Marketing Automation: Best Practice

It’s fair to say that judging the extent by which technology has appreciated through many breakthroughs in such a short time, there will come a day when machines will one day replace man. Traditional marketing tactics are gradually becoming irrelevant because of the invention of digital marketing through marketing automation. But what exactly is marketing automation? and what are the best practices are when using automation to carry out your digital marketing? Different schools have been able to place an argument as to why marketing automation can or cannot be implemented. Continue reading to find out.

What is marketing automation?

Marketing automation is the practice whereby technological software is used to effectively market products through many platforms online through repetitive task and engagement. These marketing automation tactics were introduced as a means to cover a wider audience and reduce human error. Thus marketers are now able to plan and measure all campaign strategies employed both as online and offline.

Marketing Automation still looks strange to quite a number of individuals. But with a deep dive on some of the best practices, we should be able to readdress current tactics or plan out better ones.

Not the best buy for all levels of business

While marketing automation might seems an attractive method to implement for your business, it may not be best suited for all levels of business. Implementing Marketing automation largely depends on the size of your business. This is because the cost and expense of running such methods are not cheap for small and even most medium scale businesses. Determinants like the sales strength of your products and your online channels is an excellent factor that can limit your approach on marketing automation strategy.

Decide, plan and execute

An automated marketing strategy requires lots of planning because of the technology involved in the execution. Most times the marketing department are expected to pool their intellectual resources together in other to properly execute their decision.

Deciding the type of software and the marketing campaign to automate is the first approach in carrying automated marketing. Businesses are required to carry out an in-depth study on the best software and the ease to apply strategies unique to the software before planning.

Not only studying but also planning gives room for the business to decide how to segment different strategies into bits to allow for easy tracking and monitor results. When plans are executed expertly with the automation tool, reports on how productive their automated marketing strategy has yielded over time.

Start on a small scale

Every marketing strategy requires starting small and automated marketing is not exempted. Making a switch to automated marketing requires a detailed study and a careful plan to see how such a strategy can meet your marketing goals as not everything can be fully automated. So, automating bit-by-bit can help monitor what approach works for you and which needs improvement when initially starting out.

Learn from other businesses

Several businesses today have been able to run an automated marketing strategy and yield result successfully. Starting out may have been a very difficult task especially with little knowledge on the process. However, for newcomers, learning from an already existing business on the kind of automated marketing tactics can help increase their technical know-how.

When picking an online business as a learning aid, a business niche that is closely related to yours should be of interest to you. But how can this learning process be carried out? One crucial and useful way of learning is registering on their site as a visitor or a client and follow them in all medium of online social media to get their marketing delivery tactics.

Take a trial test

A trial test on a desired automated marketing software before launching their paid services is worth taking; Today, many online platforms have been able to give the client a trial period of a week or month as a means to test their efficiency. Some automated marketing software providers offer trial periods of one month as a means to attract customers and test their products. Engaging in the trial test could give you an idea of how their product works and whether it could help ease your business process, thus drive your marketing goals. The trial test can also help to channel your funding and reduce excessive waste of funds through paid services.

Understand pattern and result before implementation

Each marketing automation software has a unique feature and mode of operation. So, the study of any of them requires time to achieve results from your marketing goals. When desired results are achieved, the pattern and strategy used in the implementation should be well understood before implementation. When such implementation is carried out, it gives room for further improvement hence reduce the tendency of failed marketing automation projects.

Use marketing automation to help boost email strategy

Whether for leads or sales conversion, marketing automation can help boost email strategy. Now the very question is how does this happen? Most websites are built having an autoresponder emailing technique as an engagement tactic to visitors as well as marketing their products. A business that has fully implemented this strategy can create an emailing segmentation list for individuals carrying out different actions on their site such as subscription, form filling, and an online survey. Whenever any of these actions are carried out, good marketing automation that has been implemented can detect each of the activities carried by each unique visitor hence boost goals.

Easy tracking of visitors through marketing automation

The ease by which tracking activities can be done remains an available asset to any business that is yet to implement a marketing automation strategy. The use of tracking codes to track the actions of visitors to the site has been able to give a lift in other aspects of online marketing.

Upon subscription, codes are initiated for placing on every page of the website and to different actions such as referrals, opt-in forms, sign-ups. Whenever a visitor completes any of these tasks, the tracking code is embedded on the browser of the client as a cookie such that any time the visitor re-visit or take any actions in the site. This can serve as a real-time tracking activity which businesses can use to not only obtain valuable information but also to implement new marketing tactics.