The following marketing automation best practices will help you generate more high-quality leads. A successful lead generation strategy involves more than just automation software like HubSpot.
The starting point is planning centered on target audiences and content. Automation can only be successfully implemented if processes and strategies are clearly defined in advance for both marketing and sales.
Take advantage of our marketing automation best practices to streamline collaboration and improve your campaign results.
What is marketing automation?
Marketing automation encompasses all marketing activities that can be automated using software. Companies can use automation from the first point of contact with a customer through to post-purchase support.
This involves using an automation platform like HubSpot to trigger automated actions in response to a customer’s action. For example, this could be filling out a contact form. The automated response in this case is a personalized and relevant email sent to the customer.
Marketing automation thus offers the following possibilities:
• to perform manual and administrative tasks.
• Prioritize tasks.
• Make marketing and sales processes more effective.
Learn how to keep campaign costs low and generate more leads.
Automate your marketing activities and sales processes to improve efficiency in lead qualification and lead management.
Which marketing automation best practices should you implement?
With tools like HubSpot, you can respond specifically to customer behavior and personalize content to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
But where’s the best place to start? To help you get started, we’ve put together the following 8 steps—including examples—for marketing automation best practices.
1. Create buyer personas and customer journeys
Your existing knowledge of your customers forms the basis for personalized messages that are sent automatically. Create buyer personas that represent your various target audiences.
These buyer personas follow a specific path—the customer journey—leading up to the purchase of your products or services. The best practice for marketing automation here is to clearly define the customer journey before you begin automating.
With well-defined customer personas and journeys, it’s easier for you to segment customers in automation software and personalize content. Among other things, this also allows you to pinpoint which of your activities lead to a lead and ultimately to a purchase.
2. Define the stages your customers go through
Potential customers move through the customer journey along the sales funnel, leading up to the purchase and beyond. Along the way, prospects go through lifecycle stages that help you determine the level of their interest in making a purchase.
A best practice in marketing automation is to capture new leads at various touchpoints along the customer journey. Automation software like HubSpot can help you do this. This allows you to guide leads toward a purchase at exactly the pace they need to successfully complete the sales process.
HubSpot offers 8 standard lifecycle stages that you can use:
• Subscribers
• Leads
• Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
• Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)
• Opportunity
• Customer
• Evangelist
• Other
Make sure you’ve clearly defined for your business when each contact should be assigned which of the 8 labels. You can also customize the stages your customers go through to fit your business and add them to HubSpot.
To find out which actions are suitable for which phases, read our white paper, “9 Ways to Use Marketing Automation in Small and Medium-Sized Businesses.”
3. Identify Your Processes
When automating marketing and sales processes, the importance of collaboration between marketing and sales is often overlooked. To facilitate this collaboration, it’s best to develop and discuss processes with both teams.
1. Set the goals you want to achieve.
2. Starting with your goals, you can work your way forward to the first customer contact.
3. Once you understand the customer journey, determine what can be automated.
Accordingly, you can set up workflows in HubSpot that support both marketing and sales in lead management.
4. Research which marketing automation tool is the best fit
After reviewing the marketing automation best practices mentioned earlier, you should have a clear idea of what your future automation software needs to be able to do.
Compare different marketing automation tools and their features. Depending on your company and lead generation process, the requirements for the software will vary.
To provide customers with the right information at the right time and eliminate manual processes, get started with marketing automation today. As a HubSpot-certified partner, LeadEngine offers customized marketing strategies for lead generation.
Talk to our specialists and discover how marketing automation can help you achieve your business goals faster .
5. Use Lead Scoring
To help you better determine which stage a contact is in on the path to purchase, use lead scoring. This is a point system that measures a lead’s behavior. Points are assigned to the various actions a customer may take.
Based on the number of points, you can determine how ready a lead is to make a purchase. The exact criteria for assigning points to specific actions vary from company to company. A best practice in marketing automation is to design a simple lead-scoring model and test it. This will help you identify areas where improvements are needed.
6. Keep your CRM data up to date
In the long run, automation only works well when it’s based on up-to-date and accurate data. A best practice in marketing automation is to always keep the data in your CRM up to date. Regular reviews ensure that you continue to provide contacts with relevant content.
Saved contacts should always be valuable. That means not just collecting as many email addresses as possible, but rather including only data from qualified leads. In HubSpot, the CRM and all the tools you need for lead management are integrated.
7. Check your results regularly
Although marketing automation software handles much of the work behind the scenes, data still needs to be analyzed manually. Use the data from your marketing automation platform to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your strategy.
Continuously optimize your campaigns using metrics that show you what has worked and what hasn’t. Focus on the most important metrics so you can make targeted changes.
In HubSpot, you can consolidate the metrics and data you need for analysis into dashboards for a clearer overview.
8. Document your automation processes
Since marketing automation spans multiple channels and involves various workflows, it makes sense to document everything related to your strategy. Be sure to record all changes and settings in your documentation for optimization and further development.
You can store your knowledge about marketing automation best practices in one central location. You can also refer new team members to it.
