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Marketing automation should help personalise and improve the user experience, increase engagement and enhance business intelligence

It can be quite frustrating that in today’s world where Google Suggest reads minds, most of the e-commerce outfits I transact with still reach out to customers through useless spam. Sure the cheapskate in me would love to know what deals can be had at times but why do I get notifications about beauty products when most of my searches have been sports and tech goods? Clearly, these online marketplaces that I frequent have yet to fine tune their analytics and marketing campaigns.

Digital marketing campaigns should not just be about scheduled email blasts or shared posts on social media. Marketing automation tools are now available to make campaigns more focused. On the business side, marketing automation should make campaign management easy. For customers, these tools should deliver meaningful engagements.

Here are five things your marketing automation should be doing to close those sales and create repeat business.

1. Personalise those interactions

For many ventures, particularly startups, having dedicated teams to handle specific work is a luxury, which means automation does allow teams to multitask. The usual tradeoff with automation is the lack of personal touch, especially when teams stick to using default canned messages.

The key here is to create authentic content. Invest in creating your own set of messages that are customised for each step in customer engagement. Use a warm and friendly tone, and make sure that each email tries to guide the prospect to commit to a specific action aimed towards closure. Mind the formatting, too. It can be a turn off to receive an email with my name misspelled or referring to me as “Mrs.” in the salutation.

Also read: 6 user experience lessons every founder should know

Some people can be a bit careless when filling out forms (not me) that when you pull information from your database, names with improper capitalisation might appear in emails. Validate and sanitise those form fields to trim down on these potential lapses. There are tools available that can help you clean up your database. Make customers feel valued by paying attention to these little details.

2. Track lead sources customer interests

With tools that can track traffic sources, searches, and clicks widely available, it is quite puzzling why some businesses still do not leverage these data to generate better leads to optimally engage customers. Among the touted capabilities of marketing automation is the ability to track customer activity from lead source origins to even after sales.

Identifying lead sources is essential. You want to know where your leads come from – search, ads, referrals, social, and direct marketing. It is also important to know what they are looking for. This way, you can effectively funnel or triage leads toward appropriate campaigns. If a customer lands on your website searching for a specific product, you may be wasting an opportunity if you do not readily engage the customer based on that point. Upselling and offering related products can come after.

Also Read: 4 things you need to know about marketing your startup to a global audience

3. Build custom workflows

One way to make your campaigns standout is by giving your workflows your own brand of customer interaction. With marketing automation, that can only be done if your solution offers customisable workflows. Such features allow you to effectively guide users through a variety of scenarios. For example, a lead that starts out from organic search may need a different workflow compared to a lead that contacted you directly via email.

Various leads usually have different concerns, so it can be tricky if you try a one-size-fits-all approach. If you simply just react to those leads using the same workflow, then you may just be unnecessarily padding the engagement instead of moving closer towards a sale. Key to winning customer loyalty is providing an effortless experience. UX, after all, is taking centrestage in business, so if you could customize workflows to effectively handle their concerns, then you are well on your way to making loyal customers out of your prospects.

4. Make interactions meaningful

My beef with generic FYI-type of marketing email is that most of the time, they do not serve any other purpose than being cold hard sell. Worse is that they oftentimes label these as “newsletters” and yet they only provide product-centric information. A way to avoid doing this and potentially turning off customers is to provide helpful and relevant information. Your automation solution should be able to include effective content marketing campaigns as part of the workflow. Depending on which stage of the engagement, you can send out short articles or whitepapers that further educate prospects about and beyond your product.

Also Read: Beyond e-commerce: How omnichannel experiences can shake up SEA retail

In these interactions, it is also important to always have a clear goal every step of the way. Keep in mind that you are ramping up interest and influencing buying decisions. Win small battles to win the war. It is in these meaningful interactions that you can even upsell and bundle services as your prospect’s needs may have become more apparent. Provide value every step of the way.

5. Follow up on abandoned carts

Close to 69 per cent of online shopping carts are abandoned, according to an e-commerce usability research by the Baymard Institute. It would be such as shame if you just let these go since, by placing items on the cart, customers have already shown clear interest. There are various reasons why customers just up and leave. Some reasons like your checkout process and site response times should be addressed by your tech team. But reasons such as pricing and product quality can be further explored by your marketing team.

Abandoned carts are among those scenarios that should have a well-thought of workflow. Extend gestures such as offering special offers so customers will reconsider. You need to exert some effort to try and win them back.

Choose your platforms well

All these considered, it is important to choose your marketing automation solution well. Your solution should allow you to connect to your customers in your own way, create an easy and engaging experience, and provide value. Keep in mind that marketing automation is aimed at making nurturing and building relationships with prospects easier for you, but making prospects feel valued should be among your goals, as well.

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The views expressed here are of the author’s, and e27 may not necessarily subscribe to them. e27 invites members from Asia’s tech industry and startup community to share their honest opinions and expert knowledge with our readers. If you are interested in sharing your point of view, submit your post here.

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