Marketing automation has quickly established itself as the foundation of the digital customer experience. Yet, a recent survey by marketing automation company SharpSpring (with whom 1827 Marketing is a Gold Partner) suggests marketers have more work to do before businesses can claim mastery of the tools at our disposal.

While only 2% of survey respondents said that automation had been unsuccessful for them, 71% of marketing professionals say automation is working ‘somewhat successfully’ for them. Half of surveyed marketers believe they are not using their automation tools to their full advantage.

Clearly, there’s room for improvement. And, with so many companies still finding their feet with automation, there’s also an opportunity to get out in front of the pack and drive new business by creating the experiences our customers want and expect.

So, how do you use automation in a way that makes you one of the 27% of marketers who feel confident they are using marketing automation to achieve their strategic goals?

1. Go beyond marketing efficiency

One of the top reasons for implementing marketing automation is the expectation that it can deliver efficiency savings. In Sharpspring’s marketing automation research, marketers highlighted streamlining sales and marketing efforts (43%) and minimising manual tasks (36%) as their main motivations for adopting the technology.

However, without an accompanying focus on engagement and experience, you could end up ploughing those savings back into creating more middle of the road marketing that doesn’t hit the spot.

Quality data, sales and marketing alignment, and strategic execution are the most likely to amplify the success of your marketing automation software.

These are the key elements you must have in place if you want to use automation to build a digital experience that helps you to stand out:

Quality data - Enables the creation of a more relevant and engaging customer experience through accurate segmentation and personalisation.
Sales and marketing alignment - Breaks down the barriers between your internal departments to create the seamless customer journey your buyers expect.
Strategic execution - Integrates a deep understanding of your brand and organisational priorities to make aligned decisions that set your team up to have an enduring impact.

Without making improvements in these three areas, you cannot deliver the value and growth you’re looking for.

2. Quality of experience, not quantity

You often hear that marketing automation results in allowing you to do more with less. While this is true, it can also set up false expectations that just doing more will automatically lead to better outcomes.

We hate to break it to you, but it is not about the number of campaigns you run. The quality of your customer experience has to be at the heart of all automation projects and you’re already behind your customer expectations.

Customer expectations are constantly growing in relation to the technology they use everyday. They expect instant access to the information they need. They expect you to remember the details of their recent interactions with your brand. They want personalised messaging that is relevant to their needs. They want to see that you understand them and what they’re looking for.

The difference between a good customer experience and a great customer experience is in the quality of your data.

You can use automation to pump out blog posts, emails, adverts, and social media posts all day long. You can create multiple landing pages and lead capture forms to “entice people into the sales funnel”. But if your efforts aren’t helping you to learn more about your customers so you can develop strong relationships with them over time, what’s the point? If you don’t have processes to learn from your customer interaction data and put it to work, where’s the benefit?

Of course there is value in ramping up the marketing machine and being seen. Regularly appearing in people’s social feeds and occupying the top spot in search results is great for brand awareness and attracting prospects. But a great customer experience is more than visibility. It is built by respecting the data a customer has given you and putting it to good use.

Learn more about each and every individual in your target audience. Use their newsletter sign-ups and click throughs, downloaded content and page visits to understand their needs. Then use this information to help guide them through personalised and curated content that shows them what they come to see.

3. Streamline your processes

“Marketing automation solutions can be used to optimise the entire marketing and sales funnel, but technology stacks are often cobbled together with automation only utilised in particular areas.”

— The State of Market Automation

When implementing marketing automation, it makes sense to take a phased approach. But you shouldn’t make the mistake of getting stuck at phase one. The power of automation is only fully realised when it is used to integrate and utilise data from multiple sources and across the whole of the customer journey.

The top three uses for marketing automation are email marketing, social media management, and landing pages. However, fewer organisations are exploring the opportunities offered by using their automation platforms for lead scoring, content management across the whole of the customer journey, sales funnel communications, or account based marketing campaigns.

If you’re ready to move beyond the basics, there has to be a meeting of minds and greater cooperation between sales team and marketing for projects like these to succeed. Perhaps breaking down those internal silos and encouraging a culture of learning is trickier to accomplish than implementing new software, but it is worth the effort to foster shared objectives, understanding, and processes.

Each team can learn from and benefit the other in a way that has greater impact for the entire organisation and your customer.

4. Create a reason to choose you

So, you’ve thought your marketing automation projects through. You know how you’re going to get the raw ingredient of good data flowing in and how you’re going to manage it. You’ve got workflow recipes set up to filter people into the right segments and keep your leads moving through the pipeline. Your sales and marketing teams are working in concert to refine your lead generation processes and customer experience strategy.

But is that enough on its own?

Unfortunately not. Automation can help you to build the digital experiences your B2B buyers expect, but that only gets you part way there.

For your marketing strategies to have real impact, you have to add your secret sauce. You have to use the tools in a way that tells people who you are and that is aligned with your organisation’s strategic objectives.

Unless you’re communicating your brand’s point of difference and values, you can’t create something memorable and uniquely you. And unless your attention is focused on moving the dial on your company’s key objectives, your efforts might have an impact, but it could be in the wrong places.

5. Address your barriers to success

Can a unique customer experience be achieved when automation is being used to scale up your marketing operations? The simple answer is yes, of course!

However, marketing automation software can have a steep learning curve. And there’s more to it than blanketing social media with posts, automating a few email workflows, and watching a stream of qualified leads flowing in for sales to convert.

To make marketing automation platforms work for you, every piece of content - every Tweet, email and advert - needs to reinforce your brand message and create a two-way experience that connects you and the people you want to serve. As you help your customer learn about you and how you can address their problem, you learn more about them so you can provide a more refined level of service and experience.

Some of the most regularly reported barriers to achieving automation success are simply a lack of resources and training to get everything set up and properly integrated. As a result, some firms never make the transition from marketing efficiency to marketing success.

Luckily, 1827 Marketing has done the learning for you and can provide support. If you don’t know where to start or need some help refining your strategy, get in touch. We can help you understand how to use technology to create a more human experience your buyers will love.

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