What the Marketing Automation Process Actually Looks Like in Practice

According to a recent report, about 75% of all businesses are already utilizing some form of marketing automation software. However, marketing automation is often misunderstood and misapplied.

So if you’re starting, it’s important to know what marketing automation really means and how the market automation process actually works in practice.

Do you want digital marketing funnels to take care of themselves? Or, are you more of a hands-on marketer who wants to make sure they’re tweaking their marketing automation process every day?

Regardless of where you fall on this spectrum, marketing automation must be integral to your marketing strategy.

Here’s what the marketing automation process actually looks like in practice.

Marketing Automation Definition

Before we dive into the marketing automation process, let’s first define what it actually means.

Marketing automation is a systematic approach that helps you improve and simplify your marketing workflows by automatically running them through software.

As such, there are three main features of this killer strategy:

• An action plan (i.e., campaign)
• Measurable results (i.e., analytics)
• Automation tools to make those steps easier for a smart marketer to manage

This way, as long as you have something worthwhile or valuable to share with people on your website, then everything else will fall into place more easily than ever before.

What are the Steps Involved in Marketing Automation?

Now that you’ve defined what marketing automation actually means, it’s time to see the steps involved in the process.

As mentioned earlier, there are three main features of marketing automation. And all lead back to your killer content. Let’s dig into each one more deeply.

Your Action Plan Is Your Guide for Moving Forward With Marketing Automation Processes

Although many people think of marketing automation as a tool or software platform first, this isn’t always how it should be thought about. Instead, you need to have a well-defined strategy before setting up any campaigns or funnels.

In other words, you need an action plan to move forward with any of the marketing processes. Without a clear strategy and goal in mind for your campaign or content creation, this process will be challenging to follow through with successfully.

So what does a proper action plan look like? Here are three main components:

• Target market(s)
• Actionable objectives
• Conversion goals and KPIs (i.e., key performance indicators)

To give you some context as to how these play out in practice, let’s take a closer look at each one more specifically:

Your Target Market Explains Who You’re Marketing To

First and foremost, you need to identify your target market. This helps you come up with the right messaging for your campaign.

The best way to do this is by asking yourself who or what type of person would be interested in seeing whatever content you plan to share.

So if you’re creating a marketing automation process for an e-commerce business that sells high heels, then the target audience might include:

• Women over age 30
• Those interested in fashion trends
• Anyone looking for comfortable office shoes

As such, the content you share on your website and social media would likely speak to each one of these groups.

Your Actionable Objectives Describe What You Want Your Audience to Take Away

You’ve defined who it is that you’re marketing towards. The next step is defining what actions or objectives they should take once they arrive at your site through a landing page or blog post.

These actionable objectives are micro-tasks that help guide visitors along their journey. From stranger -> visitor -> lead -> customer. And depending on how well executed this process is, there’s typically a corresponding increase in revenue as well.  

As such, here’s an example of multiple possible goals for someone who lands on an e-commerce store selling high heels:

• Learn more about the latest fashion trends in high heels
• Purchase with one-click ordering (i.e., add to cart)
• Sign up for a free email list to receive discounts and coupons
• Purchase a pair of high heels from this online store

Each one of these examples represents an actionable objective. And as you can see, they all tie back into making sure visitors end up becoming customers in the process.

Conversion Goals and KPIs Are Measured So You Can Track Your Success

You’ve defined your action plan and objectives. It’s time to start measuring how well this process is actually working. In other words, there’s not much use in creating marketing automation strategies if you don’t know which ones are successful or failing.

This way, as long as something works better than another option, you’ll be able to implement those practices more frequently while abandoning whatever isn’t yielding results.

What are the Benefits of Marketing Automation Processes?

Several benefits come from implementing marketing automation processes.

First and foremost, it helps you to create more personalized experiences for your visitors.

For example, if someone is already a customer at this particular e-commerce store selling high heels, they might receive an email offering them a coupon code or discount on their next purchase. This type of personalization makes the entire experience feel much less transactional in nature.

Simultaneously, it builds brand loyalty, because people realize that you’re paying attention to what they want.

Another benefit is that it helps you deliver the right message at the right time. How? Using behavioral targeting data to determine when someone is best primed for a certain offer or type of information.

The third benefit of smart marketing processes is that they increase your reach on social media, since the content being shared will more closely align with what visitors are looking for in terms of answers or solutions.

And lastly, it helps you convert visitors at scale, so that you can increase your bottom line.

You can learn more here about how to set up your own marketing automation.

Marketing Automation Process Simplified

You now have a better understanding of what the marketing automation process actually looks like in practice. The next step is to implement these strategies for your business and see how well they work.

We hope you enjoyed this article. Check out our other articles for more interesting content.

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