Dickiebird’s 2016 Prediction: Don’t Miss Our Top 3 Tips On Marketing Automation
Read the full article at: blog.getdrip.com
Online marketing geeks like myself know that email marketing has a remarkable Return on Investment (ROI). Year on year, email consistently outperforms social media channels as a place to build relationships and ‘convert’ people on your email list into paying customers.
There is a long list of reasons why email is the reigning heavyweight champion of ROI. The current debate between email vs. social media is generally agreed – for now at least (clue: they each have their place in the online communication world).
So, what is Marketing Automation and why do we think you’re missing out if you’re not using it?
Wikipedia defines Marketing Automation (MA) as:
“Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies designed for marketing departments and organizations to more effectively market on multiple channels online (such as email, social media, websites, etc.) and automate repetitive tasks.
As expected, the definition is fairly wide and doesn’t really tell you why it’s so vital for your business.
Now that’s out of the way, let me share my top 3 reasons and features that make Marketing Automation the ‘New Black’:
- Email Lead Nurture: MA allows you to meet new prospects and actually give them some useful information, pretty much for free once you’ve set it up. Even if members of your email list don’t buy from you right now (or ever), at least you’re building a relationship with trust and authority in your area of expertise.
- Relevance: MA allows you to ‘tag’ and communicate with leads via email according to actions they’ve taken. For example, if a prospect has visited your life insurance page, you can send them a sequence of emails about ’10 things to consider before you take out a life insurance policy’.
- Lead scoring: In conjunction with tagging, lead scoring allows you to see how likely it is that a prospect might buy from you. For example, a customer has opened your emails 12 times, forwarded it to their wife, and has visited your life insurance page twice. They would be assigned a high score and it’s highly likely they’re interested in your product or service – you’d be wise to get in touch.
The above are just a handful of examples of the benefits of Marketing Automation via email. Other examples include online advertising in the form of re-marketing or annual reminders for dental clients or insurance renewal clients.
Just make sure you do your research when it comes to Marketing Automation – no-one likes being talked to by a robot. Serving the needs of our clients and customers is the main reason most businesses exist.
If we learn to address those needs, we can embrace Marketing Automation as a powerful ally. It takes a bit of work setting it up, but I promise, you will reap the rewards if it’s done well.
PS: There are some powerful new features in Facebook re-marketing that are beginning to rival email – it’s a complete game-changer, but I’ll leave this for another post…