Marketing automation helps to better understand a customer’s thinking process during their customer journey. Your customers may come from a similar niche or audience, but that doesn’t mean they all think or act alike. Every website or social media visitor has a unique budget, demographic, and intent. Marketing automation makes it easier to recognize these characteristics and gives you a better image of the real person behind each virtual user.
Marketing automation has several features to help nurture customers. Each feature is important for different stages throughout the customer journey in order to consistently re-engage your audience.
Remarketing
Remarketing is the first step in the customer journey. It’s an opportunity for your business to engage with leads that may have forgotten to revisit your website after leaving.
Remarketing sends targeted ads to people who have viewed your web pages, abandoned carts on your site, or browsed through your social media. Even if you don’t have info on a lead, you can still remarket to them. Marketing automation platforms can help set cookies on your site to help remarket to these individuals based on the interactions they had on your website.
Form Submissions
Marketing automation provides a way to recapture customer interest and follow their journey: form submissions. Forms can range from simple to complex. Simple forms may consist of only a lead’s name, email, etc. Whereas complex forms ask questions about their occupation, age, location, and more. Both form types serve the same purpose: collecting information on leads.
Something as basic as an email can provide insight into a customer’s journey. For example, your customer could be using a personal email address or a company address. Knowing which company they work for can give you insight into what they do, what they like, where they live, etc. It could also give you a better understanding of which brands or businesses might want to work with you.
While both form types have their advantages, sometimes the simpler the better. According to Hubspot, forms with only one question compared to several questions have a 20% higher conversion rate. With either form, make sure to ask the questions that will get you the information you need.
Whether you go with a simple or complex form submission, this information is the first step to retaining devoted customers. By adding them to email lists, they’ll feel like they’re part of a community that really cares about their interests.
Lead Scoring
Lead scoring is similar to remarketing, but takes your data to the next step. Marketing automation keeps track of every single interaction a potential lead takes on your website. This means you have access to information based on who is clicking your blog posts, watching videos, or scrolling your social media pages. A prospective customer might do this once and then leave forever, or they might be viewing web pages consistently each week.
Keeping track of all this information can seem daunting, but that’s where lead scoring comes into play. Marketing automation platforms automatically rank each visitor based on how often they interact with your site. Lead scoring ranks this activity from highest to lowest to give you a better idea of specific customer journeys. This will tell you which potential leads are more likely to make a purchase if given more attention.
Remarketing can be the first step taken to re-engage a customer, but lead scoring will give you a greater understanding of who is still interested after weeks or months of interaction.
Personalization
Personalization might already seem like an obvious perk due to form submission and lead scoring features. Nonetheless, it’s important to note the major benefits it has on the customer journey.
One way you can personalize a customer journey is to segment customers into certain email lists and create ads designed specifically for their interests. Another way to streamline their preferences is through A/B testing on content. By analyzing which content they prefer to click, you’ll have a well-rounded understanding of what your client likes.
Personalization in your marketing automation strategy is key to creating loyal customers. Every brand has niche audiences and you’ll want to know which subgroup each of your customers fits into. Once you find the perfect fit, their customer journey with your brand will continue to flourish.
Nurture Leads
Another valuable feature of marketing automation is the ability to contact potential leads at the right moment. You’ll end up saving your customer, marketing team, and sales team a lot of time and effort. Drip email campaigns can help nurture leads and answer questions. If this isn’t working, marketing automation platforms can even send out SMS messages to leads who have provided their phone numbers. All in all, marketing automation resources can enhance the quality of service you provide to a customer and regularly remind them of your brand via emails, social media ads, and follow up messages.
Long-Term Engagement
Your sales and marketing team are oftentimes focusing on generating more leads that they may forget to engage current customers. Retaining customer loyalty with your most devoted clients is crucial for any business. Marketing automation solves this problem with long-term customer engagement.
The best way to consistently keep customers in the loop is by using their addresses (both physical and email) to send them digital newsletters and direct mail. Use this opportunity to update them with what’s new with your business and gauge their interest. Also, be sure to send occasional discounts or perks to thank them for their support. When customers feel appreciated and are consistently engaged with, they’ll reward your business with their loyalty.
Utilizing marketing automation will help streamline your customer’s journey. Using the available features will not only improve your relationship with customers, it’ll make sure they keep coming back to your business. At REAS Marketing, we offer marketing automation consulting to help you reach past, present, and potential leads. Contact us today to get started.
