Getting started with marketing automation is a tempting prospect for any marketing director looking to perform. Indeed, sending the right message, at the right time and to the right person is the winning trio for capturing a prospect’s attention. And if this can be done automatically, it is a real dream for any marketing team managing many projects at once. But are you a little afraid to take the plunge? Webmecanik goes back over the basics and shares the five steps to put in place to get started with marketing automation. Let’s go!
First, a bit of context: marketing automation software is used to automate your communications across different channels according to the behavior of your contacts. You then know all the actions a contact will take: visiting a page on a website, opening an email, clicking a link, attending a webinar, etc. Everything is tracked in your software.
Once this data has been recorded, it’s time to act. The core of marketing automation is creating marketing scenarios based on this behavioral data. These campaigns will be designed by your teams, but carried out daily by the machine (and therefore automatically). You script the customer relationship and personalize it to the rhythm of the contact’s interactions.
Now that the scene is set, there are five essential steps to implement to get started with marketing automation.
Define your objectives
Getting started with marketing automation is an idea and becomes a reality if, as with any other project, you build it by defining objectives.
What do you hope to achieve by implementing a marketing automation strategy? Increase your sales, generate leads, build customer loyalty, get more visits to your site, encourage people to come to your store?
There are as many objectives as there are projects, and the good news is that good marketing automation software meets a wide variety of team needs. By defining your objectives precisely, this will help guide your marketing automation strategy.
Good to know: you can get help with this process. Choosing which objectives to prioritize can be intimidating, so do not hesitate to contact experts to set up your strategy.
During your first marketing automation campaign, you will need to decide on four essential elements:
- Who is your target?
- What is your objective?
- What are the steps in the journey?
- What content should be used?
> Use our template by downloading it here!
Choose a software vendor
Based on the objectives considered before starting your marketing automation strategy, you need to make a choice among all software vendors.
The main question to ask yourself before choosing your marketing automation software is the following:
> What selection criteria are important to meet my objective?
For this, you can use a template of questions to ask yourself and the vendors you consult, like this one → CTA to the RFI You can also start by asking yourself these questions:
- Is it an all-in-one solution for my email, SMS, sales notification, and pop-in campaigns?
- Do my website and connected environment allow me to use marketing automation software?
- What are the main features?
- Who trains me on the software?
- Is it possible to personalize my communications ?
- Is it possible to segment my leads?
- Will it be possible to align sales and marketing teams with this new software?
- Will it really improve the effectiveness of my campaigns?
- Will I have better monitoring of my efforts and results?
Whatever the size of your company, these priorities are fairly universal and require a certain investment to achieve results. Before contacting a software vendor, however, we recommend comparing features and prices.
Our advice: Webmecanik offers a French solution, GDPR-compliant, as well as support that companies greatly appreciate. Achieving their clients’ marketing and sales objectives is at the heart of what they do. Experienced project managers and fun training programs updated regularly allow any marketing team to more easily carry out all of its actions.
Develop a content strategy
Located at the heart of an inbound marketing tactic, content creation is essential for a successful marketing automation strategy. You must create high value-added content that makes your readers want to download it. Think of your content, called “lead magnets,” rich resources such as white papers, practical kits, templates or checklists, as content that will genuinely help your reader. They give you credibility and aim to attract the prospect like a magnet, to the point of providing you with their data (that is, their email address), to possibly register for one of your events or download a rich resource.
|
Content |
Cost |
Implementation speed |
Content effectiveness |
|
The blog |
Very inexpensive |
Long implementation time to obtain results |
Effective long-term strategy |
|
Video |
Depending on the type of video, it can be expensive |
Quick to implement (can be done in 1 week) |
Very effective if your audience is qualified |
|
The white paper |
Inexpensive, the White Paper mainly requires time |
Rather long, a White Paper must be rich and precise in terms of content |
Very effective if you want to capture leads |
|
The infographic |
Can be expensive if you use an external graphic design service. |
Very quick if you know the key figures in your sector |
Effective in the short term. It is then up to you to nurture your prospects |
|
The case study |
Very inexpensive |
This can sometimes take time if your client does not want to disclose certain information. |
Very effective reassurance element. Generally helps close a sale |
|
The podcast |
Very inexpensive, a microphone, a recorder and your expertise |
Quick to implement if you know your subject |
Effective for capturing leads |
|
The webinar |
Costly in terms of time & human resources |
Long to implement: finding the topic, writing it, reviewing it, finding a date, etc… |
The economic returns can be significant and high value-added. |
This content should then be highlighted in your marketing campaigns to move your prospect through the conversion funnel and one day convert them into loyal customers.
> See also: Repurpose your content to increase your profitability
Two campaign examples to get started with marketing automation
Any marketing automation scenario requires the marketer to apply a precise methodology that begins with four questions:
- Who is the target of this campaign?
- What is the objective of this campaign?
- What are the steps in this campaign journey?
- What content should be used for this campaign?
Once these elements have been defined, your software allows you to personalize all your campaigns. Use a template like this one to see more clearly:
A campaign can aim at acquisition or loyalty, and fits all your current objectives. Discover two campaign examples to reproduce according to your needs: B2B, B2C, physical store, participation in an event, software publisher, etc.
- For an acquisition campaign: registering for a webinar
- For a loyalty campaign: moving from a free plan to a paid plan
- For other business sectors : an e-shop, a car dealership, a sports club
> Is your use case not listed? Contact us if you have more questions.
Measure and adjust your results
Whatever your level of maturity in marketing automation, you must monitor your results from your very first campaign. Your software vendor must provide you with an account manager team as well as training to follow, enabling you to know all the software’s features and to know where the metrics are to track your results.
Analyzing and monitoring your leads’ behavior are benchmark elements to track after each marketing campaign. They enable you to know the reach of the tasks carried out. It is recommended to put KPI (Key Performance Indicators) tracking in place and possibly a scoring method before even starting your first marketing automation campaign.
Lead scoring is a system of points assigned according to your prospect’s behavior following a campaign. The higher their score, the more you can consider that your prospect is on the way to converting into a customer.
|
Attribution |
Score |
|
Critical (10-15 points) |
|
|
Submission of the free trial form or demo request |
+15 |
|
Visit and click on the pricing page |
+14 |
|
Request for a quote |
+11 |
|
Watching a customer testimonial |
+10 |
|
Important (5 – 9 points) |
Score |
|
Access to the MOFU offer (middle of the funnel) |
+9 |
|
Search for important keywords |
+8 |
|
More than 3 visits to the “Product” page |
+5 |
|
Significant activity on the website |
+5 |
|
Not negligible (1 – 4 points) |
Score |
|
Watching a webinar |
+4 |
|
Participation in a recent event (less than 30 days ago) |
+4 |
|
Downloading the ebook |
+2 |
|
Negative |
Score |
|
No participation in an event for more than 30 days |
-5 |
|
No participation in an event for more than 60 days |
-15 |
|
Visit to the “Careers” page |
-10 |
|
Unsubscribe from the newsletter |
-5 |
You will then have a clearer view of the actions to take, what is effective or not. In short, what should be continuously repeated to convert or what should be urgently abandoned.
A white paper downloaded more often than average, a webinar that received more replay requests than usual or a page visited several times, all these content-related KPIs are signs that your marketing strategy has worked or not.
By carrying out this monitoring, you will be able to discard actions that did not work (saving time!) and then focus on what works.
> Still have a few questions before getting started with marketing automation? Go here.
