Figures show that, on average, 49% of businesses are already using marketing automation, and more than 55% of B2B companies have adopted automation technologies. The reason for this is simple:
Marketing automation allows you to do more in less time.
In the domain of CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization), Marketing automation also has a lot to offer. Still, there is a gap between what marketers want and the CRO results they are witnessing.
This is evident from the fact that 7 out of 10 marketers are involved in CRO, but only 22% of businesses are actually satisfied with the results.
This article will discuss how to improve conversion rates by applying automation across:
So let’s dive into this article and see how marketing automation can work its wonders and improve your conversion results. But first, let’s have a brief overview of how marketing automation works.
Essentially, there are four basic elements of the marketing automation workflow:
Once you have a basic understanding of how marketing automation works, you can apply this workflow to many marketing goals. The best part is that most software now provides some level of creative automation so it takes away a lot of work of setting up automation workflows.
You can improve your conversions by employing email automation by:
The way to do this is by creating email sequences that are sent based on user behavior.
An email sequence flow can look like this:
Credits Moosend
So if you want to convert free customers into paying, you can trigger an email sequence that sends these subscribers benefits of your paid version, customer success stories along with catchy CTAs to entice them to sign up.
To increase traffic, you can send newsletters or blogs based on your subscribers’ interest they may have indicated. One simple demographic-based automation is to send separate emails to men and women. Segmented emails increase the chance of engagement and thus increase conversion.
How to create an automated email sequence with MailMunch
Once you sign in, start by going to the Autoresponder menu from the main navigation.
Here, just like you create a regular email, you’ll create the first email for your email sequence.
After you’ve decided on the content and subject line for your first email, you need to choose from which list you want to send emails to new subscribers. For example, if you have a Christmas offer pop-up installed on your website, you can select for your email to be only sent to people who’ve signed up through this form.
When you make it to the ‘Schedule’ section of your email, it’s here where you’ll specify when to send an email to a subscriber. So if a customer just signed up for one of your Christmas promotions, you should send them a welcome or teaser email anywhere between instantly and 24 hours.
After you’ve reviewed your first email, you’ll repeat the process and create as many emails as you want in your drip campaign. Just make sure to select the same list every time, and to be mindful of the time interval you add between the emails.
Once you’ve accustomed yourself with the automation workflow. You can come up with creative campaigns to attract more visitors and convert more customers. Email marketing is a solid strategy and combined with automation; it can drive conversion rates 180% higher than bulk emails.
In the United States, about $1.6 trillion is lost every year from bad customer service experience. Consumers have more choices today than they ever had in the past. This means it’s easier than ever for your customers to simply go to your competitor if your customer experience is poor.
Only selling is not enough in today’s marketplace. Businesses now need to nurture existing customers and cultivate these relationships, or customers will shop elsewhere. That is where automation strategies can help improve conversions. These strategies are:
Abandoned cart messages: About 63 percent of customers do not complete their orders. Sending a personalized email with the right products can add $80,000 for every $1 million in sales.
Promotions, sales, and new product details: Customers love to hear about new deals and sales, and about 85 percent use coupons. Another 75 percent of customers expect business to send them deals and offers. Don’t forget to offer special discounts for repeat customers and again, make them personalized to what they regularly purchase.
Blog articles and online content: Share content relevant to customers. Segment your content based on the information you already know about your customers. This could include previous products they’ve purchased, geography, and demographics.
Social Media: It is essential to stay active on all forms of social media, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and others. Social media increases trust, retains clients and fosters brand consistency. Even further, you may connect social media platforms to your dashboard to more consistently manage your connections and promote the success of your social media posts. You can also use social media content in email to show off your brand voice.
Automating customer communications improves conversion rates by decreasing abandoned carts (which improves sales). Automated content and deals also bring more visitors and eventually customers to your website.
Automating order tracking and inventory can let customers know:
As your business looks for ways to meet customer demand, you must ensure there are no gaps in the customer’s journey as you engineer a well-designed strategy to meet the needs that automation serves in an ever-changing marketplace.
Automated order tracking help improve your conversion rates through better inventory management, which allows you and your customers to stay informed.
Lead scoring is another marketing automation technique that allows you to measure the sales readiness of a lead. It’s proven to be an effective method for boosting conversions, especially when you consider 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales.
You basically add or subtract points from a lead based on the actions they take or don’t take. For this, your marketing team will need to set up a model to score leads (example for scoring provided below) accurately.
You can use software like Hubspot or Marketo, which track prospects throughout your sales funnel and allow you to automate lead scoring. All you have to do is decide what a lead means for your company and define it.
Lead scoring can also account for demographic data to give leads that fit your buyer personas a higher score. You can use information such as:
Then according to your ideal audience, you can score leads higher who fit into your desired categories.
Besides demographics, interactions with your company also play a role in lead scoring and are also easier to measure. Here is an example of the lead scoring system based on behaviors:
Credits Marketo
When a lead reaches a particular score, they are classified as sales-ready and can then be passed onto your sales team, and you can tailor bottom of the funnel content for them.
Lead scoring allows you to refine your targeting strategy for different types of leads and it ensures that your sales team doesn’t waste time on cold leads. It’s been shown to shorten sales cycles by 23%.
By systemizing your lead scoring, you’ll be able to update your lead weights quickly to reflect new insights you have about what drives conversions on your site. These insights will then allow you to reflect upon and improve your lead conversion rates.
I believe, as marketers, we are always trying to push for better results. While most people realize that marketing automation takes away a lot of the heavy lifting and saves time, it can also be beneficial in improving conversion rates, especially in domains of email marketing, customer service, and lead scoring.
What automation features do you use in your marketing stack? Let us know in the comments below.
Rukham is the Content Lead at Mailmunch. He believes trust should be the basis for all marketing communications.
Tags:
