Marketing automation software has proven to be a tremendous resource for marketers. It has a wide variety of uses and can automate an incredible number of marketing functions. Marketing automation is a powerful and very complex solution that requires a knowledgeable administrator to keep up and running. This takes diligent and thorough work, but with these five tips you can save yourself a lot of time, prevent a lot of headaches, and ensure that your marketing automation runs flawlessly.
Keep it Scalable
It starts with a simple request. One small change in an email footer or adding another form field. Something that seems like it would take no time at all to accomplish, but this can often prove to be very far from the truth. In order to prevent your day being consumed by making the same miniscule change to multitudes of campaigns, it is crucial to build your marketing automation instance in a scalable manner. Use tools like email templates, dynamic content, and conditional logic to accomplish more automation in fewer steps.
Maintain a Strong Relationship With Your CRM Admin
If you are using your marketing automation to its full potential, it is likely you have it integrated with your CRM solution. This is a complex relationship with tremendous amounts of data being passed between the two platforms. Making any kind of minor change like deleting a field or updating a workflow can easily throw off this delicate relationship. The best way to ensure that data is reliably passing between the two systems is to work with your CRM admin to keep everything working smoothly. You should be in constant communication with your CRM admin and discuss all updates made in each system. Also, schedule reports to both admins that will help flag any issues that may come up.
Enable Your Teammates
Marketing automation proficiency will not come easily for the majority of the marketers on your team – most people have no need to go into the tool on a daily or even weekly basis. This is a good thing, as the point of automation is to let it run on its own. However, you will discover that some of your teammates do wind up needing to perform a few marketing automation tasks every so often. Instead of walking them through the process every time, create a set of guidelines specific to your company’s workflows. This type of documentation ensures consistent and high quality results from your marketing automation.
Organize Like You Your Life Depends on it
A marketing automation system can prove to be a black hole for those who don’t rigorously organize from day one. As your solution exponentially grows in size and scope, it is easy to lose things in the clutter. By creating (and maintaining) a logical folder structure, you can ensure that nothing disappears into the abyss. Another way to stay organized is with naming conventions. By naming related objects in the same manner, resources will be easier to locate and your team will have a better understanding of where things are.
Integrate Phone Call Conversion Data With Your Marketing Automation Software
One of the primary tasks of marketing automation software is lead scoring. Typically, this is done based on actions taken by leads while on your web sites and data captured via form fills. However, lead scoring can be made much more powerful with the inclusion of inbound call data. This is crucial because call conversions become revenue 10x than web leads. Knowing which leads are calling is an easy way to highlight your top prospects.
Learning the ins and outs of your marketing automation system is no easy task. Once you get up and running, make your life less stressful by following these tips. With your marketing automation running like a well-oiled machine, you can sit back, relax and watch the magic happen. If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of integrating inbound calls with your marketing automation solution, check out our free white paper, Tracking Phone Leads: The Missing Piece of Marketing Automation.
