Setting up mailings, generating leads, segmenting interested parties and developing creative campaigns - the tasks in marketing are varied. This can be very time-consuming, especially when dealing with broad target groups. The solution is called "marketing automation". But what exactly does this mean? And how can you ensure that communication with customers and interested parties has an individual and personal touch?
Marketing automation optimizes the entire customer cycle
Even today, there are still half-truths circulating about the topic. The fact is: It is not just a nicer name for email marketing , it does not send fruitless spam and it will not replace people in a team. Instead, marketing automation is a software technology that helps to prioritize different tasks and then run them independently. This saves marketers time, effort and budget and allows them to work much more efficiently. This is also worthwhile for small teams because they can hand over standard processes to the software and devote more time to strategic topics. As part of the technology, they can develop various automated workflows that carry out various processes almost automatically. A workflow means an automated chain of steps that are linked via an if-then logic.
Marketing Automation: Efficiency Meets Personalization
Workflows can be set up to be triggered based on a person's behavior or contact details. The following example of an online bookstore shows in which areas workflows can be established using marketing automation tools:
Lead generation: Automated processes can help with lead generation . Marketers use calls-to-action (CTAs), contact forms and landing pages for this - the process is then as follows: For example, a visitor lands on a blog post about "The Top 10 Crime Novels of 2019" from an online bookstore via organic search and finds the article interesting. To obtain more information on the topic, he clicks on the attached CTA, "Request reading samples". He is then redirected to a landing page. There he finds a form in which he enters his contact details. By filling out the form, he gains access to the reading samples of the top 10 crime novels. With the help of these building blocks, the visitor is automatically converted to a lead and ends up in the contact database along with his data.
Lead segmentation: Once in the database, leads can then be automatically sorted into lists - for example, based on the content they have downloaded, the links they have clicked on in mailings or based on demographic characteristics. Using these lists, marketers can adapt their content to their prospects much more easily, make it more helpful and distribute it in a targeted manner. For example, prospects of an online bookstore who show through their surfing behavior that they particularly like crime novels could receive different content than science fiction enthusiasts.
As soon as visitors convert to leads, they become attractive to the italy telegram data marketing team - because not every interested party is immediately convinced by a company's products or services. The aim here is to maintain and promote contact with potential customers using what is known as lead nurturing . In this case, marketing automation in the form of emails is a good option: This allows marketers to automatically send personalized emails to keep leads up to date with important updates, point them to new blog posts, or give them tips. In the example of online bookstores, crime novel lovers could receive a regular newsletter about the most popular new releases in this segment.
Lead scoring: With a lead scoring workflow, marketers can automatically classify the contacts in their database. They sort them according to their status in the customer cycle. This is achieved using a scoring system, for example by points or by certain phases in the purchasing process. The various possible behaviors of contacts are given a set number of points or they are assigned to the respective phases. If leads then show a certain behavior, they automatically receive the pre-determined number of points or are assigned to a certain phase. For example, a crime fiction enthusiast who visits an online bookstore's blog for the first time initially receives a low score. If he registers for the newsletter, the score increases. If he finally finds out about prices and shipping options, the lead is ready to be approached by sales, who can create further purchase incentives with discount vouchers, for example. In this way, the contacts can be automatically qualified for further nurturing measures and ultimately for sales. Online bookstores could offer particularly loyal fans a discounted crime fiction subscription: a new novel every month at a discount of 20 percent of the recommended retail price.