Wikipedia defines marketing automation as “software platforms and technologies designed...to more effectively market on multiple channels online and automate repetitive tasks.”
People have lost all patience in a digitally connected world and now expect immediate gratification -- as if they’re toddlers being denied cookies or candy bars.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a prospect or customer. It doesn’t matter if it’s 2 p.m. on a Wednesday or 2 a.m. on a holiday weekend.
People crave a frictionless, world-class customer experience (CX). So they’re not going to put up with waiting 24 to 48 hours to hear back from a salesperson or support rep.
Just like Veruca Salt in the 1971 classic film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory that declares, “Don’t care how. I want it now!”
Your customers want it now too. And one of the most effective ways to scratch that itch, and prevent defections to competitors with a faster and better customer experience, is to know your customers’ buyer’s journey and use marketing automation to anticipate needs and accelerate resolutions.
In this article, you’ll be introduced to five marketing automation workflows that help you get more done now!
1) Notify Your Team Members Immediately
Rather than waiting for someone to check a filtered view, tasks list, deals board, or tickets board, when a prospect or customer needs immediate attention, have a marketing automation workflow take care of immediately notifying one or more of your team members by email, text message, Slack message, or in-app.
2) Automatically Rotate Objects, Such as Leads, For Near Instantaneous Assignment to Sales Reps
I know sales managers that still manually review and assign leads. But that’s so old-school and slows down the speed at which your sales reps can respond to hot prospects. Instead, figure out your lead assignment rules ahead of time. And build marketing automation workflows that magically rotate the leads among the team members and assign leads equitably -- within seconds, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
3) Automatically Create Records and Tasks
When a prospect that perfects matches your ideal client profile (ICP) or works at a target account performs a high intent action, such as self-booking a free consultation or demo, a workflow can automatically advance the lifecycle stage, create an early-stage deal, and create and assign one or more tasks for the relevant team members.
4) Set, Clear, and Copy Property Values for Contacts, Companies, Deals, or Tickets
A lot of marketing automation happens because of implicit and explicit behaviors that change properties at the contact, company, deal, or ticket level -- and accordingly, impact list memberships and workflow enrollments. So if you have certain property values that need to be set, cleared, or copied, you can almost certainly use a marketing automation workflow to handle this repetitive work for you -- potentially even while you’re sleeping or getting more important campaigns built and optimized.
5) Integrate Third-Party Applications with Your Marketing Automation Platform to Facilitate Cross-Platform Triggers
When you have applications integrated into your marketing automation platform, your company gains tremendous insight, efficiencies, and accuracy, while your customer experience almost certainly improves quite dramatically. Once the integration is complete, actions that would’ve otherwise seemed inconceivable become relatively routine -- without a single line of coding -- when you’re able to trigger action in a connected application. Or trigger marketing automation actions based on activity in that integrated application. For example, suppose you regularly host webinars and want attendees to automatically get a message from your company within minutes of exiting the webinar. In that case, workflows can facilitate a very straightforward message that acts as a sales cycle accelerator and response time improver.
How are you using marketing automation workflows to get more done faster (instantaneously), more accurately, and provide a better customer experience? Let me know in the comments.
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