Essentials of a Winning Marketing Automation Strategy (A Complete Guide)

In the digital world, a successful marketing automation strategy is critical to growth. This strategy is a blend of clearly defined goals, understanding your ideal customer, and creating engaging content. It involves using the right tools, careful planning, and implementing best practices-not only to convert leads into customers, but also to ensure their journey is optimized for satisfaction. 

Let’s dive into the essentials of creating and executing a standout marketing automation strategy.

In this article

What Is a Marketing Automation Strategy?

A marketing automation strategy is a plan that relies on software to automate repetitive marketing efforts. This includes email marketing, social media marketing, lead generation, and other tasks that we will explore later in this post. As you can imagine, this has a huge impact on your marketing team, as it allows them to focus on other important tasks that will bring great benefits to your business.

This automation plan is designed to help your organization streamline your marketing efforts and optimize your campaigns with personalized content tailored to the interests and needs of your customers and prospects.

With this in mind, and knowing that marketing automation is about understanding your customer’s journey and tailoring your services based on their behavior, we can say that a well-designed and implemented marketing automation strategy will help you:

• Improve efficiency
• Increase revenue
• Build customer loyalty
• Improve customer engagement.

Why Implement a Marketing Automation Strategy?

Implementing a marketing automation strategy brings great benefits to your business. For starters, it’s a great way to save time and improve your team’s efficiency by automating repetitive tasks like sending emails or updating customer information. But it doesn’t stop there. 

It has the potential to increase conversion rates and customer retention. With a structured approach, your company can deliver consistent, relevant content that resonates with your audience at every touchpoint of the buying journey. 

Implementing marketing automation can improve team satisfaction and reduce stress among marketers, contributing to a healthier work environment. At the same time, it helps improve lead management by automating processes such as lead scoring and distribution, thereby accelerating the sales cycle.

If that’s not enough, according to a survey conducted by Liana Technologies, marketers agree that the top benefits of implementing marketing automation include

1. Improved message targeting
2. Improved customer experience
3. Better lead quality
4. More revenue
5. Improved efficiency / ROI

But to realize these benefits, it’s critical to use the right tools and ensure they integrate well with your existing systems. Successful implementation also requires a clear understanding of your audience and the creation of engaging, personalized content.

Common Barriers to Marketing Automation Adoption

That said, it’s important that we take a quick look at the most common barriers companies face when implementing a marketing automation strategy. This will help you better prepare yourself and your marketing team to implement automation tools and processes.

1. Software adoption: While software is designed to help you improve your marketing results, it takes time and resources to learn how to implement it and get the most out of it. Make sure you choose a vendor that provides complete onboarding and ongoing support throughout your contract.
2. Email deliverability: The overall health of your email account is a key factor that directly impacts your campaign results. Make sure your team understands these concepts and is fully aware of the best practices that will help you maintain overall health, including deliverability, click-through rate, ROI and more.
3. Metrics and Nanalytics: Marketers often complain about how difficult it is to monitor and track performance in automation tools. Most of them require you to manually set up your metrics. This is especially complicated when you are managing multiple campaigns, channels, etc. So before your team runs into this problem, make sure you list all the KPIs you want to monitor closely so you know how close you are to achieving your goals. 

With that in mind, let’s continue to explore the different elements and actions that will help you succeed in implementing a marketing automation strategy.

Key Components of Marketing Automation

When we talk about marketing automation, it’s important to understand that it can be used in a variety of ways. Let’s take a closer look at the most commonly used by marketing teams and businesses, as they have a direct impact on your path to success.

Automated Email Strategies

Automated email strategies play a key role in any marketing automation strategy. They provide a direct line of communication to your customers, enabling personalized interaction at scale. The key to effective email automation is trigger-based messaging. In other words, sending the right email to the right person at the right time.

To start, you need to identify the specific needs of your audience at each stage of their buying journey. Then create targeted emails that address those needs. Using segmentation based on engagement data and analytics can help guide customers through their journey with targeted offers at key decision points.

Testing and optimization are also critical. Consider A/B testing your emails to understand what works best for your audience. Monitor the progress of your email automation workflow and continually optimize for better results.

Remember, while email automation can be powerful, it’s important to avoid oversaturating your audience with irrelevant emails. Finding the right balance is key to maintaining engagement without creating email fatigue.

Content Strategies in Automation

Content is at the heart of any successful marketing automation strategy. Automating the process of creating, managing, and distributing content can dramatically increase the effectiveness of your strategy.

Content automation has two main benefits. First, it helps you reduce human error and ensure consistency in your marketing messages. Second, it saves time and resources by automating repetitive tasks, such as scheduling social media posts or creating personalized email campaigns.

To take advantage of content automation, however, it’s critical to have a well-defined content strategy. This includes understanding your audience, identifying their needs, and creating content that addresses those needs at different stages of their journey.

Some key considerations to keep in mind when developing your content strategy for automation include:

• Personalization: Leverage data from your CRM and other sources to create personalized content that resonates with your audience.
• Relevance: Make sure your content is aligned with where your prospects are in the sales funnel.
• Consistency: Maintain a consistent brand voice and message across all automated content.
• Analytics: Track key metrics such as engagement and conversion rates to measure the effectiveness of your content and optimize it based on insights.

Remember, the content you automate should still maintain a high level of quality and relevance. It’s not about replacing human creativity, it’s about augmenting it with technology to reach your audience more effectively.

CRM Integration in Automation

Integrating a customer relationship management (CRM) system into your marketing automation strategy is an essential aspect of increasing efficiency and effectiveness. 

A CRM system provides a central location for customer data, creating a complete picture of customer interactions. This integration allows for

• Leverage real-time data and automate task execution, increasing the personalization and relevance of your marketing initiatives.
• Lead management and follow-up strategies.
• Personalized communications and maximized marketing campaign effectiveness.
• Powerful metrics for measuring the impact of marketing strategies, such as conversion rates and customer engagement.

And to help you bridge the data gaps between different tools, you can maintain consistent and accurate data. This enables better collaboration, forecasting, and support, resulting in improved business performance.

Marketing Automation Tools and Platforms

Marketing automation cannot happen without the support of purpose-built tools. A quick Google search will show you a vast array of options. Choosing among them is not easy. There are many elements to consider, including functionality, pricing, ROI, and more. Here’s more detail on what to look for in the tools you’re considering for your company.

Choosing the Right Tools for Your Business

Choosing the right tools for your business is a critical step in implementing a marketing automation strategy.

Here are some key aspects to consider:

• Scalability: The tool you choose should be able to grow and evolve with your business.
• Ease of use: An easy-to-use interface can significantly increase productivity and efficiency.
• Support and training: The support and training provided by the vendor can also be beneficial, especially for brands new to marketing automation.
• Audience segmentation: A feature that allows you to effectively target your audience and increase conversion rates.
• Integration with your CRM system: This ensures that customer data is consistent and accurate across platforms, which is key to effective personalization and relevance in marketing initiatives.

You also need to consider pricing. You don’t want to commit to a tool, have your team learn how to use it, and then not be able to afford it.

Examples of Effective Tools for Automation

We said it before, there are many effective tools and platforms that can be used for marketing automation. These tools offer different features to suit different needs and business sizes. It’s important to choose one that fits your business needs and budget. 

That said, here’s a quick rundown of what we consider to be the best options out there:

HubSpot Marketing Automation

HubSpotis known for its powerful features and positive customer sentiment. Some of its best features include its ease of use, integration with HubSpot CRM and CMS, and analytics. However, it’s worth noting that many of its applications (such as omnichannel automation) require you to pay for upgrades, making the tool very expensive.

Salesforce Pardot

Pardot, part of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, is a powerful B2B marketing automation tool. It’s designed to improve sales and marketing alignment, generate leads, and provide deep insight into marketing performance. And to let you track and convert visitors, use criteria-based automation, score and qualify prospects, launch customizable email and SMS campaigns, and segment your contacts. It’s monthly cost varies depending on the number of features you choose.

Keap

Keap, formerly known as Infusionsoft, is a CRM and marketing automation software designed primarily for small businesses and entrepreneurs. It offers a suite of tools for managing customer relationships, sales processes, and marketing campaigns. It’s designed to help you optimize your email campaigns, workflows, and landing pages. It also comes with a library of pre-built templates.

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is one of the best options on the market today. It offers predictive email scheduling and AI-powered email content generation. While still allowing you to add the human touch to your communication and engagement with prospects. It’s compatible with WooCommerce, Shopify, and BigCommerce, making it a great choice for ecommerce businesses.

Mailchimp

Mailchimpis a solid, budget-friendly option. It was originally designed as an email marketing tool, but has been able to adapt to the needs of its customers by adding marketing automation features.  It’s especially good for teams trying email automation for the first time, as it’s not as expensive as the other options mentioned above.

Remember, the effectiveness of a tool depends largely on how it aligns with your specific business needs and goals.

How to Create a Marketing Automation Strategy?

At this point, you are probably excited about implementing a marketing automation strategy in your organization. But stay with us a little longer. We at Sortlist are here to make this process easier for you. 

We have taken the time to clearly list all the steps you need to take for a proper design and implementation process. Please note that they are written in the order you should follow.

Remember to take the time and budget needed for this plan. Implementing marketing automation correctly will have a direct and positive impact on your sales and marketing numbers.

Define Clear Objectives

Setting clear goals is the foundation of your marketing automation strategy. These goals should be aligned with your overall business objectives and be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). 

Most often, companies set goals such as increasing lead generation, improving conversion rates, increasing customer retention, or improving customer engagement. Good examples of SMART marketing automation goals include

• Reduce advertising costs by 5% within 6 months.
• Generate 25% more sales-qualified leads in the next email campaign.
• Increase monthly revenue by 10% in the next quarter.
• Reduce the average sales cycle by 25% in the next 3 months.

When deciding which ones to work with, make sure you have the appropriate key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success. For example, if your goal is to increase lead generation, your KPI could be the number of new leads acquired per month. 

By setting clear goals, you can effectively align your marketing automation strategy with your desired outcomes.

Choose the Right Marketing Automation Software

We’ve said it before, it’s imperative that you work with a marketing automation tool. It will be responsible for taking over many of the repetitive tasks your team does on a regular basis, and for delivering targeted campaigns to your prospects’ interests.

Deciding which tool to use is an important step in designing and implementing your marketing automation strategy. Use the suggestions we shared earlier in this post (scalability, ease of use, support and training, audience segmentation, integration with your CRM) to make this process easier for your organization.

Remember, you want to stick with a tool that fits your business needs and is affordable over the long term. Committing to such software means that your team will spend time learning how to use it and understanding the different features it offers.

Map Your Customer Journey 

Mapping the customer journey involves identifying the touchpoints and interactions your customers have with your organization, from initial awareness to post-purchase support. The journey map should be accessible to all teams and promote a customer-centric approach across business functions.

Typically, a customer journey consists of 5 stages:

1. Awareness
2. Consideration
3. Purchase
4. Retention
5. Advocacy

But it’s up to you to understand your prospects’ behaviors and sentiments at each stage, as well as the barriers they face to becoming customers. Knowing these details makes it easier to create communications and content that will keep people engaged.

In other words, mapping the customer journey helps you to:

1. Visualize the entire customer experience.
2. Identify opportunities for personalization.
3. Identify repetitive tasks that can be automated.

Consider creating buyer personas for each of your typical customer groups. This will help you understand their needs and preferences so you can tailor your automation strategy accordingly.

Create a Content Calendar for Automated Campaigns

A content calendar is an important step in your marketing automation plan. It’s all about scheduling your content according to your defined goals and customer journey. It provides a visual representation of your content strategy and gives a clear overview of upcoming content and key dates.

To work with an effective content calendar, be sure to include:

1. Content themes and topics: Align these with your target audience’s interests and your business goals
2. Content formats: Blog posts, emails, social media posts, etc.
3. Distribution channels: Decide where each piece of content will be published.
4. Dates: When each piece of content will be published.
5. Responsibility: Who is responsible for creating and publishing each piece.

A word of advice: Consider scheduling your content around major events and holidays throughout the year, and update your calendar regularly as your strategy evolves. 

Deliver Personalized Content

Today, people are constantly bombarded by companies trying to get their attention. The key to being successful is to deliver content that’s personalized to their stage in the buyer’s journey, their needs, and their interests. 

By doing so, you will not only be able to draw their attention to your brand, but you will also have a higher chance of turning that initial interaction into a long, meaningful, and loyal relationship. 

But how do you deliver personalized content? You need to segment your audience based on common characteristics such as demographics, contextual data, or behavior. This will help you align your marketing strategy with user behavior and cater to their needs and interests.

You also need to make sure you are implementing an omnichannel approach that ensures your users have a consistent experience across all channels they use to communicate with your brand. It also ensures that content is delivered consistently across all platforms and according to the user’s stage in the buyer’s journey.

Set up Automated Workflows

Automated workflows are a key piece of the puzzle. They are responsible for delivering tailored messages in a timely manner to every user who interacts with your brand. 

It’s important to set up different automated workflows to meet the needs of each type of user who engages with you. For example, you may need

1. Onboarding workflow that provides tips and important information to new customers.
2. Abandoned cart workflow that reminds prospects to check out.
3. Lead nurturing workflow with emails and insights that encourage them to take action and become customers.
4. Workflow to re-engage customers who have purchased from your brand in the past.
5. A/B testing newsletter workflow to determine which version of your emails perform best.
6. Order follow-up workflow to keep your new customers engaged and get feedback.
7. Page visit follow-up workflow to engage with users who visit your site and encourage them to take action. 

There are many options you can create. Just make sure that any automated workflow delivers insightful and value-driven information. You want to nurture every user who engages with your brand, make them feel heard and special, and turn them into brand ambassadors.

Monitor and Analyze Your Results

Finally, your team needs to monitor performance, track KPIs, and analyze results. This is the only way to fully understand whether your marketing automation efforts are paying off and helping your business achieve its goals. 

While KPIs will vary depending on your specific plan, some of the most common include:

1. Open rate: The percentage of people who opened your emails.
2. Click-through rate: Percentage of people who clicked on a link or button in your emails.
3. Conversion rate: Percentage of people who took the suggested action: filled out a form, signed up, subscribed, registered, purchased, etc.
4. Bounce rate: Percentage of emails that weren’t delivered.
5. Unsubscribe rate: Percentage of people who have unsubscribed from your database.
6. Return on Investment (ROI): Revenue generated by the campaign compared to the cost of running it.

Most of these metrics are provided by your marketing automation platform. Just make sure your team is monitoring them closely so you can make informed decisions to improve performance.

How to Implement Marketing Automation? – Tips to Improve Your Strategy

In your quest for effective marketing automation, it’s easy to fall into pitfalls that can hinder the success of your strategy. Lack of planning and strategy often leads to underutilization of automation tools. That’s why it’s important to have a well-defined plan that aligns with your business goals.

So how do you avoid the most common pitfalls?

Don’t be intimidated by all the options

When it comes to getting started with marketing automation, you can get a little lost with all the options. Set up lead nurturing workflows, segment your contacts into different lists, run A/B testing campaigns, and many other features that come with the marketing automation platform you subscribe to. 

But not to worry. Many have felt the same way. Just take a deep breath and focus on getting started one step at a time. Try adding contacts to your system, creating a contact form, and creating the email template that users will receive. 

The same process repeats itself every time you want to set up a lead generation campaign. Then it’s just a matter of spending time creating email campaigns that nurture those leads and get them to take action. Once you are comfortable with this, you can try running A/B tests and interpreting the results.

Spend time getting to know your marketing automation software and its features. The more comfortable you are, the easier it will be to get the most out of it. 

Work with a clear inbound strategy

Everything in marketing needs a strategy behind it to work. A strategy that defines the goals, actions, responsibilities, tools and methods that will be implemented. Marketing automation is no different. Don’t try it for fun. Take the time to clearly define what you want to accomplish and how you plan to do it.

This will not only save you time, but will help you track and analyze results. With a plan or strategy in place, it will be easier for you to understand if what you are doing is actually working or hurting your business, and why.

Follow the steps we outlined earlier in this article. They are based on years of experience implementing such plans.

Work with clearly defined goals

A common mistake made by companies in a rush to implement marketing automation is working without goals, but you want to avoid this at all costs. Start by defining a clear set of SMART goals and tie them to KPIs that will help you understand if your efforts are paying off or if you need to tweak your efforts to achieve them. 

These goals will also help your team stay focused and keep campaigns running smoothly. Plus, they are key to answering questions like

• Are you on track to meet your sales goals?
• Is lead growth lagging behind expectations?
• Should we be promoting our events or our blogs more?
• Is the percentage of marketing leads that convert to sales leads adequate?

In marketing, as in business, goals are a key component of success.

Deliver relevant content and a personalized experience

Having thousands of contacts in a database is useless if you don’t segment them by demographics, stage in the buyer’s journey, interests, or other factors. It’s this segmentation process that will help you deliver a personalized experience tailored to their needs and interests. An experience that adds value and makes them feel more comfortable buying from your brand.

So avoid adding random contacts to your lists just to reach a broader audience. Find relevant information about them and use it to create a personalized experience.

How to Plan Marketing Automation? Templates to Get Your Automation Projects Started

While most marketing automation workflows vary from company to company, there are situations that are common to all: Welcoming a new subscriber, recovering abandoned carts, confirming orders, etc.

For these situations, you can rely on existing templates to help you get started. 

Let’s take a closer look at four of them.

New Subscriber Workflow

1. Welcome email that highlights a key feature of your business
2. Wait a few days, if user does not make a purchase, send a second email asking them to do something on your site that is not necessary to buy.
3. Wait a few days, if they still haven’t bought anything, send a third email highlighting a benefit of your products/business.
4. If after a few days they still have not taken action, then show them how they can save money with you via email.

Keep in mind that the content of the emails will vary depending on your type of business and end goals.

Abandoned Cart Workflow

1. After 1 day, if the user has not purchased the products in the shopping cart, send an email reminder and an SMS. Make sure you include details about the products, special offer or anything that will entice them to take action.
2. If the product is still in the cart after a few days, send them a WhatsApp message.
3. If they still haven’t bought it after 1 day, send them a final email reminder with details explaining how to buy the product.
4. For those who click on one of your emails but don’t complete the purchase, you can send an email and SMS with a discount coupon. 

You can enable web and app push notifications to increase your chances of converting them into customers.

Lead Nurturing Workflow

1. When a lead enters your database, send them an email about your company.
2. For those who open/click your email a day later, send them a second email explaining your product features.
3. For those who click on your email, assign yourself the task of calling them.

Purchase Confirmation and Follow-up Workflow

1. When a customer buys one of your products, send them an email and SMS confirming their purchase.
2. 5 days after they received it, send them an email asking for a quick review and offering them a discount coupon.

The number of steps in each automation workflow will vary depending on the situation. Just make sure you don’t spam them with useless information.

B2B Marketing and Automation

VMarketing automation sounds exciting and futuristic. But how are companies actually using it? Does it really work? Are marketing teams benefiting, or are they just struggling to learn how to use new software?

Let’s explore how B2B companies are implementing it and some of their best practices. We know they’ll all come in handy when you start planning for marketing automation.

B2B Best Practices in Marketing Automation

In B2B marketing, automation is a powerful tool for nurturing leads and driving conversions. Companies of all sizes and locations have adopted it and are reaping the many benefits. Let’s take a look at some best practices for optimizing your automation strategy:

• Trigger-based messaging: Use software like EngageBay to send proactive messages based on specific triggers, such as when a visitor lands on your homepage or downloads a piece of content.
• Lead scoring: Implement a scoring system to quantify the value of leads based on engagement factors such as pages visited, emails opened, and content downloaded. This helps you prioritize leads and personalize follow-up efforts.
• Continuous learning and experimentation: The marketing landscape is constantly evolving. Stay ahead of the curve by seeking out new knowledge, attending industry events, and experimenting with different strategies.
• Social media automation: Keep your target audience engaged across social media platforms. Choose automation tools that let you schedule posts, monitor brand mentions, and analyze engagement metrics.
• Experience automation: Use tools like Marketo Engage to nurture your audience and measure engagement throughout the buyer’s journey. Offering customized content that feels personal can increase the effectiveness of your automation efforts.

Keep in mind that while automation can streamline processes, “set it and forget it” isn’t the best approach. Review and adjust your strategy regularly for the best results.

How to Use Marketing Automation? – Case Studies of Successful B2B Automation Strategies

Let’s take a look at some real-world examples of how companies have used automation to achieve remarkable results in their B2B marketing efforts. These case studies will give you a practical look at how the theoretical aspects of automation can be effectively applied to drive success.

1. Asana’s Email Marketing Automation: Asana significantly increased their open rates by automating their email marketing. This approach allowed them to consistently engage their audience with relevant content, improving their overall campaign performance.
2. Amazon’s CRM Data Management: Amazon used automation in their CRM data management to increase productivity. By automating routine tasks, they were able to focus their efforts on strategic initiatives that yielded better results.
3. Slush’s Chatbot Automation: Slush used chatbot automation to provide 24/7 customer service. This not only improved their customer satisfaction rates, but also significantly reduced the workload of their customer service team.
4. HubSpot’s all-in-one marketing solution: HubSpot started as a CRM and marketing automation software and quickly grew into an all-in-one marketing solution. Their success is due to their comprehensive approach to automation that addresses a wide range of marketing needs.

So how do you want to use marketing automation in your business? Whether you choose email marketing, CRM data management, chatbot customer service, or an all-encompassing marketing solution, automation has been proven to drive business success. If you need help with this process, contact one of the top marketing automation agencies we have partnered with.

The Future of Marketing Automation

As we move forward, marketing automation will become an even more integral part of companies’ growth strategies. The future of marketing automation is characterized by the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven approaches.

AI is poised to transform marketing automation by handling repetitive tasks, data analysis, and campaign optimization with impressive speed and accuracy.

In addition, companies are increasingly aligning their marketing automation strategies with their broader business goals, focusing on improving customer engagement through personalized experiences.

In the coming years, we also expect to see :

1. The rise of GenAI, a technology that enables the rapid development of creative variations for hyper-targeted marketing strategies.
2. The Internet of Things (IoT) and other disruptive technologies will continue to blur the lines between the physical, digital, and biological worlds, reshaping automated marketing in the process.
3. Businesses are adapting to a mobile-first approach, tailoring their marketing strategies, channels, and content to a growing mobile audience.

These advancements are not only changing the way businesses connect with their customers, they are reshaping the future of marketing automation.

Conclusion

Today’s consumers expect a personalized approach from the brands they engage with. It’s up to you to design and implement an action plan that allows you to do this in a sustainable way. Failing to do so will hurt your conversions, your sales, and most importantly, your reputation.

Is it worth the risk? Absolutely not! Follow our steps and stick to the best practices we share here. They are all proven to work, and your business should not be the exception.

Remember, take the time to define your goals and actions, and choose a marketing automation tool that fits your business needs and budget. To make things even easier, you can partner with one of the top marketing automation agencies on our list. They all have the team, experience, and know-how to help you.