Marketing Automation Platform Blues

Be aware that although marketing automation (MA) platforms can send email to a list, it is not a replacement for your ESP. They have different roles.

If the business needs check all the MA boxes and a purchase has been made, account configured, team onboarded and the platform is ready to be used, many marketers ask themselves “OK, now what should we be doing?”

The term automation tricks many marketers into thinking that the marketing just happens by itself. That couldn’t be further from the truth. That is where some ideas and examples on how your new MA platform can be used could come in handy and introduce you to new possibilities.

It should always start by defining who it is you’re trying to target and what information would be useful to them when in each stage of their customer journey/customer life cycle with you. Then there are many different types of marketing programs you could create and automate a program for, such as:

• Awareness/Attract
  • Testimonial marketing
  • Product specific educational marketing
  • Search engine marketing
  • Social media marketing
  • Blog Posting and Blog Post Marketing
• Consideration/Engage/Delight
  • Competitive research marketing
  • Email marketing
  • Retargeting/remarketing in direct mail, email, social or display
  • Knowledge base marketing
  • Live chat bots
  • Case study marketing
• Decision/Purchase
  • Case study marketing
  • Ebook/whitepaper marketing
  • How-to video marketing
  • Checklists
  • Tip sheets
• Retention
  • Next likely purchase marketing
  • Loyalty marketing
  • Referral marketing
  • Product knowledge marketing
• Win-Back
  • Inactive customer promotions
  • We miss you email drip campaigns

Once you know who you’re trying to target, pick one stage of the customer journey and map out a blueprint workflow of what it is you would like to do/accomplish as this will inform you of what assets will need to be created. Here is an example of a blueprint workflow for Awareness where the marketable asset is a testimonial video:

1. Send email and serve display ads to our target audience with a CTA button that drives them to our data collection landing page. Once they submit the form on the landing page, they will be redirected to a second landing page that has an embedded testimonial video. If they checked the box on the form for email opt-in, add them to your blog digest weekly email.
2. Send a follow-up email a week later to anyone who has not clicked through on the first email or did click through but did not submit the form on the landing page.
3. Trigger an email to anyone who submitted the form that gives them contact info of their sales rep if they have any questions regarding the video.
4. Automate an email notification to go to the specific sales rep when someone submits the form.
5. Automate adding a to-do task for the sales rep to follow up with the form lead five business days after the form was submitted.

Your workflow blueprint might include assets like:

• Email template
  • Email copy and subject Line
  • Email images for hero and body
• Downloadable PDF
• Video
  • Video script
  • Video voiceover
  • Stock video or shoot live video
  • Video animation
  • Video editing
• Landing Page
  • Landing page copy
  • Landing page images
  • Landing page embedded form
• Form
  • Form fields (standard and custom)
  • Form design/formatting
• Published Blog Post or Article
  • Blog copy
  • Blog images

Once the workflow blueprint is agreed upon by all key stakeholders and assets created/developed, that is when the fun starts and can be executed by your team members who understand and know how to use the MA and ESP platforms. If you’re interested in getting more ideas of workflow blueprints you can create in your MA platform to engage your target audience, let’s talk.