Marketing automation is all about using one platform to automate all of your digital marketing activities. Automating tasks such as email marketing, social media posting, and pay per click campaigns not only makes your digital marketing more efficient, but it also provides a more personalized experience for your customers and a holistic view of how your audience engages with each piece individually or as a whole with in-depth analytics.
Marketing automation can reach sales goals by segmenting qualified leads from unqualified leads and focusing your efforts on the people with the greatest chance to convert. Take a look at these 4 tips on improving sales with marketing automation.
Lead Scoring to Qualify
How often do you or your sales team chase down leads that aren’t serious about purchasing from you right now? This is a common issue for many businesses large and small. With marketing automation platforms, such as HubSpot and Sharpspring, you can score incoming leads to determine if they’re serious about buying, are still in the discovery phase, or aren’t an important lead at all.
Lead scoring is an automated process that adds or subtracts points from a lead, depending on actions taken or not taken. Because marketing automation tracks visitor behavior, you’ll know what leads are looking at and for how long. Use this behavioral data (plus other demographic data) to gauge whether each lead fits your buyer profile.
Develop Your Sales Process
A sales process can be broken down into three phases – Attract, Engage, and Delight. This sales process is also commonly referred to as the Inbound Methodology. Using this process to filter your leads through will help convert them to customers at a higher rate as each step in the process has its own goals and specific marketing tactics that can be used to accomplish its goals.
For example, in the Attract phase, the goal is to attract people to your website or landing pages where they can receive premium content in exchange for their contact information. Gaining their contact information turns them from visitor to lead. Some common marketing tactics to achieve this goal are social media, pay per click advertising, SEO, and blogging. All of these tactics funnel visitors into your domain where they can download premium content in exchange for their contact information.
Contact Segmentation
Once your CRM starts to fill up with new contacts (leads & customers), it’s time to start segmenting them into smaller lists for specific communication. Viewing your contacts through the filter of lists helps to understand where your contacts are in the sales process and who to focus on to turn leads into customers. Segmented lists help to really focus your email marketing on delivering the right message to the right people. For example, creating a list of people who just downloaded your latest ebook and sending them an email focused on sharing other ebooks or a promotional offer as a thank you for downloading will help strengthen the relationship between lead and brand and increase the chances of them becoming a paying customer.
Automated Workflows
Automated workflows are one of, if not the most, powerful tools on a marketing automation platform. A workflow is a series of automated tasks strung together in a step-by-step process where each step is triggered by a completed goal. For example, a workflow could look something like this:
- Step 1: Lead fills out “Ebook” form
- Step 2: Lead is added to “New Leads” list
- Step 3: Lead is sent “Follow up & Thank You” email
- Step 4: Yes/No Branch: Does lead open and click on a link in the email?
- If Yes: Mark lead as Marketing Qualified Lead and send “Promo Offer” email
- If No: Delay communication for 24 hours and send “Other Ebooks” email
Building automated workflows like this example one allows you to have complete control over how your contacts are communicated with and how often. Workflows run without the need for human interaction, so set up your workflow and let it do its thing in the background, while you focus on other aspects of your business. Having timely and engaging touchpoints with your audience will help to convert leads into customers at a higher rate than trying to nurture each lead individually.
Marketing automation is an excellent tool for your marketing team, but it can also be highly valuable to your sales department as well. By streamlining and optimizing the process of gathering, scoring and prioritizing leads, your business will be able to consistently deliver higher conversions and generate more revenue.
Wellspring Digital is a marketing automation certified agency for both marketing and sales through HubSpot and Sharpspring. Contact our marketing automation team today to see how we can help increase your revenue and ROI, while decreasing your cost per lead. Call 717-457-0522 or email admin@wellspringsearch today for more information.
