The primary goal for every marketer is to generate new leads. It is pretty obvious that marketers measure online success through website leads this can take, however, a long time and may cause one to lose interest fast. — Let’s investigate with Realomat what marketing automation is as well as how you can grow your following, traffic and leads on easily. So What Is Marketing Automation? You must have heard of this term before, but if not, don’t worry as we will go over it with you quickly. To put it simply, marketing automation is a software platform that helps you digitize your marketing and sales engagement to get you more leads, close more deals and measure marketing success better. Today, most businesses automate repetitive tasks such as emails, social media and other web-based actions to make these tasks easier. This technology is a segment of customer relationship management (or CRM) and is basically used as a way to remove repetitive tasks from staff workflows and increase overall marketing efficiency. Marketing automation yields fruit both in marketing and in sales-take a look how; For Marketing Marketers are able to use its tools to drive pipeline by sourcing the hottest leads and creating customized campaigns which professionally target your ideal buyers, moving them through the sales cycle to maximize the ROI of marketing programs. The ROI formula is as follows: For Sales Marketing automation is the bridge between marketing and sales, giving marketers access to content they can send to leads with the click of a button. Sales will know which leads to follow up with first and aid in closing deals. Is Marketing Automation Ideal For You? Regardless the size of your business, marketing automation will give you the power to achieve your marketing goals, so the first step to understanding how it can help you is identifying what you really want to accomplish. It also gives you the tools to manage a large database of leads without missing out on any unforeseen opportunities. If you are looking to streamline the transfer of leads from marketing to sales and improve lead quality, marketing automation provides you with the framework you need to transform the relationship between your sales and marketing teams and also empower your sales representatives to sell smarter. To have a successful business today, you ought to employ a number of tools which we think is vital for your survival. For example, in 2018, talking about the importance of having a website for your business may sound ridiculous, right? Funny enough, some business owners think that having a Facebook page with a few hundred or thousands of followers is a substitute for a proper website. Little do they know that having a fully functional website helps one define their brand better and attract more traffic through organic search. In an ideal world, we recommend getting a professional web designer on to help you construct a site. Apart from a good website, we shall also talk about some other strategies such as mail campaigns. Mail Campaigning Strategies Businesses today, 50 years after its inception, are still using email to turn leads into customers and engage audiences with news, promotions and special deals. There are many ways email marketing can help grow your business. The most important way is that it allows you to reach out to prospects who have visited your site without converting; you can target qualified leads through email to get a second chance at a conversion. However, it’s integral that you customize your communications, using the right types of emails at the right time, and using promotional emails strategically to avoid overwhelming leads that haven’t been fully been cultivated. How to Start Automation Your Email Marketing Understanding how to correctly use email marketing can be a tricky endeavor and if not done correctly, can hurt a business and its reputation. Fortunately, there are tools today which are available and can help a business thrive with their email marketing efforts. We will discuss such tools as MailChimp, Mailgun and Google analytics to help you understand this better. MailChimp MailChimp helps you design email newsletters, share them on social networks, integrate with services already in use and track your results. Email providers like Gmail and Hotmail are designed for one person to send one email to just a couple of people at once and not a whole list of fans. With MailChimp, these kinds of tasks are achieved more efficiently, effectively and professionally as you can send an email to an unlimited number of recipients at one time. Sounds great huh? Well, that’s not all. MailChimp can perform other tasks which would make your life easier. Apart from compatibility with various email readers and devices, it is also recognized as safe and approved. If there happens to be a problem with delivery, MailChimp will automatically attempt to re-send the email and tell you why an email might be bouncing. Bulk mailers are usually required by law to include an ‘unsubscribe’ link in every email. MailChimp includes this automatically and asks recipients why they are removing themselves from your list. Your email recipients will have different options on how they want to read your messages. MailChimp can be optimized for recipients to read your emails in fully-styled HTML or text only. They can also click a link to read the email in a web browser instead of their email either by a computer or a mobile device. Mailgun Mailgun is a service that enables your applications to send and receive email. If your application needs to send email to users, for example, account activation emails, password reset emails etc., then Mailgun is your answer. Why should you use Mailgun? First, a cloud server IP address can end up on a spammed blacklist which can prevent your mail from making it to the recipient. Mail coming from Mailgun is much more likely to reach the intended recipient. Mailgun is also capable of integrating with a local postfix service, sending email through SMTP and integrating programmatically with your current cloud applications. Google Analytics Google Analytics is a free analytics tool which generates detailed statistics about activities on a website. In other words, Google explains that the system helps one to analyze visitor traffic and paint a true picture of your audience and their needs. With Google Analytics, you can track the return on investment (ROI) for your online marketing. You can sift & sort your visitors with various dimensions. You can also use tracking codes to tag and track any advertising, PR campaign or any kind of campaign on any platform. Integration Between Different Social Media Platforms Social media is by far the fastest growing and most used form of marketing in the world today. Very few people actually buy ad spaces in magazines and newspapers anymore as these have been replaced by marketing your content and products through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Social media marketing has so far been one of the most effective, far-reaching, and affordable forms of advertising that the business world has ever had. Here’s how you can integrate social media into your content marketing strategy. Integrating Social Media and Email Marketing If you can learn how to effectively couple the use of social media and email marketing, you will a far-reaching content marketing campaign. We have outlined for you on how you can integrate your social media platforms to convert your leads into sales. First, use social media to learn more about your customers and potential customers. Build brand advocates by understanding who they are and how to engage them using polls, sweepstakes, referrals programs, etc. You can also convert your leads into a sale by reacting to the Social Media activities by setting up automated alerts on the marketing automation platform. An example is automatically inserting contact data in your CRM to automate sales. Create custom audiences for your social media ad campaigns by using data gathered by your marketing automation platform. This means that your message will be seen by a defined group of recipients, like for example loyal customers, bloggers, and users who opted out from your newsletter. You can also use this to exclude some recipients such as existing customers. Furthermore, adding social sharing to your emails is another great way of boosting the number of shares that you get with each new piece of content. This will also help grow your social media following if you have email subscribers who have not taken the time to follow you on your social platforms. Creative Campaigns Associated With Marketing Automation Marketing automation is proven to increase leads, conversions which reflect higher revenues. Here are some creative ways you can apply the skills we discussed earlier to better engage your customers. Welcome programs Right after a customer signs up for your newsletter or creates an account with you, send them a welcome email. It sure feels so good to receive a personalized message welcoming you. Let your clients know what they can expect from you, show them more about who you are, and of course, urge them to start shopping. 2. Repurchase programs Post-purchase programs help automatically gather customer feedback. Ask your customers how they would rate your services and give them an opportunity to leave a review or personalized suggestions based on their previous order. A personalized follow-up campaign that targets customers who buy certain products paints a true picture about how your business is fairing and allows you to make the necessary adjustments if necessary. 3. Reminder programs If someone opened your first email but did not make a purchase or did not upgrade, send a reminder and include an offer if you want to help sweeten the deal. You can urge them to take a deal before the window closes. You can lure them by giving a particular percentage off or free shipping etc.-depending on what you want. Conclusion Email marketing and the integration of social media is a road that you will want to pave for your leads and customers. We make it easy for you to get started with email marketing automation and help you maximize the conversion rate from your email campaigns. Talk to us today if you have any queries and we shall be more than willing to help. Please share this with all your Medium friends and clap 👏 this article to support our team. We are grateful for your time reading this article, subscribe and wait for some new useful information! Visit our official website to know more: realomat.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/realomat/ Linkedin:https: www.linkedin.com/company/realomat/ Twitter: twitter.com/realomat_biz Instagram: realomat_biz
