marketing automation 2.0: 3 tactics to go next level · pdf file3 tactics to go next level ......

Marketing Automation 2.0: 3 Tactics to Go Next Level

By Erik Qualman#1 Bestselling & Pulitzer Prize Nominated Author

MARKETING AUTOMATION IS THE FUTURE OF MARKETING

MARKETING AUTOMATION HUB

Marketing Automation Hub Marketing Automation 2.0: 3 Tactics to Go Next Level by Erik Qualman

In just five years, there are now 11 times more B2B organizations using market-

ing automation1. Yet, when it comes to marketing automation, 85% of them are

not reaching their full potential2. Part of the difficulty is keeping up with

the hyper pace of change. In fact, 22% of marketers state they are not confident

they can stay up to date with the best marketing automation practices3.

This means that to stay ahead of the competition, you must know and imple-

ment the latest and greatest practices that make sense for your business.

As such, this e-book is designed to take you beyond the basics of marketing

automation. In my first e-book, “The 3 Musts of Marketing Automation”, we

provided baseline tips to help you and your business grasp the main concepts

of marketing automation. In this second e-book we are breaking down the layers

and providing three advanced tips that will help your business go to the next

level of marketing automation. These advanced tips include: 1) keeping

the customer top of mind, 2) creating a plan, and 3) tracking your customers

for success.

Marketing automation is the future of marketing and the future is now. It allows organizations to e�iciently and e�ectively automate repetitive tasks, freeing up time that can be used to reach additional clients and customers.

Marketing automation is the future of marketing and the future is now. It allows organizations to e�iciently and e�ec-tively automate repetitive tasks, freeing up time that can be used to reach additional clients and customers.

In just five years, there are now 11 times more B2B organizations using market-

ing automation . Yet, when it comes to marketing automation, 85% of them are

not reaching their full potential . Part of the difficulty is keeping up with the

hyper pace of change. In fact, 22% of marketers state they are not confident

they can stay up to date with the best marketing automation practices .

This means that to stay ahead of the competition, you must know and imple-

ment the latest and greatest practices that make sense for your business. As

such, this e-book is designed to take you beyond the basics of marketing auto-

mation. In my first e-book, The 3 Musts of Marketing Automation, we provided

baseline tips to help you and your business grasp the main concepts of market-

ing automation. In this second e-book we are breaking down the layers and

providing three advanced tips that will help your business go to the next level of

marketing automation. These advanced tips include: 1) keeping the customer

top of mind 2) creating a plan and 3) tracking your customers for success.

HOW DOES THIS BENEFIT MY CUSTOMER?


1. DON’T FORGET THE CUSTOMERExperts agree that the number one asset to think about when creating

a marketing automation campaign is the customer. Don’t simply automate

for automation’s sake or create campaigns that scream self-promotion. Instead,

create personal messages that will impact your click-through rates and open

rates, and help develop relationships.

Matt Quinn, Head of Marketing at Sauce, a SaaS product for e-commerce,

believes the best practice for successful marketing campaigns is to start with

your customer in mind and work backwards. This type of outward, rather than

inward, thinking has allowed his company to generate personal messages that

help improve their open and click-through rates4.

Travis Bennett, Founder and Managing Director of website design agency Studio

Digita, kept his focus solely on the customer to avoid campaigns that seemed

“self-promotional.” By asking, “how does this benefit my customer?” the compa-

ny achieved their goal of avoiding self-promotion and building customer

relationships in the process5.

In the previous e-book, I encouraged you to “Be Human” and “Provide Killer

Content” (Tips #2 and #3); you must provide valuable content to the customer

while avoiding sounding like a robot. Advancing beyond this involves properly

nurturing your leads and following up in a timely manner.

Lead nurturing is the process of developing your relationship with customers

by making an effort in communication, listening to their needs, and giving them

the answers they require. While this demands time and effort, it is vital for

best-practice marketing automation and for developing and deepening relation-

ships with customers and prospects. Here’s why:

1. Businesses experience a 451% increase in qualified leads when they use

marketing automation to nurture prospects.6

2. Nurtured email leads produce, on average, a 20% increase in sales versus

non-nurtured leads.7

3. Nurtured leads spend approximately 47% more on their purchases.8

4. 45% of companies (i.e. your competition) are taking advantage of lead

nurturing capabilities.9

A common question is how should you lead nurture your emails to generate

sales/interest and stay ahead of your competition, knowing they are also

utilizing marketing automation.



One of the biggest keys to success is a follow-up email10. As a result of the quick

response nature of tools like Twitter and outstanding online customer service

being offered by companies like Zappos and Amazon, customers expect

an unreasonably quick turnaround time for their pressing questions. Hence,

when a customer or client reaches out to your organization, make certain you

don’t hesitate to respond. This elementary idea is often overlooked when

setting up marketing automation processes and models.

This holds true as well when a customer signs up for a subscription service

or buys your product. Make certain you immediately thank them and gently

remind them of the benefits your product or service offers. This reinforces their

buying decision and helps avoid buyer’s remorse.

The communication shouldn’t end there. When the timing is appropriate

a follow-up email should ask the customer why they subscribed or bought your

product/service in the first place11. This relates back to focusing on “what does

the customer want?” Based on the input and answers you receive from each

individual customer, you can systematically segment your audience and build

stronger, more personalized relationships based on their specific needs and

desires. In the past, this type of personalized follow-up was manually prohibitive

– now through advancements in marketing automation, it’s a reality – but only

if you put in the time, effort, and systems to properly capitalize on it.

Bonus Tip:

Don’t stop your segmenting and customization with the first and second emails.

Allow customers to set their own preferences12. For example, how many emails

do they wish to receive? This conveys that you value your customer’s time

and input – that you don’t want to send needless messages. It also allows you

to further segment your audience. Specifically, divide your customers into those

who want to know what’s going on at all times and those who only wish for one

promotional email regarding your annual sale.


40% OF IT PROJECTS FAIL BECAUSE OF POOR PLANNING


2. CREATE A PLANSuccess will not happen overnight, but by implementing small and clear goals,

you can stay on track and manage expectations for your project or campaign13.

• #1 cause of project failure – lack of direction and goals14.

• 40% of IT projects fail because of poor planning15.

Start small. Starting with a small campaign gives you more time to plan and test

what works. Is your body copy, timing, platform, etc. working? If not, how can

you fix it? Small campaigns allow the opportunity to tweak, adjust, and improve

before you begin to operate on a larger scale. Don’t hesitate to label it as a beta

test both inside and out of your organization. Google regularly practices a beta

test approach with the main benefit being that internal and external stakehold-

ers are often more forgiving and willing to provide necessary feedback

to improve the process. Many common day products including Gmail and Google

Maps had the label of “beta” for years.

Ben Landers, President and CEO of Blue Corona, says the key to success

in a marketing automation campaign is to “budget more time than you think

for segmentation and content analysis.” This allowed his company the time

to view every single content asset from the eyes of his target market,

thus creating better relationships and turnover for his company16.

Begin planning your campaign by testing your subject line. What subject line

will be most effective in achieving the best click view, click-through, and open

rates? Discover what works with A/B testing17. A/B testing is a split test, where

you test one subject against another. These tests provide helpful insights

around what wording and visuals will work best for each specific segment

of your audience. Continual testing and optimizing is essential for nurturing

and converting prospects into customers.

To begin A/B testing, send out two different subject lines to your subscriber list.

For example, one may read “Rad New Deal” and another may say “Check Out

Our New Deals”. After gathering results, implement the subject line that best

accomplishes your goal for the program. Below are some additional A/B testing

tips18:

• Test your body copy. Half of all sales are lost because content is poor19.

• Test various visuals - even the specific location of your visuals.

• Test video versus 2D images.

• A/B test with two or more different customer segments.



Walter Wise, Business and marketing strategist, lead generation specialist,

and executive coach at BPI Strategy Group, believes that the most important

campaign is: “Get the message right. If the message isn’t compelling and does

not resonate with your target market, it will not be opened, read, or understood.

Using the conversion equation of Interrupt, Engage, Educate, and Offer will

ensure you get off to a great start.” Wise creates compelling messages that

resonate with his customers in order to increase customer understanding

and conversion rates20.

The next step is to test your timing21. What time is best for your market group

to receive an email? Is it 9am, when people open work emails, lunchtime shoppers

trying to find a good deal, or is it night time, when people check email one last

time before going to bed? What day of the week is best? Test your timing

by sending out emails at random times throughout different days of the week

and track how often they are opened. If you notice a correlation, meaning

a majority of your customers prefer being emailed at 11am versus 3pm, send your

emails then. Global Internet media company, Travelzoo, which has over 28 million

members, has found that the optimal send time to email their Top 20 Travel Deal

List is 11am on Wednesdays. Keep in mind that every business will get different

results from their testing and there is no definitive one size fits all answer.

According to marketing research firm Ascend2, marketing automation profes-

sionals found the below (in order of usefulness) helpful in measuring their

success22:

• Conversion rate: 62%

• Revenue generated: 48%

• Leads generated: 43%

• Engagement: 42%

• Pipeline value: 31%

• Cost per lead: 29%

Case Study:

Bob Grant struggled with declining open rates and sub-optimal delivery times.

Since more than 70% of his sales come from email marketing campaigns,

he turned to GetResponse to create a reliable email marketing platform

and optimize deliverability. As a result, his emails got through at an ideal time,

improving open rates by 35%. These improvements resulted in revenues

and profits increasing 20%. In summary, test until you are confident you are

sending messages at the optimal time23.


TRACKING YOUR CUSTOMERS IS ANOTHER KEY


3. TRACK CUSTOMERSAs in the offline world, building online relationships take time. Understanding

your customer base while providing valuable content with a personal touch will

foster the right environment to continue growing your client base and convert-

ing leads to sales. Tracking your customers is another key to establishing

the building blocks for a productive and lasting relationship.

Tracking all relevant data and input you receive from the customer allows you

to better understand and segment your customers. Segmenting customers

allows you to create the best marketing mix for each of your targets

and develop better relationships that will drive an increase in conversion rates24.

Research shows that segmented emails result in 50% more click-throughs than

an all-in email blast25. Industry and interests will often be the main

characteristics in segmentation categories. However, other characteristics

exist and should be considered including:26

• Contest participation

• Source of lead

• Sales funnel drop off

• Location

Based on your segments, you can create custom campaigns that will help you

connect with each target audience on a more personal level rather than sending

out a generic message to all subscribers and only connecting with a select few.

When it comes to segmenting, collect this relevant user information from

the onset and during the lead generation stage. Don’t be afraid to gather data

and insights from Facebook; one way to do this is by marketing with third party

contest apps. When selecting your email management tool, make sure it meets

the needs of your robust segmentation and marketing automation require-

ments.



Be certain to embrace SoLoMo, short for social, local and mobile. This ensures

you are broadening your reach beyond email and will enable you to reach your

customer when and where they want to be reached27. 65 million Americans use

social, location-based services on smartphones (Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram28).

So why not take advantage and use location-based data to create localized

messages that are mobile friendly to ensure maximum reach?

Bonus Tip:

Quality over quantity. It’s great to have a large number of subscribers, but it’s

the total number of active subscribers that count. Work on whittling down your

list to a refined group of people by sending out a “break up” email; if they don’t

reply you can safely remove them from your list29.


IN CONCLUSIONAs the adoption rate of marketing automation increases among your competi-

tors, take your program beyond the basics. The three advanced concepts

covered here should help you stay ahead of your competition and most impor-

tantly, meet and exceed the ever-growing demands of your prospects

and customers. Remember that no matter how successful your marketing

automation efforts are to date, there is always a next level to achieve.

Here’s to you achieving that next level.


1 SiriusDecisions. "B-to-B Marketing Automation Study." SiriusDecisions. 2014. https://www.siriusdecisions.com/-

Blog/2014/Aug/Marketing-Automation-Study. 2 SiriusDecisions. "Increasing Adoption of Marketing Automation Platforms." SiriusDecisions. 2014. https://www.siriusdeci-

sions.com/Blog/2014/Aug/Marketing-Automation-Study. 3 B2Bmarketing.net and Circle Research “Benchmarking Report Marketing automation” (2015)4 Stringfellow, Angela. "35 SALES AND MARKETING PROFESSIONALS REVEAL THEIR TOP MARKETING AUTOMATION TIPS."

Docurated. April 14, 2016. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://www.docurated.com/all-things-productivity/implement-

ing-successful-marketing-automation-campaign.5 Stringfellow, Angela. "35 SALES AND MARKETING PROFESSIONALS REVEAL THEIR TOP MARKETING AUTOMATION TIPS."


ing-successful-marketing-automation-campaign.6 ANNUITAS GROUP. ANNUITAS Inc. Accessed November 28, 2016. http://annuitas.com/.7 Bunskoek, Krista. “10 Steps to Email Automation Success.” Wishpond. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://blog.wish-

pond.com/post/72451721652/10-steps-to-email-automation-success 8 Frank Paterno, “8 Benefits of Integrating Your CRM with Marketing Automation, “ The kapost Blog, December 12, 2014,

Accessed October 22, 2016

http://marketeer.kapost.com/integrating-crm-with-marketing-automation/#axzz3UgvBkNoA, 9 Aberdeen Group “State of Marketing Automation 2014: Processes that Produce” (2014)10 Bunskoek, Krista. “10 Steps to Email Automation Success.” Wishpond. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://blog.wish-

pond.com/post/72451721652/10-steps-to-email-automation-success11 [ix] Olenski, Steve. "7 Email Marketing Automation Tips For Brand Marketers." Forbes. July 25, 2016. Accessed October 16,

2016. http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolen-

ski/2016/07/25/7-email-marketing-automation-tips-for-brand-marketers/#5308a0d213b5.12 Olenski, Steve. "7 Email Marketing Automation Tips For Brand Marketers." Forbes. July 25, 2016. Accessed October 16,


ski/2016/07/25/7-email-marketing-automation-tips-for-brand-marketers/#5308a0d213b5.13 LBDGA. “Top 10 Tips for successful Marketing Automation.” LBDGA. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://www.lbdga.com/-

media/8066/19501-top-10-tips-infographic-a3-cmyk-aw-v2-04-10-13.pdf14 Pink Elephant Conference 201215 Watts S Humphrey, IBM 200516 Stringfellow, Angela. "35 SALES AND MARKETING PROFESSIONALS REVEAL THEIR TOP MARKETING AUTOMATION TIPS."


ing-successful-marketing-automation-campaign.17 Bunskoek, Krista. “10 Steps to Email Automation Success.” Wishpond. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://blog.wish-

pond.com/post/72451721652/10-steps-to-email-automation-success18 Bunskoek, Krista. “10 Steps to Email Automation Success.” Wishpond. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://blog.wish-

pond.com/post/72451721652/10-steps-to-email-automation-success 19 KissMetrics 201120 Stringfellow, Angela. "35 SALES AND MARKETING PROFESSIONALS REVEAL THEIR TOP MARKETING AUTOMATION TIPS."


ing-successful-marketing-automation-campaign.21 Olenski, Steve. "7 Email Marketing Automation Tips For Brand Marketers." Forbes. July 25, 2016. Accessed October 16,


ski/2016/07/25/7-email-marketing-automation-tips-for-brand-marketers/#5308a0d213b5. 22 Krista Wiltbank, “35 Killer Marketing Automation Statistics You Need to Know Now,” GetResponse Blog, June 24, 2016,

accessed October 22, 2017 https://blog.getresponse.com/35-killer-marketing-automation-statistics.html23 GetResponse. “Relationship Headquarters Improves Open Rates by 35% by switching to GetResponse.” GetResponse.

Accessed October 21, 2016. https://www.getresponse.com/customers/case-study/bobgrant.html24 Bunskoek, Krista. “10 Steps to Email Automation Success.” Wishpond. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://blog.wish-

pond.com/post/72451721652/10-steps-to-email-automation-success 25 Bunskoek, Krista. “10 Steps to Email Automation Success.” Wishpond. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://blog.wish-

pond.com/post/72451721652/10-steps-to-email-automation-success 26 Bunskoek, Krista. “10 Steps to Email Automation Success.” Wishpond. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://blog.wish-

pond.com/post/72451721652/10-steps-to-email-automation-success 27 LBDGA. “Top 10 Tips for successful Marketing Automation.” LBDGA. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://www.lbdga.com/-

media/8066/19501-top-10-tips-infographic-a3-cmyk-aw-v2-04-10-13.pdf28 LBDGA. “Top 10 Tips for successful Marketing Automation.” LBDGA. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://www.lbdga.com/-

media/8066/19501-top-10-tips-infographic-a3-cmyk-aw-v2-04-10-13.pdf 29 Olenski, Steve. "7 Email Marketing Automation Tips For Brand Marketers." Forbes. July 25, 2016. Accessed October 16,


ski/2016/07/25/7-email-marketing-automation-tips-for-brand-marketers/#5308a0d213b5.


Author • Professor • Speaker • Entrepreneur

#1 Best Selling Author and Motivational Speaker Erik Qualman has performed in 47 countries and reached 25 million people this decade.

His Socialnomics work has been on 60 Minutes to the Wall Street Journal and used by the National Guard to NASA. His book Digital Leader propelled him to be voted the 2nd Most Likeable Author in the World behind Harry Potter's J.K. Rowling. What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and his is books are used in over 200 of the world’s top universities. His latest book, How to Sell on LinkedIn launched in Q4 2016. Qualman was formerly a sitting professor at Harvard & MIT’s edX labs.

Erik QualmanAuthor


marketing automation 2.0: 3 tactics to go next level · pdf file3 tactics to go next level ......

Documents