Skip to content
Marketing automation is one of the aspects that practically every business is aware of because it does some of the jobs that are tedious and no longer require employee effort day-to-day. With marketing automation, you are able to take care of a variety of marketing tasks including emails, handling leads, and tracking the ROI on your marketing campaigns. These marketing automation tactics are definitely the first that come to mind for almost everyone, but how can you harness the power of marketing automation and use it creatively? What are other uses of marketing automation software?
Top Creative Uses of Marketing Automation
The following list offers a few creative uses of marketing automation, but keep in mind there are a lot of creative ways to use marketing automation beyond these suggestions. Larger corporations and businesses are known for effectively mastering marketing automation, but up-front I would like to point out that this is an ideal addition to a small business marketing plan. A few ideas include:
Monitor (and Route) Customer Complaints from Social Media.
There is so much feedback that can be derived from social media. One creative way to use this information is actually to sync your various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to your CRM software (such as MS Dynamics, Salesforce, or Pipedrive), using CRM software like Azuqua. This cloud technology allows you to route any negative mentions or complaints, in real time, so that you can follow-up quickly. This is one of the most effective ways of responding to negative feedback, as you can literally help the customer as soon as they mention you on Twitter, for example, just by setting up email notifications. And of course, Azuqua isn’t the only platform built for this—several other marketing automation solutions have also integrated similar social media monitoring tools into their platforms to allow for advanced CRM routing and notifications. Below is an example screenshot:
Boost Subscriber Engagement Using Blog Content.
When users take an interest in your blog, you want to keep the information coming. One creative way to boost subscriber engagement is by sending emails with articles they may be interested in reading based on the topics and links they click on when they visit your website. Again, there are different platforms that allow you to do this kind of automation. An example is Vocus, where once a website subscriber clicks on an article, they will be sent a suggestion email with similar articles on your site based on key words. Below is an example from Vocus using Vocus:
Get More Leads!
Marketing automation has always put gaining new leads as a major goal, but did you ever think about looking further than the typical strategies? You could have a lot of people interested in your content without getting the converted sales that you had hoped for. If you have a “thank you page” or a feedback portal for people that purchase your services, allow people to write comments about their experience. If you make these comments visible and create a link for site visitors to click, you will likely increase the amount of website leads simply because visitors really like to see customer feedback. Amazon is the perfect example of this option:
Create a Personalized Member Portal
Creating a member portal has been one of the most effective marketing strategies, and it works well across different fields and types of business. Marketing automation software can help you better personalize content, and by creating an individual microsite for each customer, you are increasing the purpose and frequency of your website utilization. This strategy allows customers to easily check their accounts and associated information.
If you are a beauty salon, for example, they may be able to see their previous and future appointments, what services were done, the length and cost of the appointment. The salon could also use this information to find out what services they may potentially be interested in, which would help to create other marketing ideas. You can also use a customized portal to specify aspects like content and promotions depending on the customer. The bottom line is that people like to fee customized and unique, and this is one of the many ways you can bring that desire to life by using marketing automation. Health applications for mobile do this incredibly well, as shown in the example from HoverState below:
The Downsides and Other Options
Unfortunately, the one down side to marketing automation software is the relatively high cost. This has caused small businesses to hesitate about investing in marketing automation software in comparison to larger businesses. While costs should always be considered in your business plan, marketing automation is definitely up and coming and becoming accessible), and even at its current state of value to a business it could be well worth the investment. In the end, your investment should be compared with the return on investment. If a tool or software plan can help your business to generate extra revenue every month, then a $200/month fee won’t feel quite as significant.
One of the economic alternatives to purchasing software like this is to spend months and months testing different subject lines, button colors, and form fields. I spoke with Sergio Aicardi of No Risk SEO who explained that when working on his own company website as well as client websites, “More often than not it may take a really big jump for your marketing team to be able to pinpoint and identify what is actually being successful in your online marketing. Creativity and technology are making online marketing easier than ever, and the benefits often outweigh the costs, even for smaller businesses. In other words, it is not just what marketing automation software can do, but how you can use it so creatively to achieve the goals that you have.”
The Takeaway
The examples laid out make use of really looking at your target audience, and what your business wants to achieve. By doing this, you can effectively tailor your marketing strategies for whatever your business wants to achieve.
Ultimately, while many of these campaign ideas may not be novel, using multi-channel marketing works very effectively, especially when you have marketing automation software to back up your campaigns. Once you have both of these working hand-in-hand you are able to do things like use your marketing budget for traditional ads that I just mentioned, build a list of interested prospects, and create some suspense around the launch.
Do you have any experience with marketing automation software? Has this been essential to your small business success? We would love to hear your stories, so let us know in the comments section below!