www.castleford.com.auAUGUST 2018

20 ESSENTIAL MARKETING AUTOMATION TIPS

EBOOK

Marketing automation is a software platform that helps you to automate your marketing and sales engagement to generate more leads, close more deals, and better measure marketing success.

[Salesforce Pardot]

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THE NUMBERS

● Almost 500,000 WEBSITES use marketing automation software

● More than half of the market share is CONTROLLED BY 6 BRANDS (Act-on, Eloqua, HubSpot, InfusionSoft, Marketo and Pardot)

● Million dollar companies are most likely to use HUBSPOT, billion dollar companies are most likely to use MARKETO [State of Marketing Automation, Bold Digital and SimilarTech]

● Marketing automation is now the TOP PRIORITY FOR 50 PER CENT of marketers [State of Inbound 2018, HubSpot]

● Most common reason for investing in marketing automation is to IMPROVE LEAD QUALITY

● Market leaders are 24 PER CENT MORE LIKELY to be using marketing automation than their less successful peers[State of B2B Marketing, Act-On and Econsultancy]

Don’t be put off by perceived complexity. The truth is that the basic functions of most platforms are quite simple. So start small and build up your marketing automation strategy over time.

Keep your list clean. Marketing automation platforms usually charge based on your number of contacts. So make sure you’re not importing out-of-date, irrelevant or paid-for email addresses when your start.

Use the CRM functionality. For small or newer businesses not already wedded to a CRM, consider using the CRM provided by your marketing automation platform. This avoids often buggy, time-consuming integration issues.

OUR 20 ESSENTIAL TIPS

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Feed your software with content. Marketing automation needs a regular supply of fresh, relevant and high quality content. It is unlikely you will see ROI on your marketing automation spend without an active content strategy.

Get sales and marketing working together. Marketing automation needs to be a joint initiative between sales and marketing to avoid overlap and wasted effort.

Personalise your emails. Marketing automation is supposed to make marketing less time-consuming, not less human. Personalising emails retains the human touch and boosts open and clickthrough rates.

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Create Goals for different stages of the sales funnel. Your can use marketing automation to move users down the sales funnel, but only if you have measurable Goals for different stages.

Invest in quality downloads. Gated whitepapers, ebooks and case studies can be effective tools for capturing more email addresses, which is what really drives marketing automation.

Experiment with email content. Use the reporting function in your marketing automation platform to find the content types and topics that get the best clickthrough rates.

Use smart send functionality to optimise delivery. Most platforms allow you to send emails so they arrive at the same time for the user regardless of their time zone. These tools can significantly improve open rates.

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11 Save time with hosted landing pages. Marketing automation platforms allow marketers to create landing pages for email or social media campaigns. This is often quicker than going through your IT department.

Get C-level buy-in. Marketing automation can take time to show results, which makes good understanding and long-term commitment from decision makers essential.

But get some quick wins. While a steady flow of sales opportunities might take time, creating softer, lower commitment Goals quickly shows how marketing automation can generate and nurture leads.

Embed it in your existing sales process. Marketing automation won’t work in isolation. Every lead should pass through it and it should prompt manual and offline actions, such as someone in sales picking up the phone.

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Marketing automation is all about nurturing not selling. We avoid the hard-sell approach in favor of content that is personalised, relevant and aligns with what our customers and prospects are looking for.

[HUBSPOT]

Regularly review your lead score criteria. Lead scoring is a powerful marketing automation tool for moving users down the sales funnel. But it is only as good as the rules you set.

Create opt-in nurture campaigns for sales. Nurture campaigns save time and ensure more consistent contact with sales leads. Campaigns that sales can manually opt leads into will help get their buy-in and support.

Use your data to drive your content. Marketing automation allows you to learn more about what your users are interested in. Use that data to create more content on popular topics. This will allow you to send more valuable emails and improve on-site engagement.

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18 Include social media and Google Ads. Marketing automation is not just about email. You can use it to track, engage and nurture users who respond to particular campaigns on social media sites or through Google Ads.

Create more product-specific content. This will not only help feed your automated nurture campaigns but will also make it easier to work out what it is that prospects are most interested in.

Create a responsive, well-trained team. Marketing automation is simple to learn but difficult to master. You need a team that can learn from each campaign and respond quickly. And they need to be prepared to constantly improve their knowledge and expertise.

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FROM OUR BLOG

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HOW TO USE CONTENT TO IMPROVE LEAD SCORINGRead More

HOW TO REPURPOSE CONTENT FOR DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE SALES FUNNELRead More

HOW TO CALCULATE THE VALUE OF SALES LEADRead More

HOW TO DECIDE WHEN CONTENT SHOULD BE GATEDRead More

STATE OF MARKETING AUTOMATIONBold Digital and SimilarTech

STATE OF INBOUNDHubSpot

STATE OF B2B MARKETINGAct-On and Econsultancy

WHAT IS MARKETING AUTOMATION?HubSpot

HOW MARKETING AUTOMATION CAN BENEFIT YOUR BUSINESSSalesforce Pardot

MARKETING AUTOMATION: THE DEFINITIVE GUIDEMarketo

EXTERNAL LINKS

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We hope you enjoyed this Ebook. It was created with help from our in-house production, design and strategy teams;

WE ARE CASTLEFORD, Australia and New Zealand’s leading provider of ROI-driven content marketing campaigns. We offer 30+ content marketing products, with flexible agreements to fit your budget, priorities and existing resources.

Book a Demo to see some live examples or learn more About Us.

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