As business on the web becomes more and more difficult, it has become essential to master web tools like marketing automation. Indeed, having a well optimized website is not enough to beat the competition in the digital world, it is necessary to develop a marketing strategy that can increase the number of prospects and traffic on the site of the company. The automation of various tasks contributes to the conversion of prospects on the Internet. So what is marketing automation really all about?
The benefits of using marketing automation
For a company that has established itself on the web to do business, the creation of a marketing automation strategy is almost a necessity to subsist on it, especially so that the tasks are all automated.
How marketing automation works
For a commercial company, in order to make a sale on the web, it is essential to design a website optimized with SEO tools, allowing to have a content in accordance with the criteria of search engines. It is also possible that in order to popularize the company’s website, the use of leverage may be required, which can be very expensive. As a result, the company will have conversion rates that gradually plummet as acquisition costs increase. This is a mistake that can happen when you start a business on the web, the company focuses only on customers who commit to a sale and neglects the 99% who ignored or abandoned their cart.
This is where marketing automation comes in, which will allow you to automatically contact customers who have left their shopping cart or simply forgotten about them. This is the very principle of how marketing automation works.
Design a profitable e-commerce website with marketing automation
The implementation of an automation strategy targeting customer relations(customer relationship automation) can increase a company’s revenue. To do this, it is essential to identify the needs of your customers by defining the important relationship points from the interactions they have made on the website. To increase your customer base, you need to develop a marketing automation strategy that will bring them back to your company’s website, regardless of the type of channel you use:
- Email,
- Chatbot,
- SMS,
- Print,
- Popin,
- etc.
By doing so, the company will be able to benefit from :
- A considerable improvement in customer satisfaction by offering them the possibility of accessing the company’s website services from anywhere;
- Optimization of productivity by focusing the company’s resources on actions that have important values;
- A strong capacity of targeting prospects via analyses made during their visit to the website;
- A more reliable management on resources as well as on the possible scenarios that will be applied for each prospect;
- Increased accuracy and updating of databases collected through website interactions, making it easier to launch new processes.
The value of developing a Marketing Automation strategy
The use of a marketing automation strategy can differ depending on the type of business. Indeed, for B2B companies, the automation of the marketing strategy aims to increase and satisfy prospects. For B2C companies, marketing automation is applied primarily to make it easier to interact with future customers and existing prospects. Via email campaigns, B2C companies send emails to their customers in three categories:
- Mail triggered by a prospect’s recent action, such as collection through a chatbot, shopping cart receipt emails, recommendations based on the prospect’s recent visit, etc. All these activities are aimed at maximizing conversion;
- Lifecycle mail to ask customers after each sale conclusion if they are satisfied with their purchase or if they are ready for the trip, etc. These accompanying activities (part of the emailing campaigns) allow to perfect the optimization of the customer experience;
- Other emails such as new product launches, the arrival of promotions, SMS in case of flash sales, etc. These emailing campaigns allow the company to ensure the loyalty of the prospects and that they are encouraged to make a new request on the website of the firm.
Ensure conversion of existing prospect demand
It should be noted that marketing automation does not ensure the creation of demand from prospects. The automation of the marketing strategy aims to encourage the expression of its demands via offers to avoid that customers are attracted by the competition. This means that the money the company has invested to increase its visibility on the web (SEO, SEA, Webinars, Content Marketing, etc.) only pays off if the firm knows :
- Automate the retention of a large number of prospects to have a large customer portfolio;
- Attract future customers regardless of the device they use;
- Identify the needs and products that interest each prospect;
- The contextual content that must be sent to each customer of the e-commerce website;
- When to send emails to prospects.
This ensures that your prospects return to your website, guaranteeing constant and increasing profits over a long period of time. This once again demonstrates the effectiveness of a marketing automation strategy.
Build lasting trust with prospects
With the automation of the marketing strategy, the company can better respond to the needs of the customers and thus ensure the trust of the latter during the purchase procedures on the website. This trust is only established, however, if the company can:
- To answer the questions coming from the customers in a clear and precise way;
- To customize the needs of the prospects in order to facilitate the choice of contextual content to be sent;
- To design via marketing automation an omnichannel content that will accompany the customers during their visit to the website.
By doing so, customers will be able to decide how and when they can visit the company’s site at any time. You will have a large advantage over your competitors who only communicate with prospects during business hours or by phone.
Respond immediately to prospects’ needs
Marketing automation allows for better identification of weak signals from customers. These signals are usually the implicit desires of your prospects, needs they do not yet know themselves. With marketing automation, the company will be able to easily detect its weak signals, thus allowing to better identify and retain customers.
Develop scenarios to increase the number of customers
To ensure the follow-up of the interaction of visitors (future customers) on the e-commerce site, it is advisable to design scenarios via marketing automation. You will be able to follow the behavior of your prospects and at the same time develop a scenario adapted to each customer, whether he is passing through or generating sales. By doing so, the number of customer contacts will increase, which will lead to future purchases, increasing the company’s profits on the Internet.
Thus, the application of a marketing automation strategy can help to increase the number of your customer contacts while ensuring their loyalty and their return to your e-commerce site via an emailing campaign and the automation of various tasks.
