Keep your Business Healthy with Marketing Automation

Last January, I decided enough was enough. It was time for me to employ the services of a personal trainer. I had been trying to get in shape by myself for years, but it just wasn't working. I went to the gym and wandered around not really sure how to use the equipment. Then I bought a treadmill and did the same running routine every day for 2 months. The results plateaued quickly. I didn't know how to target my exercises to achieve my goals. But mostly, I was simply too busy with all my other daily tasks to make time to build a good exercise routine. Enter Maggie, the Personal Trainer. I love Maggie, and I'm now seeing true results.

Marketing automation is like a personal trainer for your business. It will work with you to whip your marketing efforts into shape and keep them healthy and strong. First, let's be clear. I'm talking about true marketing automation, not just buying a list of customer leads and setting up some scheduled email blasts. I mean using software, strategy and tactics to streamline, automate, and measure marketing tasks and workflows. (Source: Marketo, "What is Marketing Automation?") It is multi-tasking at its finest, and here is why we love it!

• Handles The Grunt Work For You - It can even do it while you sleep or relax on the beach! On the most basic level, the software automates message delivery via email, social media, and other platforms. Emails can be triggered using landing pages. Blog content can be posted at the same time every week without having to sit by the computer. These efficiencies free your valuable time to focus on nurturing leads.

• Structures Your Content and Workflow - Implementing quality marketing automation requires you to develop a content and workflow strategy based on the needs and interests of your customers, all the time keeping your end goals in mind.

• Personalizes Communication For Your Target Audience - Because marketing automation software collects data on prospective customers' interests and needs, you have the ability to deliver highly personalized content. No more wasting time and money marketing to someone who was never likely to become a lead. You can also use personalized tactics by setting up a series of if/then actions. Each step in this "customer journey" builds on the previous one instead of inundating the prospect with the same information again and again.

• Builds Trust - Customers will no longer run and hide from you. Instead of finding clogged inboxes with over-generalized emails, they now are engaging through social media, blog content and targeted emails that address specific interests. Also the customer can depend on getting the right information at the right time. For example, a new article posts to the blog on your website every Monday morning. The customer knows he can read new, interesting content the same time every week. That trust is a building block for nurturing and converting a lead to a sale.

• Promotes Communication Between Marketing and Sales Teams - Sales does not own the customer, and marketing does not own the data. Successful marketing automation implementation requires input from both your sales and marketing professionals to develop the target customer persona and the content and workflow strategy. Both teams will use the data that the software provides as well.

So What?

We love marketing automation because it makes us better at our jobs. It streamlines processes while producing valuable data that helps us create remarkable content. Just like a personal trainer, market automation teaches you how to do the heavy lifting and run the race so that you can cross the finish line without faling down along the way.

  Photo courtesy of Curtic Mac Newton at Unsplash.com