In this last blog in our series we will take a closer look at the more advanced features that ActiveCampaign offers to help you automate your email marketing.
To recap briefly before getting into this topic, we have already learned what email marketing is, and how some simple email marketing automations can save you time in getting your contacts engaged and help move leads towards becoming paying customer.
For the purposes of this article, when we use the term Marketing Automation, we are talking about “a process where technology is used to automate several repetitive tasks that are undertaken on a regular basis in a marketing campaign.” (Wikipedia)
As such, it not only includes your email marketing but all of your marketing processes, whether that is capturing, nurturing and closing leads, increasing event attendance, reducing the number of abandoned shopping carts or managing a sales funnel.
A member of the team
Because Marketing Automation impacts the entire customer journey, the same way one of your employees does, it almost becomes a member of your team – one there to carry out the repetitive tasks, freeing you and your employees up to focus on the interpersonal elements of your business.
Let’s see what this means in light of our previous example, where a business is making PDF’s available to contacts who sign up to their mailing list. The first step the business might want to take is to create a Pipeline in which to capture Deals for any contact who signs up.
The Automation we have previously introduced could then be modified to include a more conditional pathway through the automation, where the actions are based on interactions the Lead makes with the business’ email marketing. By including conditions within your Automations you can make sure that your Leads receive the communication that is most relevant to them, as they progress through the automation.
In addition to If/Else conditions, you can personalise your messages, trigger new automations based on goals that have been reached, or as Deals change stage within a Pipeline. Utilising Marketing Automation in this way can help you streamline your processes whilst saving you time.
Who needs to use marketing automation?
As your business grows you may reach a point in time where feel that your marketing has reached a level of maturity that would benefit from some more advance set of features with which you can target and personalise your communication. This is when you may wish to consider moving to an automated marketing solution.
Marketing Automation is designed to help you manage your marketing campaigns on a large scale, even if you still have a small team. The beauty of ActiveCampaign is that you can scale your usage of it’s email marketing tools as your business grows. You might not be ready to automate your marketing strategy at this stage, but as you grow, you may see more and more benefit of doing so, meaning you can continue to invest your time and energy into the development of your business. With over 20 start triggers and 30 automation actions, ActiveCampaign is a great way to personalise your customer journey.
No matter what level of maturity your marketing has reached; be it that you are looking for simple email marketing or whether you are ready to create an automated marketing strategy, we would be delighted to talk to you. You can call us on 01889 280010 or send an email to hello@zephi.co.uk. We look forward to helping you take your marketing to new heights.
