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Marketing Automation 2.0: 3 Tactics to Go Next Level
By Erik Qualman#1 Bestselling & Pulitzer Prize Nominated Author
MARKETING AUTOMATION HUB
Marketing Automation Hub Marketing Automation 2.0: 3 Tactics to Go Next Level by Erik Qualman
In just five years, there are now 11 times more B2B organizations using market-
ing automation1. Yet, when it comes to marketing automation, 85% of them are
not reaching their full potential2. Part of the difficulty is keeping up with
the hyper pace of change. In fact, 22% of marketers state they are not confident
they can stay up to date with the best marketing automation practices3.
This means that to stay ahead of the competition, you must know and imple-
ment the latest and greatest practices that make sense for your business.
As such, this e-book is designed to take you beyond the basics of marketing
automation. In my first e-book, “The 3 Musts of Marketing Automation”, we
provided baseline tips to help you and your business grasp the main concepts
of marketing automation. In this second e-book we are breaking down the layers
and providing three advanced tips that will help your business go to the next
level of marketing automation. These advanced tips include: 1) keeping
the customer top of mind, 2) creating a plan, and 3) tracking your customers
for success.
Marketing automation is the future of marketing and the future is now. It allows organizations to e�iciently and e�ectively automate repetitive tasks, freeing up time that can be used to reach additional clients and customers.
Marketing automation is the future of marketing and the future is now. It allows organizations to e�iciently and e�ec-tively automate repetitive tasks, freeing up time that can be used to reach additional clients and customers.
In just five years, there are now 11 times more B2B organizations using market-
ing automation . Yet, when it comes to marketing automation, 85% of them are
not reaching their full potential . Part of the difficulty is keeping up with the
hyper pace of change. In fact, 22% of marketers state they are not confident
they can stay up to date with the best marketing automation practices .
This means that to stay ahead of the competition, you must know and imple-
ment the latest and greatest practices that make sense for your business. As
such, this e-book is designed to take you beyond the basics of marketing auto-
mation. In my first e-book, The 3 Musts of Marketing Automation, we provided
baseline tips to help you and your business grasp the main concepts of market-
ing automation. In this second e-book we are breaking down the layers and
providing three advanced tips that will help your business go to the next level of
marketing automation. These advanced tips include: 1) keeping the customer
top of mind 2) creating a plan and 3) tracking your customers for success.
HOW DOES THIS BENEFIT MY CUSTOMER?
MARKETING AUTOMATION HUB
1. DON’T FORGET THE CUSTOMERExperts agree that the number one asset to think about when creating
a marketing automation campaign is the customer. Don’t simply automate
for automation’s sake or create campaigns that scream self-promotion. Instead,
create personal messages that will impact your click-through rates and open
rates, and help develop relationships.
Matt Quinn, Head of Marketing at Sauce, a SaaS product for e-commerce,
believes the best practice for successful marketing campaigns is to start with
your customer in mind and work backwards. This type of outward, rather than
inward, thinking has allowed his company to generate personal messages that
help improve their open and click-through rates4.
Travis Bennett, Founder and Managing Director of website design agency Studio
Digita, kept his focus solely on the customer to avoid campaigns that seemed
“self-promotional.” By asking, “how does this benefit my customer?” the compa-
ny achieved their goal of avoiding self-promotion and building customer
relationships in the process5.
In the previous e-book, I encouraged you to “Be Human” and “Provide Killer
Content” (Tips #2 and #3); you must provide valuable content to the customer
while avoiding sounding like a robot. Advancing beyond this involves properly
nurturing your leads and following up in a timely manner.
Lead nurturing is the process of developing your relationship with customers
by making an effort in communication, listening to their needs, and giving them
the answers they require. While this demands time and effort, it is vital for
best-practice marketing automation and for developing and deepening relation-
ships with customers and prospects. Here’s why:
1. Businesses experience a 451% increase in qualified leads when they use
marketing automation to nurture prospects.6
2. Nurtured email leads produce, on average, a 20% increase in sales versus
non-nurtured leads.7
3. Nurtured leads spend approximately 47% more on their purchases.8
4. 45% of companies (i.e. your competition) are taking advantage of lead
nurturing capabilities.9
A common question is how should you lead nurture your emails to generate
sales/interest and stay ahead of your competition, knowing they are also
utilizing marketing automation.
Marketing Automation Hub Marketing Automation 2.0: 3 Tactics to Go Next Level by Erik Qualman
MARKETING AUTOMATION HUB
One of the biggest keys to success is a follow-up email10. As a result of the quick
response nature of tools like Twitter and outstanding online customer service
being offered by companies like Zappos and Amazon, customers expect
an unreasonably quick turnaround time for their pressing questions. Hence,
when a customer or client reaches out to your organization, make certain you
don’t hesitate to respond. This elementary idea is often overlooked when
setting up marketing automation processes and models.
This holds true as well when a customer signs up for a subscription service
or buys your product. Make certain you immediately thank them and gently
remind them of the benefits your product or service offers. This reinforces their
buying decision and helps avoid buyer’s remorse.
The communication shouldn’t end there. When the timing is appropriate
a follow-up email should ask the customer why they subscribed or bought your
product/service in the first place11. This relates back to focusing on “what does
the customer want?” Based on the input and answers you receive from each
individual customer, you can systematically segment your audience and build
stronger, more personalized relationships based on their specific needs and
desires. In the past, this type of personalized follow-up was manually prohibitive
– now through advancements in marketing automation, it’s a reality – but only
if you put in the time, effort, and systems to properly capitalize on it.
Bonus Tip:
Don’t stop your segmenting and customization with the first and second emails.
Allow customers to set their own preferences12. For example, how many emails
do they wish to receive? This conveys that you value your customer’s time
and input – that you don’t want to send needless messages. It also allows you
to further segment your audience. Specifically, divide your customers into those
who want to know what’s going on at all times and those who only wish for one
promotional email regarding your annual sale.
Marketing Automation Hub Marketing Automation 2.0: 3 Tactics to Go Next Level by Erik Qualman
MARKETING AUTOMATION HUB
2. CREATE A PLANSuccess will not happen overnight, but by implementing small and clear goals,
you can stay on track and manage expectations for your project or campaign13.
• #1 cause of project failure – lack of direction and goals14.
• 40% of IT projects fail because of poor planning15.
Start small. Starting with a small campaign gives you more time to plan and test
what works. Is your body copy, timing, platform, etc. working? If not, how can
you fix it? Small campaigns allow the opportunity to tweak, adjust, and improve
before you begin to operate on a larger scale. Don’t hesitate to label it as a beta
test both inside and out of your organization. Google regularly practices a beta
test approach with the main benefit being that internal and external stakehold-
ers are often more forgiving and willing to provide necessary feedback
to improve the process. Many common day products including Gmail and Google
Maps had the label of “beta” for years.
Ben Landers, President and CEO of Blue Corona, says the key to success
in a marketing automation campaign is to “budget more time than you think
for segmentation and content analysis.” This allowed his company the time
to view every single content asset from the eyes of his target market,
thus creating better relationships and turnover for his company16.
Begin planning your campaign by testing your subject line. What subject line
will be most effective in achieving the best click view, click-through, and open
rates? Discover what works with A/B testing17. A/B testing is a split test, where
you test one subject against another. These tests provide helpful insights
around what wording and visuals will work best for each specific segment
of your audience. Continual testing and optimizing is essential for nurturing
and converting prospects into customers.
To begin A/B testing, send out two different subject lines to your subscriber list.
For example, one may read “Rad New Deal” and another may say “Check Out
Our New Deals”. After gathering results, implement the subject line that best
accomplishes your goal for the program. Below are some additional A/B testing
tips18:
• Test your body copy. Half of all sales are lost because content is poor19.
• Test various visuals - even the specific location of your visuals.
• Test video versus 2D images.
• A/B test with two or more different customer segments.
Marketing Automation Hub Marketing Automation 2.0: 3 Tactics to Go Next Level by Erik Qualman
MARKETING AUTOMATION HUB
Walter Wise, Business and marketing strategist, lead generation specialist,
and executive coach at BPI Strategy Group, believes that the most important
campaign is: “Get the message right. If the message isn’t compelling and does
not resonate with your target market, it will not be opened, read, or understood.
Using the conversion equation of Interrupt, Engage, Educate, and Offer will
ensure you get off to a great start.” Wise creates compelling messages that
resonate with his customers in order to increase customer understanding
and conversion rates20.
The next step is to test your timing21. What time is best for your market group
to receive an email? Is it 9am, when people open work emails, lunchtime shoppers
trying to find a good deal, or is it night time, when people check email one last
time before going to bed? What day of the week is best? Test your timing
by sending out emails at random times throughout different days of the week
and track how often they are opened. If you notice a correlation, meaning
a majority of your customers prefer being emailed at 11am versus 3pm, send your
emails then. Global Internet media company, Travelzoo, which has over 28 million
members, has found that the optimal send time to email their Top 20 Travel Deal
List is 11am on Wednesdays. Keep in mind that every business will get different
results from their testing and there is no definitive one size fits all answer.
According to marketing research firm Ascend2, marketing automation profes-
sionals found the below (in order of usefulness) helpful in measuring their
success22:
• Conversion rate: 62%
• Revenue generated: 48%
• Leads generated: 43%
• Engagement: 42%
• Pipeline value: 31%
• Cost per lead: 29%
Case Study:
Bob Grant struggled with declining open rates and sub-optimal delivery times.
Since more than 70% of his sales come from email marketing campaigns,
he turned to GetResponse to create a reliable email marketing platform
and optimize deliverability. As a result, his emails got through at an ideal time,
improving open rates by 35%. These improvements resulted in revenues
and profits increasing 20%. In summary, test until you are confident you are
sending messages at the optimal time23.
Marketing Automation Hub Marketing Automation 2.0: 3 Tactics to Go Next Level by Erik Qualman
MARKETING AUTOMATION HUB
3. TRACK CUSTOMERSAs in the offline world, building online relationships take time. Understanding
your customer base while providing valuable content with a personal touch will
foster the right environment to continue growing your client base and convert-
ing leads to sales. Tracking your customers is another key to establishing
the building blocks for a productive and lasting relationship.
Tracking all relevant data and input you receive from the customer allows you
to better understand and segment your customers. Segmenting customers
allows you to create the best marketing mix for each of your targets
and develop better relationships that will drive an increase in conversion rates24.
Research shows that segmented emails result in 50% more click-throughs than
an all-in email blast25. Industry and interests will often be the main
characteristics in segmentation categories. However, other characteristics
exist and should be considered including:26
• Contest participation
• Source of lead
• Sales funnel drop off
• Location
Based on your segments, you can create custom campaigns that will help you
connect with each target audience on a more personal level rather than sending
out a generic message to all subscribers and only connecting with a select few.
When it comes to segmenting, collect this relevant user information from
the onset and during the lead generation stage. Don’t be afraid to gather data
and insights from Facebook; one way to do this is by marketing with third party
contest apps. When selecting your email management tool, make sure it meets
the needs of your robust segmentation and marketing automation require-
ments.
Marketing Automation Hub Marketing Automation 2.0: 3 Tactics to Go Next Level by Erik Qualman
MARKETING AUTOMATION HUB
Be certain to embrace SoLoMo, short for social, local and mobile. This ensures
you are broadening your reach beyond email and will enable you to reach your
customer when and where they want to be reached27. 65 million Americans use
social, location-based services on smartphones (Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram28).
So why not take advantage and use location-based data to create localized
messages that are mobile friendly to ensure maximum reach?
Bonus Tip:
Quality over quantity. It’s great to have a large number of subscribers, but it’s
the total number of active subscribers that count. Work on whittling down your
list to a refined group of people by sending out a “break up” email; if they don’t
reply you can safely remove them from your list29.
Marketing Automation Hub Marketing Automation 2.0: 3 Tactics to Go Next Level by Erik Qualman
IN CONCLUSIONAs the adoption rate of marketing automation increases among your competi-
tors, take your program beyond the basics. The three advanced concepts
covered here should help you stay ahead of your competition and most impor-
tantly, meet and exceed the ever-growing demands of your prospects
and customers. Remember that no matter how successful your marketing
automation efforts are to date, there is always a next level to achieve.
Here’s to you achieving that next level.
MARKETING AUTOMATION HUB
1 SiriusDecisions. "B-to-B Marketing Automation Study." SiriusDecisions. 2014. https://www.siriusdecisions.com/-
Blog/2014/Aug/Marketing-Automation-Study. 2 SiriusDecisions. "Increasing Adoption of Marketing Automation Platforms." SiriusDecisions. 2014. https://www.siriusdeci-
sions.com/Blog/2014/Aug/Marketing-Automation-Study. 3 B2Bmarketing.net and Circle Research “Benchmarking Report Marketing automation” (2015)4 Stringfellow, Angela. "35 SALES AND MARKETING PROFESSIONALS REVEAL THEIR TOP MARKETING AUTOMATION TIPS."
Docurated. April 14, 2016. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://www.docurated.com/all-things-productivity/implement-
ing-successful-marketing-automation-campaign.5 Stringfellow, Angela. "35 SALES AND MARKETING PROFESSIONALS REVEAL THEIR TOP MARKETING AUTOMATION TIPS."
Docurated. April 14, 2016. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://www.docurated.com/all-things-productivity/implement-
ing-successful-marketing-automation-campaign.6 ANNUITAS GROUP. ANNUITAS Inc. Accessed November 28, 2016. http://annuitas.com/.7 Bunskoek, Krista. “10 Steps to Email Automation Success.” Wishpond. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://blog.wish-
pond.com/post/72451721652/10-steps-to-email-automation-success 8 Frank Paterno, “8 Benefits of Integrating Your CRM with Marketing Automation, “ The kapost Blog, December 12, 2014,
Accessed October 22, 2016
http://marketeer.kapost.com/integrating-crm-with-marketing-automation/#axzz3UgvBkNoA, 9 Aberdeen Group “State of Marketing Automation 2014: Processes that Produce” (2014)10 Bunskoek, Krista. “10 Steps to Email Automation Success.” Wishpond. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://blog.wish-
pond.com/post/72451721652/10-steps-to-email-automation-success11 [ix] Olenski, Steve. "7 Email Marketing Automation Tips For Brand Marketers." Forbes. July 25, 2016. Accessed October 16,
2016. http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolen-
ski/2016/07/25/7-email-marketing-automation-tips-for-brand-marketers/#5308a0d213b5.12 Olenski, Steve. "7 Email Marketing Automation Tips For Brand Marketers." Forbes. July 25, 2016. Accessed October 16,
2016. http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolen-
ski/2016/07/25/7-email-marketing-automation-tips-for-brand-marketers/#5308a0d213b5.13 LBDGA. “Top 10 Tips for successful Marketing Automation.” LBDGA. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://www.lbdga.com/-
media/8066/19501-top-10-tips-infographic-a3-cmyk-aw-v2-04-10-13.pdf14 Pink Elephant Conference 201215 Watts S Humphrey, IBM 200516 Stringfellow, Angela. "35 SALES AND MARKETING PROFESSIONALS REVEAL THEIR TOP MARKETING AUTOMATION TIPS."
Docurated. April 14, 2016. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://www.docurated.com/all-things-productivity/implement-
ing-successful-marketing-automation-campaign.17 Bunskoek, Krista. “10 Steps to Email Automation Success.” Wishpond. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://blog.wish-
pond.com/post/72451721652/10-steps-to-email-automation-success18 Bunskoek, Krista. “10 Steps to Email Automation Success.” Wishpond. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://blog.wish-
pond.com/post/72451721652/10-steps-to-email-automation-success 19 KissMetrics 201120 Stringfellow, Angela. "35 SALES AND MARKETING PROFESSIONALS REVEAL THEIR TOP MARKETING AUTOMATION TIPS."
Docurated. April 14, 2016. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://www.docurated.com/all-things-productivity/implement-
ing-successful-marketing-automation-campaign.21 Olenski, Steve. "7 Email Marketing Automation Tips For Brand Marketers." Forbes. July 25, 2016. Accessed October 16,
2016. http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolen-
ski/2016/07/25/7-email-marketing-automation-tips-for-brand-marketers/#5308a0d213b5. 22 Krista Wiltbank, “35 Killer Marketing Automation Statistics You Need to Know Now,” GetResponse Blog, June 24, 2016,
accessed October 22, 2017 https://blog.getresponse.com/35-killer-marketing-automation-statistics.html23 GetResponse. “Relationship Headquarters Improves Open Rates by 35% by switching to GetResponse.” GetResponse.
Accessed October 21, 2016. https://www.getresponse.com/customers/case-study/bobgrant.html24 Bunskoek, Krista. “10 Steps to Email Automation Success.” Wishpond. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://blog.wish-
pond.com/post/72451721652/10-steps-to-email-automation-success 25 Bunskoek, Krista. “10 Steps to Email Automation Success.” Wishpond. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://blog.wish-
pond.com/post/72451721652/10-steps-to-email-automation-success 26 Bunskoek, Krista. “10 Steps to Email Automation Success.” Wishpond. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://blog.wish-
pond.com/post/72451721652/10-steps-to-email-automation-success 27 LBDGA. “Top 10 Tips for successful Marketing Automation.” LBDGA. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://www.lbdga.com/-
media/8066/19501-top-10-tips-infographic-a3-cmyk-aw-v2-04-10-13.pdf28 LBDGA. “Top 10 Tips for successful Marketing Automation.” LBDGA. Accessed October 16, 2016. http://www.lbdga.com/-
media/8066/19501-top-10-tips-infographic-a3-cmyk-aw-v2-04-10-13.pdf 29 Olenski, Steve. "7 Email Marketing Automation Tips For Brand Marketers." Forbes. July 25, 2016. Accessed October 16,
2016. http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolen-
ski/2016/07/25/7-email-marketing-automation-tips-for-brand-marketers/#5308a0d213b5.
Marketing Automation Hub Marketing Automation 2.0: 3 Tactics to Go Next Level by Erik Qualman
Author • Professor • Speaker • Entrepreneur
#1 Best Selling Author and Motivational Speaker Erik Qualman has performed in 47 countries and reached 25 million people this decade.
His Socialnomics work has been on 60 Minutes to the Wall Street Journal and used by the National Guard to NASA. His book Digital Leader propelled him to be voted the 2nd Most Likeable Author in the World behind Harry Potter's J.K. Rowling. What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and his is books are used in over 200 of the world’s top universities. His latest book, How to Sell on LinkedIn launched in Q4 2016. Qualman was formerly a sitting professor at Harvard & MIT’s edX labs.
Erik QualmanAuthor
Marketing Automation Hub Marketing Automation 2.0: 3 Tactics to Go Next Level by Erik Qualman