10 Marketing Automation Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make in 2021
When talking about marketing automation, the famous quote by Bill Gates says it all: “The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” He has aptly explained through his words that automation is only good as long as you use it the right way.
Many businesses are using automation tools for their marketing strategies so much that the marketing automation industry has reached USD 3.60 billion in 2020. When used efficiently, automation can enhance productivity, promote growth, and boost sales. However, in haste to get the most out of your automation tools, you may make some mistakes that will do your business more harm than good.
Here we give you the lowdown on marketing automation, why you should use it, and how to avoid some common marketing automation mistakes for your business.
What is marketing automation?
Simply put, marketing automation is all about using technology or software to automate your marketing activities. You can use such softwares to automate multiple tasks such as managing your CRM, social media, analytics, and much more.
Benefits of marketing automation
If your business has still not gotten on the wagon of marketing automation, here are a few reasons to show you it is prime time to do so.
- Generate better leads: Marketing automation allows you to nurture leads more efficiently and reduce the steps between marketing and sales to focus more on the actual lead generation strategy.
- Increase revenue: Automation allows you to reduce costs and save time and also generate better leads. All these factors help you generate more revenue in the long run.
- Improved data collection: Automation tools allow you to collect an extensive amount of data quickly and use it to personalize your marketing strategies. It also enables you to understand the marketing trends more accurately.
- Reduce costs: Automation can reduce manual labor in your business to save the necessary amount of money spent hiring extra hands to do repetitive manual tasks.
- Alignment of sales and marketing goals: For a business to succeed, the marketing goals and sales goals must be running in alignment. Marketing can provide the measurement mechanisms to ensure that both go hand in hand.
- Better conversions: Marketing automation can also help you produce better conversions by allowing you to target the right audience at the right time.
Common marketing automation mistakes to avoid
To get the best out of marketing automation tools, you need to avoid the following mistakes:
Not having a clear strategy or goal
You may have invested a lot of money in buying automation softwares and even using them to generate leads and sales. However, if you don’t have a well-planned lead generation strategy and well-defined goals you want to achieve with your automation softwares, you will end up wasting all your efforts and money.
Solution: Define your goals and strategies before you invest in automation software. Make sure that all your marketing strategies are working towards the same purpose.
Using automation only for email marketing
Many companies believe that they have achieved the epitome of marketing automation just by automating their email marketing. In reality, marketing automation is much more than simply automating a few emails to your subscribers.
Solution: Understand all steps you can eliminate in your sales process through your automation software. Each step eliminated means saving time, cost, and resources. Use the tool in the best possible way to reap maximum benefits from all your digital marketing strategies rather than simply automating your emails.
You use too many tools
Sometimes businesses try to automate every task using multiple automation softwares at once. However, not all these tools are integrated to communicate with each other. And this leads to chaos and complications instead of smoothing things over.
Solution: Instead of investing in multiple tools, look for an all-in-one automation platform to take care of all your marketing automation tasks. Ensure that it also integrates with other devices and softwares you use in your organization for smooth communication and handling.
Leaving no room for experimentation
Automating your tasks does not mean you can set up automation and forget everything about it. Automation does not take over human minds, and you need to do testing and trials to find better strategies and flaws in your existing strategy.
Solution: Set up trial and testing mechanisms for your automated tasks at regular intervals. Gather the insights from your experimentations and implement them in your existing marketing strategies. Use the insights to correct any errors in your current methods and plan better strategies next time.
Running on autopilot
One of the best benefits of automation is that it streamlines everything and makes everything easier to manage. However, businesses tend to believe that automation is a substitute for human intelligence.
You cannot run your entire marketing department just on automation tools. You will still need human resources to manage things. Employees will also be required to provide insights by understanding the data collected by the automation tools. The most efficient system is a combination of automation tools and human intelligence that can use those tools in the best way possible.
Poor segmentation
Your automation tool may have tons of data that can nurture leads. However, if you are simply targeting the entire data without specific segmentation, you may end up with nothing in the end.
Segmentation is classifying your data based on various factors, such as consumer interest, geography, age, and other factors.
Solution: Whether it is your email contact list or leads, segment them into various parts to customize and personalize the emails, content, and other marketing elements as per the audience’s interest to get better attention from the audience and have a better chance of conversions.
Volume over quality
Many businesses use their automation tools to push for volume in leads, sales, and other marketing goals. They spend a lot of their marketing budget on creating content and marketing segments that are average and don’t get the desired results.
Solution: Use your automation tools to understand what kind of content your audience desires and create less but premium content to woo them. Focus on integrating that content with the consumer journey so that it feels relevant to them.
Ignoring personalization in your strategies
The modern marketing world is all about personalization. Everything needs personalization to gain the customer’s attention today. Whether simply adding a name to the customer’s email or creating personalized shopping lists and menus. Many businesses fail to add personalization to their automated tasks, which fails.
Solution: Don’t limit yourself or the tools you have to a single existing database. Enrich your data sources through various means to get better data and references. You can also run experimental campaigns to gather data and insights and personalize your automated tasks and campaigns to get better results.
Committing technical errors
Automation indeed makes your job easier. But it is software that runs on the commands you feed it. And if you don’t keep a keen eye on it, you may end up making mistakes such as sending emails with wrong names, sending messages that sound vague, and lack emotions during dire situations. You can also end up messing with the schedules and timing to create an absolute faux pas for your business’s daily grind work. It will reduce your workload and give you time to focus on the core activities that require your undivided attention, such as planning and decision-making activities.
Not focusing on integration
You may end up investing a lot of money in a marketing automation tool that’s best in class on its own. However, when it comes to integrating that tool or software with other client communication tools, it doesn’t work at all. This will create long communication lines, delays, and chaos leading to losses and customer satisfaction.
it doesn’t work at all. This leads to long communication lines, delays, and unsatisfied customers.
Solution: To avoid this problem, ensure that your purchase tools are compatible with your existing devices. Ensure that the integration is seamless and the result is user-friendly and reliable. Also, integrating with client communication channels will allow you to automate simple messages without feeling neglected. You can even help enhance your customer loyalty through such gestures.
Wrapping up
On a concluding note, automation can add value to your business on all fronts, such as cost reduction, increasing production, promoting personalization, and enhancing segmentation. However, as Bill Gates said, the trick lies in using this technology in the right direction; otherwise, it can be doom to your business. One way to ensure that your automation is going in the right direction is by creating checkpoints at different levels to ensure that nothing is amiss. You also need to improvise and use innovation to get the best out of your automation software. But when done right, there is nothing better than automating your marketing strategies.
