Marketing automation (MA) tools are critical to any marketer’s workflow. These tools allow marketers to be more flexible with your tasks and more prudent with your decisions. Automation helps with the planning, execution, and assessment of marketing campaigns.
How it works
With marketing automation, it is easier and faster for companies to move forward. 80% of MA users have reported increased number of leads while 77% have increased conversion rates. Companies who used marketing automation experienced an increase in revenue after a year.
Though most marketers use marketing automation, only a few are taking advantage of the most advanced techniques.
Here are five advanced MA techniques you should start using right now:
Lead scoring
This technique is not so popular with marketers because it requires a lot of work and modification. But once you get the hang of it, the results will be worth it.
In this technique, you will rank your prospects by a scoring system. The scores of the prospects will guide the sales team on who to prioritize and who needs more lead nurturing.
To do this, you need to work with your sales team and decide what you want your prospects to do on your website. You will then assign which activities will have merits and demerits. For example:
Opened catalogue= 30 points
Opened blog page = 5 points
Opened employment page= – 30 points
Every time your prospects visit any of your pages, their points will be merited to their score. Certain pages have negative bearing because visiting those pages signifies that they aren’t interested in buying. Once they reach a target sum of points, say 100, it means they might be ready to transact with you.
Date-based automation
Marketing automation based on dates will help you engage with your prospects all-year-round. A basic date-based automation practice is a birthday greeting on your subscriber’s birthday. But it doesn’t have to end there. You can reach out to your prospects on other occasions like Christmas, New Year, and other annual events too.
Facebook does this well with their “memories” and “friendversary” concept. You can follow the same concept by reminding and thanking your subscribers on the anniversary of their purchase.
A/B Testing Automation
Assessment through A/B testing should be continuous and integrated with your marketing process. This will ensure that your campaign is always at the best it can possibly be. You don’t have to do the step by step process of A/B testing anymore because it can now be automated too.
Advanced Segmentation
Highly personalize your marketing campaign with advanced segmentation. You can divide your segments further through the following:
- Based on referrer site
- Based on location
- Based on content opened
- Based on their phase on the customer’s journey
- Based on their engagement
- Based on the device they are using
- Based on their interest
Education Automation
In this information age, the company that educates its prospects the most wins. Providing useful and relevant content to each of your subscribers is challenging if you do it manually. But with marketing automation, you just need to collect your content and build a system. After your contents are fixed, the automation system will be in charge of sending out the right kind of content, to the right people, at the right time!
Conclusion
Marketing automation tools provide data analytics that can help you evaluate and reevaluate your marketing campaign. It serves as your compass in directing the next steps you need to take. It also gives alarm signals if you need to change your techniques and gives you a clearer data on which of your techniques are successful.
These advanced marketing automation techniques will enhance your data gathering capabilities so you can learn about your prospects better. It allows you to deliver your marketing campaign more effectively and efficiently. Lastly, it allows you to accurately measure your marketing efforts so you can continually develop them.
About the author
Nirit B. is working as a content marketing manager for ActiveTrail. She writes for some top online marketing sites and blogging advice on email marketing and marketing automation. She is a huge fan of shoes, ramen & brilliance.
Photo credits:
https://depositphotos.com (credit- © etiamos) – featured image
https://depositphotos.com (credit- © SergeyNivens) – article image
