Everything about marketing automation is designed to make business’s lives easier, saving crucial time and money and boosting productivity. However, despite this, many businesses fail to achieve the expected benefits from marketing automation. Why is this? In this article, we will look at a few of the most common marketing automation mistakes and how you can avoid them.
Mistake one: overreliance on automation
Marketing automation can save you time and improve efficiency. However, overreliance on a platform or software application to automate your process can depersonalise your communications and impact where you resonate with customers. For example, scheduling your social media posts and emails in advance is useful, but this is no substitute for personal and direct communication when required, too.
Solution: Balance your marketing automation strategy with personalisation. If carried out correctly, marketing automation can actually increase personalisation – but to do so, regularly review and update your automated messages and content so that they align with your brand voice and customer expectations. Workflows and drip feed sequences should be adapted and developed to meet the current needs of your buyer personas, not reused ad infinitum. Automated content should also be personalised with ‘tokens’, such as personalised product recommendations based on past behaviour, the recipient’s name, and other details held on your CRM.
Mistake two: insufficient segmentation
Successful marketing automation depends on a well segmented and organised CRM. Misjudging your segments, or sending generic marketing messages to your entire audience without segmentation, can damage engagement and reward you with high unsubscribe rates.
Solution: Marketing CRMs can be segmented in various different ways. A good place to start is by segmenting your audience by demographic data, behaviour, and preferences, but you could also segment by the services that each prospect is interested in (e.g. the webpage they contacted you from) and by buyer persona type. This helps you to tailor your messages to different markets to make your communications more engaging and relevant.
Mistake three: insufficient data integration
Many businesses still take a ‘silo approach’ to data management, with marketing data held on various applications, cloud-based, and local storage devices. This can make it problematic to integrate your data into a holistic marketing strategy, which results in disjointed marketing efforts and inaccurate reporting.
Solution: Invest in a marketing platform that integrates all your data sources for seamless access (e.g. your CRM, email marketing platforms, social media tools, and so on). Platforms such as HubSpot give you all the marketing tools you need under one roof, making it easier to see the connections between customer interactions and to plan your automated strategy accordingly. Regularly audit these integrations to check that the data is flowing correctly and consistency between your platforms.
SME marketing solutions from JDR
At JDR, we offer a managed marketing automation solution using HubSpot, the world’s leading all in one marketing platform, and one of the pioneers in marketing automation. For more information about our services and how we can help you derive the best value from your marketing investment, please contact one of our team today by clicking here.
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