Automation is one of the most important innovations to hit the marketing field in decades.
By implementing marketing automation, you have the chance to create memorable, high-touch customer experiences no matter how big your subscriber list becomes or how many leads you must juggle.
Done right, automation is an essential piece that allows you to stay focused on strategic, high-value tasks. Busywork becomes a thing of the past but you must be careful to use it correctly.
Here are the six big marketing automation mistakes to avoid at all costs:
1. Starting Without a Plan
Marketing automation can be so exciting, just speeding up your existing marketing looks like a plan. But, in truth, you need a strategy and it needs to be documented. Understanding your goals enables you to focus on automation that reliably moves you forward.
2. Failing to Identify Metrics
Metrics are the key to effective automation. Do you want traffic, leads, or sales? Also, learn the metrics relating to automation itself. A high open rate for your emails, for example, is just the beginning: You also need click-through.
3. Neglecting Your Analytics
All marketing automation suites come with analytics tools. The more you understand this data, the better. Review it regularly so it sparks continuous improvement in your strategy. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself gradually losing ground.
4. Encouraging Spam
With automation, you can speak to 10,000 people as easily as one – but each person should still feel like that one. Use personalization and granular, event-based segmentation to ensure each contact gets the most relevant content.
5. Missing Out on Integration
Marketing automation software can integrate with many elements of your technology stack, from your email client to your productivity software. Integration makes data visible to your team, so don’t overlook those initial setup tasks.
6. Lack of Relevance
Or, to put it another way, being plain annoying. To keep your automated marketing fresh, be sure it’s not the only plank in your communication plan. Collecting feedback from new and current customers helps you continue producing relevant content as you scale up.
AIMG uses marketing automation to achieve superior results for our industrial B2B clients. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to benefit: Simply learn about our B2B marketing automation.