Adam Oldfield, CEO Force24, discusses what marketing automation is and how it could change your business for the better
First of all, let’s go back to basics… What is marketing automation? Well, to put it simply, marketing automation technology automates all of your marketing tasks, communications and activities. It not only saves you valuable hours each week – by completing monotonous tasks swiftly – but it refines those marketing tasks to make them perform a hundred times better than before!
Let’s put this into some real-life examples. You have an email to send to an audience, but they’re rife with people who are from different demographics who each have individual wants, needs, and are all at completely different stages of the funnel. Some are ready to buy, some may not even know who you are! Wouldn’t it be fantastic if everyone received an email that was exactly what they were after?
Someone may be in the market for one product, and another may be after something completely different, but if both received the same boring generic email – neither would even bother opening it.
Automation can ensure recipients receive information based exactly on what they want – and this can result in a greater level of engagement and a potential colossal influx of sales from people who are now receiving relevant marketing material that’s tailored to their wants and needs.
In the saturated workplace solutions market, brands need to be going above and beyond competitors to stand out from the crowd. But how do you do that? Well, engaging with your audience should all be about targeting the right person, with the right message at the right time. This is exactly what marketing automation does.
The right person
You need to be making sure you’re actually talking to the right people, there’s no point calling or emailing someone who has zero interest in your business – it just wastes both of your time. How do we combat that? Lead scoring! But a bit more on that later…
The right message
You need to be delivering a message that’s both relevant and welcome to your recipient. Data segmentation can categorise your audience to make sure you’re sending information that is specific to them and what they want from your business. That means no more ‘generic’ batch and blast emails, this is hyper-personalised content that is tailored to the individual and, as a result, skyrockets engagement.
The right time
You have to be striking whilst the iron is hot! It goes without saying you need to be avoiding sending out emails at four a.m. (unless your customer base happens to be nocturnal!) It’s about ensuring your communications are targeting the right time for that specific customer. For example, you wouldn’t want to be sending an email advertising your product the day after someone has purchased from you!
Back to lead scoring…
Wouldn’t it be perfect if you could know exactly how interested someone was in your business before you picked up the phone or sent out an email? Welcome to lead scoring.
Lead scoring does exactly that – it measures someone’s interactions with your website by placing a physical number above every single customer’s head. That means your brand won’t be tapping into cold calls or sending emails to disinterested audiences. Think how much better the conversation goes if you know the person at the other end is ready to buy from you! NOTE: Although it’s not technically marketing automation itself, all reputable providers such as Force24 will have this included as its fundamental to getting the most out of marketing automation.
How does marketing automation technology help you stand out from the crowd?
In a saturated market, marketing technology is often the difference that separates companies. Those that work smarter with their data and communications often reap the rewards. That’s because not only are they sending better communications out, but they’re also saving time whilst doing it, providing more hours each week to focus on more ‘important’ tasks. It almost feels like cheating doesn’t it?
What we’ve discussed has barely even scratched the surface of what you get access to in a full marketing automation suite. And yet, that alone is enough to rapidly enhance your marketing not to mention building personalised microsites, form building for data capture, website IP tracking, SMS marketing, detailed reporting and analysis, and seamless CRM integration. Simply put, if you’re in the workplace solutions market and not using any of these tools on their own – or as part of a marketing automation suite – you’re missing out.
Force24 is the UK’s fastest growing marketing automation company in the UK and is taking the workplace solutions market by storm. We offer a full marketing automation suite with free unlimited training and support for life to take your brand ahead of your competitors, whilst standing by your side every step of the way. We’d be more than happy to show you a free one-to-one bespoke demo tailored to your company if you’d like to learn more.
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