Marketing Automation
As probably the most recent element of the broader CRM ecosystem different people have different views on what this is. For some, particularly at the enterprise and large company end of the spectrum, it includes the ability to automate many of the back-office activities around campaign planning and execution. For others it is the ability to map out the lead generation and customer nurture processes and have them executed in a stream-lined way. For entrepreneurs and people runing smaller businesses, if they think of marketing automation at all it is as a way to automate many of the repetitive tasks associated with the early stages of the lead generation funnel.
Focusing on the latter situation, the ability to track the interaction of an email recipient with the communication you have sent opens up a whole new area of marketing. Knowing that someone has opened an email and clicked on a link provides the basis for immense knowledge and insight for marketing people. The ability to monitor these events, and link that to the actions you have taken provides great power. The link between cause and effect opens up many new possibilities, for those who want to invest efffort to improve the results their marketing achieves.
To expand on this, an ‘event’ could be an online registration, inquiry or information request. It might be an order, or a renewal, or even a cancellation. It might be something in your marketing calendar, although there are considerations which I’ll touch on later.
Based on these events then the communication you send is more timely. Someone registers or requests information then you don’t just fulfill that as a single response, you maybe send 2-3 other emails automatically, staggered over 2-3 days. In part these add strength to your message but also they test for a response; was your follow-up opened, did they click, did they respond to the call-to-action you made? And ideally it’s conditional; if they respond to the second email the 3rd and 4th are not generated.
As for the content being personalised, going beyond inserting the recipients name, town, last product ordered etc. there are options. For example, depending on how they progress through a process, such as inviting them to an event, or to trial another product, you can use different language, tone of voice and calls to action.
And when it comes to your marketing calendar you may target active email recipients with invitations to events, to new product launch information etc. in advance of the less active. You should get a better take-up from those actively engaged with your emails. You could the feed those statistics through to your subsequent emails, such as ‘40% of (group A) wanted information about (offer B)’.
To mention two of the established hosted solutions in this area, we are featuring the following:
This is a mature solution for SMEs who either want to start out with marketing automation in mind, or have grown beyond broadcast email systems and now want to support more focused and personal campaigns. The entry level is up to 500 contacts on the database and then costs step up in increments from there.
Another mature product, providing excellent marketing automation for slightly larger businesses, from say 1,000 emails a month. The system also provides additional functionality in the areas of CRM and e-commerce making it an extremely compreensive system ideally suited for a business which generates product sales or which has a membership base.
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