How to Communicate via Marketing Automation Tools

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If you’re a marketing professional in today’s society, you have to be on alert for the 24/7 news and purchasing cycle. Wouldn’t it be amazing to have the help of your own marketing fairy godmother to tell you when the glass slipper fits and to dress up your marketing initiatives when you need it the most?

That is what marketing automation can do for your daily activities and overall business goals and objectives. Whether you are a communications pro for a large corporation or a small business owner just trying to keep your brand afloat, how can marketing automation help you?

First, we’ll explain what marketing automation is and how it relates to the business and communications world today.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation, in essence, makes your communications job easier and more efficient. You may have already heard of it, especially if you’re a expert in the communications field. How can you get past the buzz word of “marketing automation” to use it in your own workplace? With the use of software, you can automate your daily tasks, giving you more time to focus on other important and pressing goals at hand. These tasks can include social media posts on a variety of platforms, eNewsletters, emails, website actions and more. It’s much more than just programming a bot to respond to your social media posts when you’re unavailable to do so. How can you implement a successful marketing automation plan for your brand or business? Here are a few ways you can start small and work your way to the top of the process:

Realize that Marketing Automation isn’t the Sole Answer. It’s just a Piece of the Communications Puzzle

It’s every marketer’s dream to unleash a strategic tactic and watch the efforts go viral, whether it is the beginning of a new meme craze, a YouTube video or a Facebook post that has been shared thousands of times. When starting your own marketing automation practices, remember that marketing automation doesn’t do the work for you. Often, you have to set up the algorithms and other items behind the scenes before it starts working efficiently.

Build Excellent Content and Treat your Consumers like Actual People

The pinnacle of marketing anything is to build relevant, strong content for your consumers. That could be in a storytelling aspect, such as providing product testimonials or sharing a customer’s path to finding your product. It could be though graphics on Facebook, a Snapchat filter, or a video story on Twitter or Instagram. It could also be in a comprehensive format, such as a website page, blog post or eNewsletter emailed to your target audiences. Make your messages as real to your audiences as possible. After all, that will be a selling point to get them to read your posts, watch your videos and share content from you on their own personal and business pages.

Questions to Ask Before You Start Marketing Automation

If you have already started the brainstorming process in order to maximize your current sales leads through your company’s communications, you may want to ask yourself the following questions about your business:

    • Have you outreached to your audiences to know which messages they resonate with and prefer?

 

    • Have you spoken with key stakeholders within your company to see what will work and won’t work with internal and external audiences?

 

    • Have you worked on and created a content/marketing strategy for your business, including tasks that could be automated?

 

    • Do you have an idea of your company’s digital presence, and do you keep track of it on a regular basis (either monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, etc.)?

 

    • Do you know your leads and what you want to achieve? Are you getting new leads on a regular basis?

 

  • Have you created “buyer profiles” and know your audiences through and through?

Once you answer these questions and more, you will be more ready to try marketing automation techniques for yourself.

Implementing Marketing Automation

So, you have decided that marketing automation is a route you want to navigate through. Where do you start? Here is a list of marketing automation tools you can use, no matter the size of your company, brand or cause:

Learn How to Attract your Visitors

How can you convince your current supporters and new leads to purchase your product or buy in to your cause? Learn how to attract them. Talk with them on a one-to-one basis, use focus groups, send out surveys, assess their buying behaviors and other trends using third-party marketing applications. Delve into your SEO keywords and build your digital presence. Make sure your website and social media accounts can effectively communicate back and forth with each other to provide necessary information for your marketing purposes.

Start Thinking About your Conversion Rates

If you’re posting about a new bronzer palette or pair of shoes on a social media outlet, then you’ll want to tell your consumers where they can purchase your new product. One way to do that is to link to your website (or eStore) where the product is available. Create clear calls to action that lead to concise landing pages. Provide forms on the landing page (such as “Create An Account” or “Sign Up For Our Monthly Newsletter”). This will allow you to begin collecting names, contact information and more that will generate more leads for your business.

Close the Deal with your Leads.

This is where communications tactics are the king or queen of your marketing arsenal. Communicate based on what attracts your visitors via email, social media and more. Know where your leads come from and how to best reach out to a lead or potential lead. You may also chose to use a marketing automation software to work alongside your efforts and keep track of CRMs, ROI and more.

All of these strategic efforts, as well as ones tailored to your specific business, will help you begin to implement marketing automation in your own markets.

Cliff Lin

Cliff Lin

Internet Marketer
Cliff is an Internet Marketing guru with extensive experience in ecommerce and internet marketing roles. He has solid small business background, successful ecommerce experience, and internet marketing expertise. He is capable of implementing the latest interactive marketing tools for company, as well as backend information systems to maximize efficiency.