How to Develop a Successful Marketing Automation Strategy (2023)

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• strategic plan. A marketing automation strategy requires setting clear goals and objectives and identifying your target audience to create targeted and engaging marketing campaigns.
• Platform selection. Considering features, functionality, and price, choosing the right marketing automation software is critical to success.
• Personal approach. Brands need to plan customer journeys, deliver personalized content and create automated workflows to effectively engage customers at every touchpoint.

Marketing automation is redefining the way brands connect with customers. By using technology to automate repetitive marketing tasks and workflows, brands can streamline marketing operations and customize campaigns.

However, creating a successful marketing automation strategy requires careful planning, implementation, optimization and analysis. In this article, we'll discuss the key steps to creating a successful marketing automation strategy.

What is a marketing automation strategy?

A marketing automation strategy is a plan that uses software to automate repetitive and time-consuming marketing tasks and processes. The program helps businesses streamline marketing processes and optimize campaigns, while delivering personalized and relevant content to customers at every stage of the customer journey.

The strategy often includes a range of automated tasks such as lead generation, email marketing, social media marketing, customer segmentation and analysis. The main goals of a marketing automation strategy are to improve marketing efficiency, increase revenue, build and strengthen customer loyalty, and increase customer loyalty by delivering targeted and personalized content. The success of a marketing automation strategy depends on how effectively it is implemented, measured and optimized.

related articles:What is marketing automation and how does it help marketers?

Step 1: Define goals and objectives and identify target audience

start creating aMarketing Automation Strategy, brands must first define their goals. Campaigns aimed at generating leads, acquiring customers, eliminating cart abandonment, or other goals will be specifically designed for those goals. The goals of your marketing automation strategy should align with your overall business and brand goals.

Determining your brand's target audience is another key factor in developing a successful marketing automation strategy. Brands need to understand who their target audience is, what their needs and preferences are, and how they interact with the brand. They should conduct market research and analyze customer data to gain insight into their target audience. This will allow them to create targeted campaigns that resonate with their audience and increase engagement.

related articles:9 Ways Marketing Automation Will Grow Your Business in 2023

Step 2: Choose the Right Marketing Automation Software

Choosing the right marketing automation platform is critical to the success of your marketing automation strategy. It is important to choose the platform that best fits your brand goals. Brands should consider the features, functionality, and price of their marketing automation platform before making a final decision. Some of the most popular marketing automation platforms include:

• pivot point– As a marketing, sales and service platform, Hubspot includes marketing automation tools such as email marketing, account management and social media management.
• Adobe Marketo Participation– Marketo Engage is a cloud-based marketing automation platform with customer management, email marketing, and marketing analytics. Adobe Sensei GenAI adds efficient AI capabilities to the platform.
• Submit Salesforce Marketing Accounts to the Cloud– The Marketing Cloud Account Engagement platform, also known as Pardot, provides lead generation, lead generation, and email marketing.
• talk to oracle– Eloqua is a B2B marketing automation platform with campaign planning, lead scoring, real-time graph data, and built-in sales tools.
• Activities– A marketing automation platform, ActiveCampaign supports email marketing, marketing automation and CRM.
• purchase– As a CRM and marketing automation platform, Keap supports lead generation, email marketing and eCommerce tools.
• got a response– Marketing automation platform GetResponse supports email marketing, landing pages, and marketing automation.
• client.io– Customer.io is an automated messaging platform that allows marketers to create and send data-driven emails, push notifications, in-app messages and SMS.
• Dynamics 365 Marketing– Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Marketing is an automated marketing platform featuring generative artificial intelligence that enables brands to engage one-on-one through personalized journeys triggered by customer interactions.
• Take action– An automated marketing platform, Act-On includes lead scoring and segmentation, marketing performance and reporting, automated development programs, advanced email and SMS marketing, and multi-channel lead generation.
• Activities– ActiveCampaign is an e-marketing, marketing automation and CRM platform with customer segmentation capabilities, dynamic content creation and successful delivery.

Kashif Naqshbandi, Chief Marketing Officerrevolver, a Tenth Revolution Group company, told CMSWire that one of his enterprise's biggest successes in marketing automation was implementing Pardot (a Salesforce Marketing Cloud account engagement) as part of the company's marketing technology stack. “We’ve been able to create personalized email campaigns for customers and prospects, connecting with them throughout the sales funnel in a way that’s specific to where they are in the cycle,” Naqshbandi said.

Naqshbandi said using marketing automation has taken the guesswork out of his company and allowed them to take a more data-driven approach. "Leads are validated and then passed on to our sales team when they're ready to reach users, which means we're sending higher quality leads than ever before," Naqshbandi said.

Step 3: Map your customer journey

thisCustomer Journey MapIt is the overall expression of all experiences a customer has when interacting with a brand. It includes every touchpoint, interaction and engagement a customer has with a business, from their initial brand awareness to post-purchase customer support inquiries. Understanding and mapping the customer journey is a key aspect of building customer journeysomnichannel, a personalized experience that builds connection, trust and loyalty. Customer journey maps enable brands to better understand the different stages of the customer lifecycle journey and how they use marketing automation to engage with customers at each stage of the journey.

Jamal English, Marketing Expert & CEO & Co-FounderEDM Leading Network, an online and offline performance marketing solutions provider, told CMSWire that the customer lifecycle journey is now very segmented and people only consider parts of it rather than the whole. "Marketers should start with the consumer's interests," English said. “The next step will be to assess the needs of customers when they are actually asking for information. Then, when they contact an agent, how do their needs change? Finally, how do customers’ needs change when the agent actually completes the sales process ?What needs to change when the customer service team takes over that account? The key, suggests English, is to take the time to understand the needs and preferences of the target customer at each stage of the lifecycle.

By delivering the right message at the right stage of the customer journey, brands can engage customers and strengthen their brand loyalty. to be effectiveMap out the customer journey, brands need to identify all the touchpoints that occur at each stage and how they use marketing automation to engage with customers at each touchpoint.

Step 4: Provide Personalized Content

Personalization is a key element in building a successful marketing automation strategy. Customers today are more likely to engage with content that is relevant to their specific needs and preferences. According to 2021McKinsey report, 71% of respondents expect brands to provide personalized interactions, while 76% are disappointed.

Brands that create content that resonates with their target audience and is tailored to specific customer interests can create deeper connections with customers. In order to achieve thislevel of personalization, brands must use customer data to segment audiences and deliver targeted content at every stage of the customer journey.

Once in use for a while, marketing automation platforms can help fine-tune audience segmentation. Marketing automation tools collect and analyze customer data, including demographic information, browsing behavior, purchase history and preferences. This data is used to complete and improve customer profiles and audience segmentation based on the customer's characteristics, interests and behaviour.

Marketing automation platforms can then create dynamic content that changes based on a customer's profile and behavior. This can include personalized product recommendations, tailored email content or a targeted website experience, ensuring each customer receives content that is relevant and engaging.

Step 5: Set up an automated workflow

Automate WorkflowThey are the foundation of a successful marketing automation strategy, enabling brands to deliver targeted messages to audiences in a timely manner. These workflows can deliver customized content to customers at every touchpoint in the customer journey.

There are many workflows that are useful for marketing. A customer onboarding workflow provides tips and resources for new customers, while an abandoned cart workflow reminds customers of items left in their cart and offers rewards for completing a purchase. Lead nurturing workflows drive leads throughout the sales funnel with targeted emails, while upsell and cross-sell workflows encourage customers to purchase complementary products. Win Back Workflow Re-engage customers who haven't shopped in a while with targeted emails offering exclusive discounts or deals. Using these workflows allows brands to engage customers at different stages of the customer journey. While these workflows are the ones most commonly used in marketing, there are many others that can be used effectively in a marketing automation strategy.

Re-engagement specific automated workflows are also important, English told CMSWire, offering the following example of how re-engagement workflows work: Consumers contact their business, but there is no immediate way to help them. “They immediately get a text message from us informing them that we are currently unable to assist them.” The next day, the automated sequence begins at the time they were told it would begin, and the automation begins to pick up the customer. “The customer is logged into the phone through automation and then routed directly to one of the verification agents.” English explains that the live agent is on the phone, talking to the consumer using all the information initially provided, verifying all of their information and deciding how to help next client. "This would be an example of an integrated element of automation and human beings."

Shafqat Islam, Chief Marketing OfficeroptimizationBrands should exercise restraint when using marketing automation to send emails or other marketing content to customers, a digital experience platform (DXP) and content marketing platform (CMP) provider warns. “Remember: Just because you can automate doesn’t mean you have to spam your customers with tons of content. AI [targeting content] shouldn’t replace thoughtful consideration of your customers’ time,” says Islam, explaining that many people completely Ignore marketing emails and most of them end up in the spam folder or newsletter. "With this in mind, brands need to create valuable content that viewers can't ignore," Islam said.

Step 6: Measure and analyze campaign results

Implementation is only the initial phase of automating marketing campaigns. To understand the success or failure of such campaigns, brands need to evaluate and analyze the results of the campaign. By using analytics tools (often a feature of marketing automation platforms), brands can track performance and gain actionable insights.

Automated marketing campaigns typically include email and direct marketing. To ensure they deliver the best results, strategies need to be optimized based on the following factorsKey Performance Indicators(KPI) obtained through analytical tools. These KPIs provide insight into campaign effectiveness. Some key metrics that brands may be interested in include:

• opening price– Measure the percentage of customers who open emails.
• click rate– Measure the percentage of customers who click on links in emails.
• Conversion rate– Measure the percentage of customers who take the desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a form.
• dropout rate– Measure the percentage of undeliverable emails.
• unsubscribe rate– Measure the percentage of customers who have opted out of receiving future emails.
• return on investment (ROI)– Measure the revenue generated by the activity compared to the cost of running it.

Marketing Automation Challenges

There are many facets to developing a successful marketing strategy, so there will be challenges along the way – but none are insurmountable. As with any other endeavor that relies on customer data, the results of an automated marketing strategy will depend heavily on the quality of the data used throughout the process. Data must be current, structured and accurate.

Other challenges include integrating marketing automation platforms with other software in the martech stack or legacy systems still in use. Being able to determine which elements should and should not be automated is also a challenge. “As with most forms of automation, the biggest challenge is identifying which aspects of the overall process can be successfully automated, which parts need continuous testing and optimization, and which parts still require human touch,” Naqshbandi said. "Where the actual content makes up the marketing effort, the human element remains critical because effective marketing depends on things like voice, tone and emotion."

Other challenges relate to the capabilities of marketing automation platforms, which provide ample opportunities for marketers to send SMS messages, text messages, emails, push notifications, and more. become spam. “Stay out of the way of annoying your customers by tightly managing your marketing calendar and segmenting it by person, product, business, and more,” says Islam. "Discerning when and how to reach out to customers, whether it's an email on the weekend, a push notification during the week, or a timely ad on their favorite social platform."

The benefits of marketing automation are worth the challenges it brings. “Having access to marketing automation not only drives meaningful customer engagement, it frees up time and resources for marketers to be creative,” Islam said.

Final Thoughts on Marketing Automation Strategies

The process of creating a successful marketing automation strategy involves many steps. Brands need to set goals, target audiences, map customer journeys, create personalized content, create workflows, analyze results and continuously optimize campaigns. The payoff of marketing automation makes this process worthwhile, as such strategies can help drive revenue, increase customer engagement, and create a great customer experience.