Thanks to the advances in cutting-edge technology, automation has become a norm. It acts as the main vehicle transforming marketing strategies and inbound methodologies of today.
Years of industry practice prove it’s no fad but a process that makes our lives easier and saves a lot of resources. We can deliver the right messages/content to the right audience at the most suitable time.
Overall, this smart approach brings consistent results without overloading your team members. So, let’s take a deeper dive into specific reasons that make automation an absolute must.
1. Opportunity to save resources
A manual email workflow is a time-consuming proposition.
Among other things, you have to create, schedule, and send emails to your list. And if you’re juggling 100 different recipients, merely adding their name can be an ordeal.
The good news is automaton ditches various outdated techniques, such as cold calls.
Not only that, but it spares most of the routine and repetitive tasks. You can set campaigns up weeks in advance and then forget about them. There’s just an incurring monthly cost of the software to worry about. The amount of human intervention required is minimal.
The real beauty of automation is you can free up your schedule and focus on other priorities, which are of a more creative and strategic nature.
2. Email personalization
One common misconception floating around is that automation forces you to lose your personal touch.
The truth is this process serves as a driving force behind advanced personalization and customization. These best practices allow you to tailor emails to the needs of an audience on a large scale.
And let’s face it, blast emails no longer yield results. In fact, most of them end up in spam folders or annoy prospects to the point of unsubscribing.
On the other hand, a customized email has a higher click-through and open rate. Even a personalized subject line does the trick in most cases. Of course, you should go the extra mile whenever you can.
Strive to deliver useful resources and information to the audience. They can take the form of special promotions, quality content, and event-based messages.
The latter campaigns revolve around preset triggers for special dates such as birthdays and anniversaries. You show customers you truly care about them and cherish their loyalty.
Therefore, any way you slice it, personalization is a clear win-win. Just keep your CRM system databases and email lists up-to-date to populate the personalization fields.
3. Precision targeting
Accurate targeting is one of the leading value propositions of automation.
For instance, drip email campaigns engage people at regular intervals and are based on particular criteria.
They may reflect the stage of the buyer’s journey they’re in, demographic data, or other detail. Your main objective (and the key to improving marketing performance) is to make sure your emails are contextual and relevant.
Segmenting the email list is the best methodology to achieve this.
In case of an advanced indicator like lead score, you arrange recipients in the order of “coldness” and “hotness”. To calculate it, take into account past email activity, engagement, location, interests, etc.
Bear in mind as well that automation platforms hold plenty of recommendations on setting up your campaigns. They aid you in picking the optimal email quantity, frequency, and timing.
4. Positive impact on sales
When people learn more about what you have to say and offer, they’re more receptive to your sales pitches.
Namely, automated email workflows set the stage for your sales team to jump in. They work wonders in terms of nurturing leads because they engage people and add value to their lives.
In addition to this, automaton empowers your sales staff in other ways. Email workflow platforms can send internal alerts whenever a recipient makes a specific action. This action can be anything from completing a demo to submitting personal information.
The alert prompts salespeople to pick up the phone and work their magic. Their responsiveness and effectiveness are taken to the next level, and they’re able to pursue the juiciest prospects too.
5. Ongoing fine-tuning
Data-driven processes facilitate continuous campaign revision and optimization.
If you run into a wall, you can adjust your approach without derailing the whole project.
Most notably, it’s easy to track KPIs. The most common ones are:
- Open rate
- Click-through rate
- Delivery rate
- Unsubscribe rate
They either show you you’re on the right track or act as red flags.
Furthermore, automation encourages you to conduct A/B testing to determine which version of a campaign will likely spur the best results. You can decide to send different versions to different segments of the email list.
For example, it’s possible to refine emails and figure out the best subject lines and CTAs. This is a surefire method to elevate your effectiveness and conversion rates, as well as your marketing ROI.
6. Exceptional accessibility
You don’t have to be a software guru to put automation platforms to good use.
Even people who aren’t overly tech-savvy can get the ball rolling nice and easy. Today’s leading tools come with many user-friendly features, great functionality, and minimal learning curve.
Thus, it’s not like you have to invest a lot of time and money in implementing this technology.
With that in mind, do your homework and make sure the solution addresses your needs. Prioritize reporting capabilities, automatic contact adding options, scheduling, advanced communication sequences, integrations, and statistics.
You probably can’t go wrong with market juggernauts such as HubSpot and MailChimp. That being said, there are many other, more specialized solutions worth considering.
It’s high time to do away with manual work and expensive supervision.
Automation greatness is within grasp
Automation software is an essential part of the marketing tech stack.
It extends the reach of your campaigns and amplifies your messages. You can go to great lengths to personalize emails without going out of your way to do so.
As an added bonus, you have a chance to avoid the resource-sapping mundane and technical activities.
However, to do it right, you have to plan ahead of time to implement this practice. Start by setting up a sound budget and your strategic objectives.
Pull all the necessary data from the CRM platform or external sources. Divide your email list into small segments and target accordingly. Seek to blend mass-scale with a high level of customization.
These steps should enable you to nurture long-term relationships and keep your brand top of the mind. So, do yourself a favor: supercharge your email campaigns and let automation technology do the heavy lifting.
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