You don’t have to make all these mistakes. You can conduct a personalized and relevant communication with your customers straight from the beginning. You can just sit and see how your sales, revenue per client and your list all grow and enjoy the time you have for the analytical and creative job.
Read our post to ensure that your implementation runs smoothly and avoid common mistakes that could harm your company.
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1. Spam or the curse of abundance
Marketing Automation Platform shows a new potential of email marketing, so you are eager to test all new options it provides. In the effect, some recipients might end up receiving four messages from you per day. Even if your company gives pure awesomeness for free, it’s too much, and your customers will unsubscribe.
Tip: set a limit of how many messages one user can get in a defined period. Also, build your automations gradually – read more on that below.
2. Ignoring user feedback
Sometimes marketers are so focused on new ideas they implement and great rules of automation they set that they can’t see that customers don’t respond well to that.
Tip: When you’ve invested a lot in planning a rule or a process, and now it doesn’t work, it’s painful and disappointing. Nevertheless don’t stick to anything that performs badly. The time and energy you’ve spent on the project are sunken costs: you can’t retrieve it. You’ve learned something new, so draw conclusions and try something else.
3. You sound like a machine
It happens because you automate the processes you shouldn’t automate, for example, comments in social media or autoresponders to customers who make complaints. It’s especially irritating when a customer reaches out to you to solve a problem, and all she receives are mechanic messages. Firstly, her issue remains unsolved. Secondly, she feels ignored and treated like an idiot.
Tip: Know what types of messages should be automated and which shouldn’t. How to know? Just put yourself in customer’s shoes and think how would you feel if you received such a message?
4. Neglecting post-sale marketing and support
In theory Marketing Automation encourages marketers to pay more attention to existing customers, but in practice lead generation often wins. So marketers focus on attracting new users, not nurturing, educating and building relationships with those who’re already with us. A huge, huge mistake.
Tip: Top performers devote 30% resources more on marketing to existing customers. Unlock the potential of dynamic messages and use them in up-sell and cross-sell campaigns. Also, create campaigns dedicated to the most loyal customers – they’re your ambassadors.
5. Automating wrong processes
Remember that automating bad processes won’t turn them magically into efficient practices. If you have bad lead generation ideas, improperly constructed lead nurturing or aggressive campaigns that recover abandoned carts, automation will have one effect: you’ll get the same results, only faster. And maybe on bigger scale.
Tip: Think the process through before you automate it. And test how it performs.
6. You cut the budget for valuable elements
You spend money on Marketing Automation, so you have to take it from somewhere else. So you reorganize the budget and cut the money for lead generation or content production.
It backfires. If you don’t generate new leads, who will you nurture with your automation platform? To whom will you send these personalized emails? Without traffic, Marketing Automation makes no sense.
Even if your emails are personalized, and time of delivery will be tailored to the individual user, with poor content it only hurts the company.
Tip: Investment in Marketing Automation will return within a year; in 44% of cases in happens after 6 months. Be patient, automate, but don’t cut your budget for content or lead generation.
7. Too much hurry
Wow, possibilities of Marketing Automation Platform can take your breath away! And you want to try them all, right here, right now! You read, attend webinars, have so many ideas on what to improve that when you finally can put your hands on a platform, you create dozens of rules. We know the enthusiasm, but hold your horses.
Tip: When you create many rules at once, you can only get lost and lose contact with your leads. Build your Marketing Automation world gradually. In the beginning, set a couple of simple rules and wait. See how users respond. If they perform well, you can add some more. Remember that Marketing Automation also helps get to know your audience.
8. Fear of errors
Fear of mistakes is worse that mistakes themselves. If it’s a part of your corporate culture, then you will find it hard to encourage your staff to innovate or change their approach to marketing, which will be crucial to the effective use of the platform. Otherwise, you won’t be able to use fascinating features of the system and will stick to what you already have been doing.
Tip: You need an environment that supports testing and failing.
9. Lack of knowledge
Learning the platform takes time: if you want your team to become experts, you need to find a way to grow their competencies.
Tip: Ensure that your team has time and resources to learn, participate in training and read. You can share useful links and create a company’s library to motivate each other.
10. Not enough resources
Often CMOs or CEOs just add “Marketing Automation” as a new task to already overworked marketing team. But learning the platform takes time (see above), and if you don’t make sure that your team has the resources (time, knowledge) to operate the platform, they will waste its potential, using just a couple of features. Also, running the platform will be frustrating as another task that cannot be addressed adequately.
Tip: Take care of your team and take a realistic look at their work. Can they do more? Maybe you need to hire another person? The costs of Marketing Automation don’t limit do the price of the platform; they also include workforce.
Success in Marketing Automation
Companies that excel in Marketing Automation, share a couple of features:
– They don’t neglect their existing customers
– They understand how the platform works and what resources it requires
– They give their staff time to learn and room to test (and make mistakes)
– They pay attention to how customers respond
– They find their own rhythm of work: they don’t rush, but consequently implement new automations.
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