Marketing automation can be pretty daunting if you haven’t already tried it. Below, I’ll give you a few ideas to get you started, but first, a quick definition: what is marketing automation?
Marketing automation refers to marketing campaigns deployed automatically, based on the behavior of a lead, contact or customer. In this sense, it’s possible to deploy e-mail or SMS campaigns automatically. Usually, the first tasks to be automated are the repetitive, low-value-added ones.
The objective in B2B marketing is often to keep a sales lead interested (lead generation) with the aim, of course, of converting them into a customer. For an existing customer, the objective may be to keep them informed, keep them captive or improve retention. The watchword, of course, is personalization!
The benefits of B2B marketing automation
- Saves time
- Eliminates repetitive tasks
- Improves interaction with your leads and contacts, and increases personalization
- Improves conversion and sales
- Optimizes customer experience
A few concrete examples
The example that often comes to mind is sending a welcome e-mail when someone subscribes to your newsletter, or a thank-you following a sale.
If we think further, it’s possible to:
- Create a series of emails sent to a lead after downloading a document
- Send a series of post-purchase emails (e.g. to educate on how to use the product or service… and lead to up-sell and/or cross-sell)
- Develop a series of e-mails for priority sales leads, based on lead scoring
- Trigger a series of e-mails when a “lead” consults specific content on your website
- Re-engagement: deploy a campaign to former customers
- In e-commerce:
- Recover abandoned baskets
- Shipping confirmation
- Post-purchase evaluation request
- …
- You name it
What is lead scoring?
Simply put, lead scoring assigns points to a lead when it takes a specific action.
For example:
- A lead downloaded my white paper: bravo: 50 points!
- A lead subscribed to my newsletter: great! 100 more points!
- Oh, that same lead wrote to my live chat to ask questions: 200 points!
He has now accumulated 350 points. It’s time to let our sales team know. Perhaps he’s ready to sit down and spit it out?
- In the customer relationship management (CRM) system, assign a task to the sales team to follow the lead on social networks.
- Send them an automatic e-mail: Would you like to make an appointment?
To begin with: make a good mapping… And not a long document.
Forget the big text-based Word document where adding even the slightest image could ruin your layout! Make a beautiful drawing instead!
Personally, when I do a mapping for a customer, I like to imagine myself as that guy, or a bit like a mad scientist:
So, before you start mapping your marketing automation, drink some strong filter coffee and take out a large sheet of paper. Let’s get started!
Prefer to work directly on screen? Here are a few tools to help you:
- LucidChart : https://www.lucidchart.com/
- Xmind : https://www.xmind.net/
And here’s an example, which is still far from the true result of a mad scientist:
It’s going to take a tool to do it
As you can see, a central element here is CRM, or at the very least the tool driving it all. To help you select a tool that will suit your needs, it’s best to start by mapping out your requirements and then store around.
Just type in the keywords “marketing automation” and you’ll see an impressive number of Google Ads. This is indeed a niche where a myriad of technological tools are available to you, each with their own strengths and advantages.
At ExoB2B and for many of our customers, Zoho CRM (see the complete Zoho suite “Zoho ONE“) is a very common choice. Other common names include Hubspot, Leadfox, Pardot…
To sum up: start by mapping your desired process, keeping in mind your key objectives. Then store around for your solution (and take the time to try out several; most offer free trials). Start with simple processes to familiarize yourself, then move on to more sophisticated ones. Don’t hesitate to ask for help if you need it. 😉
