THE BLUEPRINT FOR

MARKETINGAUTOMATION

Marketing automation adoption will grow by approximately 50% by 2015.

-Sirius Decisions, How Marketing Automation Has Evolved in the Last 12 Months, 2012

Way More Than a Lead Generation ToolMarketing Automation is a strategy that helps you

streamline your marketing efforts, drive revenue growth,

target your communications, and better measure impact.

It’s pretty common knowledge that audiences engage

more with messages that are targeted toward their

interests and behaviors. Yet so many organizations seem

to forget that and resort to blasting mass emails out to

their entire list, trying to rack up the number of the always-

important “touch point.” The more messages you send

that are not relevant to your customers, the less they pay

attention to your brand as a whole. Thus, the less they read

those specific messages that might actually resonate with

their interests.

The key is segmenting your customers and targeting

content that aligns with each segment’s interests. It’s all

about delivering the right message to the right person

at the right time. It sounds simple, but few organizations

take the time or have the expertise to truly pull it off with

impact. That’s where Choptank can help.

Generate new leads

Nurture relationships and qualify leads

Capture behaviors indicating what key audiences care most about

Engage customers at a key moment of influence

Drive sales, adoption or donations

Reconnect with less engaged customers

Increase measurement of overall marketing strategy and impact

Why Marketing Automation?

What Marketing Automation Looks LikeMarketing Automation is an extremely versatile tool that

can be leveraged to serve any industry in a variety of

ways. From driving donations and membership in the

non-profit sector to delivering an educational content

marketing strategy to insurance subscribers, Marketing

Automation is a flexible platform that supports your

marketing goals with a tactical, targeted approach.

As you might have guessed, Marketing Automation is

largely based on email campaigns, but ideally includes

multiple other tactics (landing pages, web banners, etc.)

depending on the behavior of your target audiences

and needs of the campaign. Additionally, it relies heavily

on analytics and data to measure impact and drive

systematic changes to increase effectiveness. This is one

of the biggest benefits of digital communications on the

whole, and a big focus of Marketing Automation.

“Without marketing automation, you are just guessing – just hoping that people will take the bait and be ready to buy your products. Statistics

show that buyers don’t do that. They want to learn at their own pace and be reached when they need more information or are ready to buy. A well-

constructed marketing automation strategy makes that a reality.”

– John McTigue, Kuno Creative

Email, as with most digital channels, is a great way to get hard-and-fast metrics. Although critical to an integrated

marketing strategy, other channels like direct mail, earned media, and advertising make it more difficult to know

exactly who is interacting with your message and how. With email and Marketing Automation you can not only

see who and how, but you can track an individual’s or group’s engagement with your brand over time. Whether

you are generating new leads or simply nurturing your relationships, these metrics can help you be more effective

throughout your engagement with a potential lead or help you know the right things to say to your customer base.

Not only can you get your standard email metrics (deliverability, open rates, click-through rates, opt-out rates,

etc.), but Marketing Automation helps your learn so much more about the behaviors of your audience. Also, with

proper tracking and applied analytics, you can very concretely determine your program ROI.

You can create a more predictable revenue cycle by ensuring you use customer-preferred tactics and channels

which result in higher conversions, and strongly support relationship nurturing which accelerates the sales process.

Additionally, for future campaigns, you should have a much better idea of what will resonate with your target

audiences. With this powerful information, you can more accurately calculate potential ROI to make your business

case, or make revenue and profit projections.

What Marketing Automation Can Tell You

As we said before, Marketing Automation can be used in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes. Below

are a few examples of how you could use Marketing Automation:

Examples of How to Leverage Marketing Automation

Welcome Series

You may have a new customer sign up for a service or a membership, and you need a way to deliver critical information about their new status. Ditch the paper-based welcome folder stuffed with brochures, and set up an automated welcome series with convenient links to the information your customers need. You not only deliver relevant information at the most opportune time, but you save tons on printing costs.

Content Marketing Strategy

You have content and you need a way to get it out to your audience. Marketing Automation is a great tool to deliver key pieces of content to your customer base and to target to your most relevant segments.

Event Campaigns

If you are hosting a fund-raising event or an online webinar, you can use an automated campaign to drive sign-ups, capture sign-up information via forms on landing pages, and send reminders and thank-you messages.

Behavioral Follow-Ups

If a customer interacts with an email or call to action in a certain way, you can track that behavior and provide a follow-up specific to that customer’s interest. It’s also a great way to thank your customers for interacting with you.

Launching Pads fora Campaign

12345

You can use almost anything as a jumping off point for a Marketing

Automation campaign. It’s important that you use an already

popular channel in order to maximize your reach and impact.

Below are a few examples of good places to start:

• Digital launch points are the easiest – Start from an email link,

newsletter article, web banner ad, or a landing page action / form.

• From your email list – You don’t need a launch point from another

tactic. If you have an existing email list, you can launch your

campaign just like you would any other email.

• Even launch from paper-based marketing (direct mail, letters, etc.)

– Drive customers to a digital tactic (landing pages work best in this

situation) from a mailer or signage, and launch the campaign from

there. You’ll have a smaller list, but due to the effort it takes on the

customer’s behalf, you have already identified your most heavily

engaged leads.

“On average, only 20% of leads are

sales-ready when they first come in.

This means you need a disciplined

process – known as lead nurturing – to

develop qualified leads until they are

sales-ready. Done well, nurturing can

result in 50% more sales leads at 33%

lower cost per lead.”

-Marketo, The Definitive Guide to Marketing

Automation, 2013

When to Gracefully Bow Out

12345

Multiple touch points with customers are important; when you get your brand in front of them you stay top-of-mind and

increase the chances that they’ll interact with your message. But there’s a point where you need to gracefully let your

customers ignore you, if they so choose. It’s in their best interest, but it’s also in yours:

Don’t pester your audience – If a customer has ignored your emails thus far, it’s likely that a standard email communication

is not going to engage them and they’ll likely start perceiving your brand as annoying. Try something different: a direct

mail campaign, a social media effort, even a new approach with a creative email campaign optimized through testing.

Find new ways to target – It’s alright that some of your customers won’t engage with your email. While email is the

universally preferred channel of communication1, not everyone prefers it. Segment your list by behaviors and

preferences and approach people by their preferred channels. If it’s not email, try something else.

Monitor your online reputation – Everyone has different definitions of spam. While nothing you or Choptank would

ever send to your customers would fall into the spam category in the legal sense of the word, some contacts are

more likely to report your messages as spam if you continue to send to them after they have indicated they are not

interested in hearing from you. Choptank also recommends that our clients avoid purchased email lists. Mailing to

purchased lists is typically not as effective and can potentially destroy your sender reputation.

Improve your metrics – It’s simple math that the fewer non-engagers you have on a list, the higher your engagement

rates will be. Removing those who don’t engage gives you a better idea of what is resonating with your target groups,

and skyrockets your open and click rates.

Save money – Keep list maintenance a top priority in any type of digital marketing campaign, particularly with email.

Removing non-engagers will keep your deployment costs down.

1 Litmus, Email Preferred Communication Channel; Commands More Clicks & ROI, February 20, 2013

What Marketing Automation Is Not

Marketing Automation is not a comprehensive

marketing strategy. It’s part of your marketing

program and is largely a tactical approach. It can

be used as a strategic fulcrum to deliver your

content marketing program, to grow your sales

leads, or to simply drive engagement through a

targeted campaign. While it does provide your

marketing group with extra arms and legs, it

will not replace your internal marketing staff or

eliminate your need for vendors. It is also not

a spam platform. It is a dynamic tactic that can

help drive your marketing strategies for years to

come with data-driven insights and behavioral

segmentation.

Contact Choptank to Get StartedChoptank can build your Marketing

Automation strategy from the ground up.

Whether it’s to support your other direct

marketing campaigns or to be the driver

behind a new one, our experienced team of

digital marketers, strategists, and developers

can help you meet your objectives through

a targeted and evolving strategy that adapts

to your customer’s demands.

We want to talk to you about how Marketing

Automation can support your organization.

Contact us today.243 N Fifth Street / Suite 120

Columbus / Oh / 43215E: info@choptankagency.com

WWW.CHOPTANKAGENCY.COM