No one likes tedious duties; that’s why we put money into enterprise know-how. And that makes it all of the extra irritating while you discover your advertising and marketing initiatives delayed since you should enter a step or add a listing manually.
Advertising and marketing automation workflows are the answer that makes your advertising and marketing sooner, extra environment friendly, and more practical.
Once you create advertising and marketing automation workflows, you guarantee a greater and extra constant buyer expertise. These workflows make creating segmented and customized communications simpler with 46% greater open charges. And this higher expertise results in greater conversion charges, elevated lead era, and better income.
Maybe the most effective a part of all is that, together with making your advertising and marketing more practical and your clients happier, enterprise workflow automations free you from low-value, time-consuming duties.
This text will cowl advertising and marketing automation workflows, how one can create them, and 6 of crucial workflows to start out with.
What’s workflow automation?
Workflow automation makes use of know-how to automate and streamline the steps of a workflow.
One instance is doc workflow automation. That is the place instruments like DocuSign mechanically notify every signer of a contract when it’s their flip to signal.
These instruments additionally forestall customers from submitting the doc if they’ve uncared for to signal or preliminary. This safeguard in opposition to incomplete steps is one other characteristic of workflow course of automation.
What’s a advertising and marketing automation workflow?
Advertising and marketing automation makes use of know-how to automate guide duties and steps in your advertising and marketing initiatives, usually through the use of conditional enterprise guidelines and triggers.
A advertising and marketing automation workflow is a step-by-step course of that particulars the automations that happen at every level of a typical advertising and marketing workflow — for instance, onboarding a brand new consumer.
Advertising and marketing automation workflows provide help to automate advertising and marketing duties by arranging individually automated advertising and marketing duties right into a collection of ordered steps that make your e-mail advertising and marketing campaigns more practical. Properly-done workflow automations can assist you save time, keep away from errors, and transfer potential clients down the advertising and marketing funnel sooner.
For instance, if a consumer opens an e-mail, that acts because the set off for the following step. That is how particular person factors of promoting automation are linked to create a advertising and marketing automation workflow.
A fast instance of promoting automation
If somebody subscribes to your e-newsletter, your workflow automation software program provides them to your e-mail checklist and sends them a welcome e-mail.
Ideally, every step within the gross sales funnel ought to contain some type of advertising and marketing automation. As an example, a advertising and marketing automation workflow for lead nurturing may start with the consumer changing into a lead.
Your advertising and marketing automation software program will add their e-mail handle to the suitable e-mail checklist on this first step. For the following step within the workflow, your e-mail advertising and marketing device will mechanically ship the primary nurture e-mail marketing campaign.
How do advertising and marketing and operations work collectively?
Whereas advertising and marketing automation workflows may be extraordinarily highly effective and in the end save your crew effort and time, creating them requires forethought and precision. That’s why your advertising and marketing crew and operations crew must work carefully to construct the workflow.
Often, entrepreneurs will create a imaginative and prescient for the shopper expertise, and the operations professionals will present the technical and operational experience to automate the method. If operational realities make a part of advertising and marketing’s imaginative and prescient inconceivable, it’s as much as each groups to get inventive and discover the most effective different.
Why do you want workflow automation?
Workflow automation permits you to enhance effectivity by lowering the period of time spent on guide duties in your advertising and marketing workflow. Workflow automation could possibly be the reply in case you have extra duties than manpower or if issues are falling by way of the cracks since you don’t have time to personally information accounts from one step to a different.
Plus, automations like these make it simpler for advertising and marketing and operations groups to work collectively.
Maybe the best means that workflow automation saves you time is by making a repeatable advertising and marketing expertise. As an alternative of figuring out what must occur each time a buyer takes an motion, you’ve gotten mapped out their course and determined what comes subsequent.
Higher but, your workflow automation instruments are already doing it for you.
How do companies profit from advertising and marketing automation?
It’s not simply you and your coworkers who profit from advertising and marketing automation. Clear workflows and automation additionally create a greater buyer journey. Your contacts obtain the precise content material and communications on the proper time, which helps information them towards a purchase order.
Prospects not have to attend so that you can ship them related emails or sources manually. Small enterprise automation focuses on easy workflows that assist owner-operators and managers save time.
Mike Morrow is the founding father of Morrow Audio, which supplies cables and different audio gear to clients in 70 nations. “I like to consider what else I might do by way of automation to higher serve the shopper,” Morrow says. “The alternative ways to create curiosity, and methods to give them one thing they need.”
Advertising and marketing automation additionally frees up your time and power for extra impactful work by taking small and repetitive duties off your plate. Morrow says, “With the entire automations that we’re utilizing, the shop runs by itself. I’m capable of give attention to different tasks.”
A survey of promoting professionals revealed that, after utilizing advertising and marketing automation, 56% noticed a rise in conversion charges. Different advantages included elevated productiveness, elevated leads, and elevated income.
Let automation deal with the gross sales funnel and convert each potential buyer when you give attention to working the enterprise.
create a advertising and marketing automation workflow
Advertising and marketing automation sounds nice, however some folks really feel intimidated by the know-how. Don’t be. We’ll provide help to get began by masking the important thing parts of an environment friendly advertising and marketing automation workflow.
Triggers
A set off is an motion or occasion that tells your know-how it’s time to maneuver on to the following step. Sometimes, a set off can be some sort of consumer motion (or a interval of inaction).
In ActiveCampaign, when organising your advertising and marketing automation workflow, you possibly can select from triggers akin to submitting a type, clicking a hyperlink in an e-mail, making a purchase order, and extra.
Actions
In programming phrases, if the set off is your “if,” the motion is your “then.” That is the motion your advertising and marketing automation platform will soak up response to the set off. As an example, if somebody opens an e-mail (the set off), then your system sends them a follow-up e-mail (the motion) 48 hours later.
Situations
Situations are traits that should be in place for the system to finish the triggered motion. For instance, customized reductions and particular presents are widespread examples of e-commerce advertising and marketing automation.
You could possibly create a advertising and marketing automation workflow the place the set off is a buyer finishing a purchase order, and the motion is to ship them a reduction code for the following time, however provided that the preliminary buy was $50 or extra. On this case, the consumer should carry out the set off motion and meet the situations for the follow-up motion to occur.
Situations exist to set guardrails round your automations to ensure an motion is simply triggered below the precise circumstances. Situations may function a fork within the consumer’s path. If the situation is met, they obtain one message, and if the situation will not be met, they obtain one other.
Time controls
Time controls, typically referred to as circulate controls, are what you utilize to find out when exactly an motion is taken. With customized time controls, most of your automated advertising and marketing duties occur on a delay, from as brief as a couple of minutes to days and even weeks later.
Whereas constructing a advertising and marketing automation workflow in your gross sales funnel, take into accout:
- The set off tells your system that an motion should be taken
- Situations present guardrails to ensure the motion is suitable for this contact and state of affairs
- Time controls decide when the motion is taken
- The motion engages with the contact to deepen and proceed the connection
What makes advertising and marketing automation workflows so highly effective is that, after the motion is taken, the consumer has a chance to set off a brand new set off, which units the following step of their buyer expertise in movement. An improved buyer expertise in the end results in greater buyer retention and elevated income.
High 6 advertising and marketing workflow automations
There are an nearly countless variety of attainable advertising and marketing automation workflows between completely different triggers, situations, and actions. Happily, you don’t must reinvent the wheel.
There are just a few widespread advertising and marketing workflows that the majority companies discover helpful. Learn on for six of the commonest and worthwhile advertising and marketing workflow automations you possibly can adapt for what you are promoting.
1. Welcome workflow
Whatever the services or products you supply, first impressions matter. That’s why so many companies take care to create an participating collection of welcome emails. You could possibly even phase your welcome e-mail workflows in case you have extra than simply subscriber contact data.
2. Onboarding workflow
The way you onboard a brand new buyer could be a pivotal consider whether or not they stay a buyer. If welcome e-mail messages make sure you make a superb first impression, an onboarding workflow ensures that your working relationship runs easily. An onboarding workflow will happen after somebody purchases or begins utilizing your product.
3. Re-engage workflow
One of the vital efficient makes use of of e-mail advertising and marketing automation workflows is re-engaging contacts who’ve stopped interacting with you. You possibly can create a set off based mostly on what number of days because the contact final engaged or what number of emails they’ve obtained however not opened. This set off tells your system to start out sending messages designed to succeed in and reactivate inactive customers.
4. Lead nurture workflow
A lead nurture workflow will information contacts by way of an extended shopping for cycle, a significant workflow automation. It makes use of their actions to assign consumer attributes and triggers essentially the most applicable advertising and marketing messages.
A lead nurture workflow can incorporate e-mail interactions, web site exercise, SMS advertising and marketing, and extra. The higher built-in your completely different techniques are, the smoother your lead nurture workflow will run.
5. Renewal or upselling workflow
When you’ve made the preliminary sale, you need to hold that buyer loyal to your organization. A renewal or upselling workflow will assist retain clients and maximize the worth of every buyer relationship. That is nice since buyer retention is extra inexpensive than buying new ones. Buy historical past and buyer particulars can assist you counsel extra merchandise they may like.
6. Deserted cart workflows
As soon as somebody has chosen a product and positioned it of their digital cart, they will nonetheless get sidetracked or have second ideas. In reality, the speed of cart abandonment is almost 70%. An deserted cart workflow can automate the method of finishing that sale. Deserted cart emails stands out as the best and most profitable e-mail automation workflow to arrange.
Get began with advertising and marketing automation workflows on ActiveCampaign
“Advertising and marketing automation workflow” may sound like an intimidating time period, however it’s actually only a strategy of utilizing two extra widespread instruments, advertising and marketing automation and workflows, in tandem. Automated workflows can prevent effort and time and supply a greater buyer expertise, main to higher enterprise outcomes.
The best strategy to get began is to decide on certainly one of ActiveCampaign’s pre-built automation templates. You possibly can all the time modify the template to your wants, however importing these pre-made automations makes beginning (or ramping up) your automations a lot less complicated.
Even when you’ve struggled with previous makes an attempt at advertising and marketing automation, it’s by no means too late to make your life simpler and your clients happier.
Need to see how ActiveCampaign can assist you create extra highly effective and interesting advertising and marketing experiences? Begin your free 14-day trial immediately.
