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Marketing Automation Best Practices: Tips from the Pros

Luca MicheliJan 26, 2024
Marketing Automation Best Practices: Tips from the Pros
Contents

Marketing automation has become essential for SaaS businesses to maximize their marketing efforts and increase their return on investment (ROI). 

By leveraging automation, you can streamline your marketing processes and workflows, including email marketing, social media marketing, lead generation, lead nurturing, and more.

In this article, we’ll demystify marketing automation, including what it is, how it works, and why it’s become a critical component of modern marketing strategies. 

We’ll also explore why marketing automation is significant for SaaS businesses, provide some best practices to help you improve your results and show how Customerly helps you along the way.

What is marketing automation?

Marketing automation is a process that helps you streamline your marketing efforts and workflows by automating repetitive tasks, freeing your time to focus on more strategic actions. 

You can use marketing automation tools to execute and manage marketing campaigns effortlessly.

It can include everything from creating and sending emails to tracking and analyzing data, identifying and nurturing leads, and more.

How does marketing automation work?

marketing automation process

Let’s discuss the critical components of marketing automation.

  1. Database management: The first step is to create a database of leads and customers. It includes collecting their contact information, tracking their behavior, and storing customer data in a centralized system.
  2. Lead generation: Once the database is ready, generating leads is the next step in the process. You can use various marketing channels like email, social media, and content marketing. The goal is to catch the attention of potential customers and encourage them to provide their contact information.
  3. Lead scoring: Once you generate leads, it’s important to prioritize them based on their level of interest and engagement. You can assign a score to each lead based on their behavior, demographics, and other factors. It helps sales and marketing teams identify which leads will most likely convert into customers.
  4. Lead nurturing: Not all leads are ready to purchase immediately. Lead nurturing is a process that involves building relationships with potential customers over time by providing them with valuable information, personalized content, and other resources to move them further down the sales funnel.
  5. Automated campaigns: Marketing automation software like Customerly makes setting up and executing targeted campaigns easy based on specific triggers or actions from leads. For example, if a lead clicks on a particular link in an email, they can be automatically enrolled in a follow-up campaign that provides more information.
  6. Analytics and reporting: Marketing automation platforms provide detailed analytics and reporting that enable you to track your performance and optimize your campaigns over time. It includes open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates.

You can use all-in-one marketing automation tools such as Customerly to optimize this process and increase productivity and efficiency. You can create unlimited marketing funnels and workflows based on your requirements or use our marketing funnel templates built for success.

Start your free trial now and enjoy the process!

Why is marketing automation important for your SaaS business?

SaaS businesses deal with a large volume of customer data, which can be overwhelming to manage manually. 

Marketing automation provides a solution by automating data collection and analysis, allowing companies to gain insights into customer behavior and preferences. 

It also improves lead nurturing, which is essential for SaaS businesses as the sales cycle is typically longer than in other industries. 

Implementing marketing automation saves time and resources for sales teams, enabling them to focus on high-priority leads and close deals faster.

What is the difference between CRM and marketing automation?

marketing automation vs CRM

At its core, CRM is about building and maintaining solid customer relationships. 

It involves managing customer interactions and data throughout the customer journey, from initial contact to post-sale support and beyond.

Sales and customer service teams are the primary users of CRM software, which provides contact management, sales pipeline management, and customer service management. 

What do stats show us about marketing automation?

marketing automation use cases

These stats provide valuable insights into how marketing automation can benefit your SaaS business.

  • Marketing automation drives a 173% higher open rate for newsletters and sales mailings. (Finances Online)
  • There is a 451% increase in qualified leads with companies using marketing automation software. (Oracle)
  • A further 45% of respondents said improved efficiency and ROI was the most significant advantage. (Startup Bonsai)
  • Companies using chatbots can save up to 30% on customer support costs. (NapoleonCat)
  • Automated social media posts and ads can save you more than 6 hours weekly. (Findstack)

However, there are some challenges you might face with your marketing automation efforts. Let’s discuss some of them.

What are the biggest challenges with marketing automation?

marketing automation challenges

Here are some of the biggest challenges with marketing automation.

  1. Lack of marketing strategy: Without a solid plan, it’s easy to waste time, resources, and money on ineffective campaigns.
  2. Data quality: It relies on accurate and up-to-date data. Poor data can result in wrong decisions about your marketing automation campaigns, hindering your results.
  3. Integration issues: Marketing automation must integrate with other business systems, such as CRM and sales software. Integration issues can cause delays and errors in campaign execution.
  4. Complexity: It can be challenging for businesses to navigate the many features and capabilities of these systems.
  5. Content creation: Marketing automation relies on targeted, personalized content to be effective. Creating this content can be time-consuming and require additional resources.

To overcome these issues, you can use Customerly since it offers an easy-to-use interface that simplifies the marketing automation process. 

It allows you to collect and manage data from multiple sources and use it to create hyper-personalized campaigns and improve overall marketing strategies.

Customerly integrates with other systems and platforms and includes lead scoring and lead nurturing tools to help you engage with your customers in a targeted and meaningful way, building long-lasting relationships.

All you need to do is start your free trial to access our platform.

Since we covered all the basics, let’s share marketing automation best practices and show how Customerly helps you along the way.

Marketing automation best practices to improve your marketing efforts

marketing automation best practices

To fully leverage marketing automation advantages, it’s vital to follow best practices. Let’s start with our list to help you speed up the process.

Set clear goals for your marketing automation strategy

Setting clear goals for your marketing automation strategy is crucial for achieving success. Before implementing any marketing automation tool, it is vital to identify what you want to achieve and how automation can help you get there.

Segment your target audience

audience segmentation

You must segment your audience into smaller groups based on their demographics, behavior, interests, and preferences. It allows you to create more targeted and personalized campaigns that resonate with your audience and drive conversions.

Customerly audience filters

Customerly provides various data to help you with audience segmentation, including contact and company properties, tags, events, campaign events and dynamic contact lists. 

You can also use our advanced filters for in-app surveys, Net Promoter Score (NPS) and targeted email campaigns.

Ultimately, this can increase engagement, conversions, and customer loyalty.

Create a customer journey map

Creating a customer journey map involves understanding the stages of the buyer’s journey and mapping out their various touchpoints with your business to eliminate friction and increase customer satisfaction metrics

Customerly customer timeline

Customerly provides built-in CRM tools for tracking customer interactions and touchpoints across different channels and segmenting customers based on their behavior and needs. 

It allows you to understand the customer journey better and create more targeted and effective marketing automation campaigns.

Start your free trial to see how Customerly works.

Build a robust database of leads

Building a robust database involves collecting and organizing data on potential customers, such as their contact information, interests, behaviors, and preferences. 

With this data, you can further develop buyer personas, create targeted campaigns and personalize your messaging to increase the chances of conversion.

Customerly customer base

Customerly allows you to store and manage your leads in one place, making segmenting and targeting specific audiences easy. It provides accurate, relevant, and up-to-date information to help you avoid wasting time and resources on inefficient marketing activities.

It also helps you prioritize leads based on their level of engagement and focus your efforts on those most likely to convert. Start your free trial to see how it works.

Implement a lead nurturing program

A lead nurturing program aims to guide prospects toward purchasing by providing appropriate content at each sales funnel stage.

Customerly email builder

With Customerly, you can automate this process to ensure consistency in customer communication. You can send automated emails and other types of content using behavior-based triggers.

We provide pre-made templates for email marketing and an email template builder to create your own from scratch.

Our templates are optimized for mobile devices and include a simple drag-and-drop editor to save time and help you create professional emails in minutes.

Start your free trial to evaluate this feature.

Use retargeting and remarketing

Retargeting and remarketing help you engage with leads and customers who have shown interest in your products or services but haven’t yet purchased them.

Retargeting includes showing ads to users who visited your site or interacted with your brand. These ads remind customers of your business and encourage them to return and complete a purchase.

Remarketing involves reaching out to people who have already made a purchase and motivating them to make additional purchases or refer friends and family to your brand.

Both techniques can be highly effective in boosting conversion rates and driving revenue. 

Use automation workflows to streamline your processes

Automation workflows help you automate repetitive tasks and deliver timely, relevant content to your leads. 

With Customerly, you can create a sequence of automated steps initiated by specific events or behaviors to drive leads through the sales funnel more efficiently. 

All without any manual effort.

Customerly workflow automation

You can send automated emails, trigger follow-up activities, assign tasks to team members, and more. Users can trigger these actions by opening an email, filling out a form, or clicking a link.

You can choose one of our pre-made workflows to speed up the process or design one from scratch.

Start your free trial to see how easy it is!

Measure and analyze your results

It’s crucial to track your performance metrics to gauge the effectiveness of your marketing automation efforts, just as with any other marketing strategy. 

Several key metrics to monitor include 

  • Conversion rates
  • Engagement rates
  • Open rates
  • Click-through rates
  • Lead scoring
  • ROI

Customerly allows you to track essential metrics for your marketing automation campaigns, including email open rates, click-through rates, and reply rates. 

marketing automation campaigns

For example, you may need to improve your subject lines or email content if you have low open rates. If your conversion rates are low, you may need to adjust your lead scoring or improve your lead nurturing campaigns.

To learn more about this topic, read our guides on improving email open rate and understanding how your emails perform.

Test and optimize your campaigns for better results

Once your marketing automation campaigns are up and running, testing and optimizing them continuously is essential to improve your results.

  1. Test different campaign elements, such as subject lines, email copy, CTAs, landing pages, and forms, to identify what works or doesn’t.
  2. Use A/B testing to compare two versions of a campaign element to see which one functions better.
  3. Implement changes based on your findings by updating your email copy, changing your product pages, or tweaking your CTAs to improve their usefulness.
  4. Monitor and adjust your campaigns to ensure they’re always optimized for maximum performance.

Customerly is a robust platform with a centralized location for tracking your critical marketing automation activities. 

Having all your data in one place allows you to easily spot trends and patterns that may not be visible when using multiple tools and platforms.

Customerly also enables you to collaborate with your team and share insights in real-time. This collaboration allows you to work more efficiently and effectively, ensuring your marketing campaigns are optimized for the best results.

Sign up today and start experiencing the benefits of a centralized, collaborative, and data-driven approach to marketing automation.

Train your team to use marketing automation effectively

While marketing automation can be a powerful tool for your SaaS business, ensuring your team knows how to use it effectively is essential.

Even the best marketing automation tools can’t replace the human touch, and your team needs to know how to leverage the technology to its fullest potential.

  1. Train your team to ensure everyone is on the same page about your marketing automation goals and strategy.
  2. Create clear guidelines for using the technology, including best practices and protocols for dealing with leads and customers.
  3. Ensure your team is familiar with your chosen marketing automation tools. It includes understanding how to set up and run campaigns, create workflows, segment audiences, and track and analyze results.
  4. Provide additional training or resources for team members who need extra support or have specific questions or challenges.
  5. Train your team on soft skills like communication and relationship building. Make sure your team understands how to handle customer inquiries and feedback.

Marketing automation constantly evolves, and your team must stay updated with the latest trends and best practices. 

Regular training sessions, knowledge sharing, and professional development opportunities can help your team stay engaged and motivated while improving the effectiveness of your marketing automation efforts.

Ensure compliance with privacy regulations

It’s important to use marketing automation in a way that complies with privacy regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Critical steps include:

  • Getting explicit consent from leads and customers before collecting and using their data.
  • Being transparent about data usage, including providing clear information on collection, storage, and sharing practices.
  • Providing easy-to-use tools that allow individuals to manage their data and preferences, including opting out of marketing communications.
  • Ensuring your team is trained on privacy regulations and understands their responsibilities for data protection.
  • Working with legal and compliance experts to confirm that your marketing automation practices align with the latest regulations and guidelines.

It helps you avoid legal risks and penalties and build customer trust. By being transparent and respectful with customer data, you can create a better customer experience and build long-lasting relationships with your target audience.

Marketing automation best practices: Wrapping up

It’s important to remember that marketing automation is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Each business has unique needs and goals, and it’s essential to tailor your marketing automation strategy to meet those requirements.

In this article, we’ve covered some of the best practices for marketing automation you can use to take your marketing automation strategy to the next level and achieve even greater success. 

Customerly is a software specializing in marketing automation and has gained a reputation for being one of the best in the industry. 

To help you improve customer engagement and satisfaction, it offers tools to manage customer interactions across multiple channels, including email, chat, and social media.

It lets you personalize your communications based on customer behavior, preferences, and other data to drive more conversions.

Its intuitive dashboard makes it easy to navigate, and its drag-and-drop builder lets you quickly create and customize your campaigns. 

You can automate daily tasks like sending welcome emails, follow-up emails, and abandoned cart reminders. It saves you time and lets you focus on other marketing strategy aspects.

Thanks to our robust integration options, you can streamline your processes and data collection.

Ready to improve your marketing strategy? Sign up for Customerly today and experience the power of marketing automation! 

Start your 14-day free trial now.

Luca Micheli

Luca Micheli

CEO @ Customerly

Luca Micheli is a serial tech entrepreneur with one exited company and a passion for bootstrap digital projects. He's passionate about helping companies to succeed with marketing and business development tips.

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