This year, marketing automation is in vogue and is often talked about as one of the exciting new trends in the world of marketing, but what is it exactly? And how do you create a successful strategy?
We will answer all your questions in this article! Additionally, since our mission is to help you be successful, we will teach you how to create your campaign using the industry’s best practices in 4 simple steps.
Are you ready to revolutionize the way you do marketing? Let’s go!
If you aren’t familiar with marketing automation, we strongly recommend that you read the last article about the 4 marketing concepts to master before beginning your campaign.
Simply defined, marketing automation is the means by which certain marketing actions are automated in order to communicate the right message, to the right customer, at the right time. In general, recurring, time-consuming tasks are automated to gain efficiency and productivity. Marketing automation is a strategy that helps execute, manage and automate multiple marketing tactics and communications. Using powerful tools, marketing automation replaces your manual, repetitive sales processes with automatic processes that are personalized for each of your potential customers. It’s also an ideal tool to collect as many qualified leads as possible.
By following this winning recipe, you will be able to automate your marketing and thereby generate more qualified leads, while reducing the amount of time you spend doing so.Now, here is the complete procedure to set up your marketing automation campaign.
Tools required for this step: Marketing automation softwareTo create a marketing automation campaign, you will need to use software that enables you to collect your leads’ information, but also to re-contact them at a later date.Here is an exhaustive list of the tools you will need for your campaign:
✓ Intelligent pop-up builder and manager
✓ Landing page builder and manager
✓ Web banners builder and manager
✓ Automated email builder and manager✓ Email builder and manager
✓ A/B test function
✓ A dashboard
✓ Detailed report and KPIs
✓ CRM
Each step below explains how these tools work and how to use them. There is specialized software for some of them, but we recommend using all-in-one marketing automation software to avoid having information scattered throughout multiple software, and also to save money because the cumulative cost of various software can become expensive.
Tools required for this step:
✓ Intelligent pop-up builder and manager
✓ Landing page builder and manager
✓ Web banners builder and manager
Once you have chosen your software, you will then have access to tools you can use to capture your leads’ information. In this step, the tools used to capture your leads are the pop-up, the form, the landing page and the banner.
Use this to place offers strategically on your website; it takes less than two minutes to set up. Just select the URL where you want the offer to appear and the visitor will receive your offer instantly by clicking on your link.
You can offer your visitor:
This will ensure your obtain, at minimum, their first name and email address.Here are the best practices to consider when creating your pop-up:
Here are examples of effective pop-ups to give you some inspiration:
The offer is clear and has a value proposition ($), the CTA stands out and is enticing, and there is a short persuasive text.
Click here for more information about pop-ups.
You can create contextual banners that you can place anywhere on your website at your leisure. These banners will be linked to a landing page that also serves a leads capture page. By clicking on your banner, your visitor will be redirected to a landing page that provides and offer related to the information on your banner.
This is the page where you want your visitor to arrive after clicking on your contextual banner. The unique goal of this page is to convert the visitor into a lead by encouraging them to provide their information in exchange for something in return.
Those landing page contains some best practices that you need to know to create effective landing pages. Here is a summary of the best practices:
For more information about landing pages, click here!
Despite what you may think, it’s really very simple to design all the tools presented above. In fact, with LeadFox, you will get pre-designed templates and you can use the software’s drag and drop functionality to insert your elements and place them wherever you wish. Click here for more information about LeadFox.
Now that you know about the main tools used to collect leads, let’s learn how you can convert these leads into customers.
Tools required for this step:
✓ Automated email builder and manager
✓ Email builder and manager
✓ CRM
Using your capture tools, you have now collected information about your leads, including their email addresses. You can continue to send them offers and content via emails or newsletters, and yes - your marketing automation software can handle this too. You should know that an email campaign is the tool providing the best ROI for the cost, which is low when compared to its high effectiveness. However, there are also a few best practices to consider.
As its name indicates, this tool enables you to completely automate your marketing emails! Create smart sales funnels by sending the right emails to the right people and convert your leads into customers! You are only limited by your creativity!
With automated emails, you can also:
✓ Personalize your emails with your lead’s first name
✓ Provides information and additional offers✓ Use conditions and actions to segment your lists✓ Choose the frequency
✓ Make your leads advance through the conversion funnel
✓ Remove your lead from the automation once they have converted
✓ Create a series of emails based on the offer in order to personalize the message
Relevant, targeted emails generate 10X more revenue than mass emails. (Jupiter Research)
Gone are the days of mass emailing and personalization now reigns as king! You can use your marketing automation software to create smart lists and to segment your customers.
Result: You can send personalized communication that is adapted to each contact.Here are the main variables you can control when creating your automation:
In addition to your automated email campaigns, sending newsletters on a regular basis is also suggested.This enables you to:
By using marketing automation software, you get access to templates to create your newsletter.Here are the best practices when creating newsletters:
Here are some examples to give you some inspiration:
Tools required for this step:
✓ A/B test function
✓ A dashboard
✓ Detailed report and KPIs
Now your marketing automation strategy is in place! Your leads capture tools will save leads in an email database that you can later solicit by launching campaigns.
One of digital marketing’s greatest strengths is that you can observe your campaign’s results in real time. You can then tweak your conversion tools to maximize your results. This is a crucial element to increase your performance, so be sure not to neglect it.
Use the A/B tests function to simultaneously launch an alternate version of the same landing page, pop-up or an email. Internet users will see one of the versions that you have created. Then, by analyzing the data in your dashboard, you can draw conclusions and do an analysis by comparing the results and then choosing the most effective version with a simple click.
By using marketing automation software, you can analyze your performance indicators and see the results of your investment in real time. Here are the main elements to which you have access:
✓ The number of sessions: Total number of visitors (new and returning)
✓ The conversion rate: Total number of conversions through your leads capture tools
✓ The number of leads
✓ The number of customers
✓ The opening rate: How many contacts out of 100 open your emails, on average
✓ The click rate: How many contacts out of 100 open your emails and then click your link
✓ The conversion rate: How many contacts out of 100 download your offer
Now you know the A-Zs of how to create and optimize your marketing automation campaign. By following this recipe, you will be able to perform and reach your objectives!
To get access to all the tools and features presented in this article, we recommend LeadFox’s easy-to-use, all-in-one marketing automation software. You can try it completely for free by clicking here.
References:
Hubspot: https://blog.hubspot.fr/marketing-automation-avantages?_ga=1.96006040.524624852.1483641082
Le Journal du Community Manager: https://www.journalducm.com/2016/11/29/le-marketing-automation-13339/
Quick Sprout Blog by Neil Patel
https://www.quicksprout.com/the-definitive-guide-to-marketing-automation-chapter-1/
