How do you successfully implement marketing automation software in your business?
Ever feel like your emails aren’t performing like they should? It’s probably because you’re just firing out the same emails to all of your contacts without stopping to consider how relevant the content is to each individual. At best, most of your emails will be completely ignored, and at worst, they’ll get deleted or marked as spam. You’ll notice your mailing list gradually become less effective as your contacts grow of being bombarded with irrelevant messages.
If you’re still taking a one-size-fits-all approach to your email marketing, you can probably relate fairly well to the above. That’s because you’re not effectively engaging with your customers by sending them emails tailored to their needs and interests, at carefully planned times to have maximum impact and encourage return visits to your ecommerce site. Ultimately, you’re wasting time and resources and failing to maximise the revenue potential of email for your business.
It’s time to realise that you need to move from generic broadcast marketing to personalised one-to-one marketing, with a firm focus on getting the right message to the right customers at the right time. Surprisingly, many businesses have still not recognised that marketing automation presents the ideal solution to this problem. Not only does it eliminate the need for day-to-day management of communications between you and your customers, but also it frees up your staff to focus on other areas of your marketing campaign.
Because implementing marketing automation requires your employees to accept changes to their working practices and a consequent shift in attitudes, a ‘top down’ approach will ensure that it is accepted, followed through and ultimately delivers excellent results for your business.
That’s why having your MD on board from the start is an essential prerequisite of the successful implementation of marketing automation in your organisation. The functions of marketing automation need to be fully understood and promoted by top level management in order for the benefits to be effectively communicated down the business and be understood and accepted by every department and every employee.
Here are our three essential steps to take in order to create the culture needed to successfully implement marketing automation in your business:
1.Make The Case For Automation
The MD and senior management must truly understand and be on board with the commercial benefits of marketing automation including ROI, lower long term costs, and making your communications more relevant.
2. Explain How You Will Implement It
Explain in detail to all staff the reasons why and how your organisation will adopt marketing automation. Highlight how it will impact their role, the need to accept the change, and the benefits that will be felt.
3. Get The Right Tools
Invest in high quality marketing automation software, such as Copernica, that will provide you with the tools you need to create and monitor your own advanced marketing campaigns.
By using marketing automation software to send out targeted messages you will achieve a number of things. The frequency of your emails being marked as spam will reduce, the likelihood of your messages being opened will increase and most importantly, you will be more effective in engaging with and nurturing your customers which will ultimately lead to increased sales.
If want to look at the financial benefits for your business, why not put the costs associated with marketing automation into context, take an example such as the ROI of marketing automation compared to SEO, and it’s clear to see that there’s a strong case for spending money on marketing automation.
So with such clear benefits to your bottom line, why wait? Make marketing automation a priority for your business, but remember; successful implementation starts at the top!
Just click the link to download our free guide to automated emails!
Free Download: A Simple Guide To Automated Email Campaigns
