoting automation is the e-mail lead nurture sequence.
Right here, you prewrite a sequence of emails. When somebody downloads an e book of yours, your automation is triggered, and the prospect routinely receives that sequence of emails (typically 1 per week).
How efficient is advertising automation?
Advertising automation could be severely efficient, but it surely all relies on how you utilize it!
Swim College, for instance, grew its income by 66% utilizing advertising automation like scheduled electronic mail campaigns.
Why do you want advertising automation?
You want advertising automation as a result of it’s the one option to run scalable advertising campaigns with out investing (learn: losing) lots of of hours on actions that would in any other case be accomplished by a advertising automation software.
ConclusionÂ
By automating repetitive duties, your advertising group can ship customized content material to your present clients, appeal to potential B2B consumers, and supply a greater buyer expertise that improves buyer retention and satisfaction.
They usually can do all of it while not having to raise a finger (besides after they arrange their advertising automation workflows).
Nevertheless, none of that is attainable and not using a strong advertising automation resolution. Try ActiveCampaign’s deep suite of promoting automation options, or dive proper in and expertise the magic for your self with a 14-day free trial.
