4 Tips to Improve Marketing Automation, Close More Deals

There’s a lot of mystery and mystique surrounding what exactly marketing automation is. Casey Cheshire, the Founder & CMO of the Salesforce Pardot consulting group Cheshire Impact, host of the Hard Corps Marketing podcast, and the author of “Marketing Automation Unleashed” discusses proof that correct marketing automation works in Episode 99 of the If You Market podcast “Marketing Automation Unleashed with Casey Cheshire,” hosted by Cassidy and JOTO PR Disruptors CEO and Chief Strategist Karla Jo Helms.

Simply put, marketing automation includes any technology that helps business owners manage their various marketing processes, across multiple channels, automatically. This can include multifunctional campaigns using automated messages to target customers via tools such as email, the internet, social media, and text. But, as Sky Cassidy, host of the podcast If You Market They Will Come, explains, “Too many people don’t fully understand marketing automation or how to utilize it. It’s important when implementing any new technology that you fully understand it or you will lose money.”

Proof that Marketing Automation Works

• 67% of marketing leaders currently use a marketing automation platform.
• Automation increases profits; adopters have seen a 23% increase in the ROI of their marketing activities.
• With automation, marketers can improve their productivity by 34%.
• 70% of companies report that the most important benefit of automation technology is better-targeted customer communication.⁽²⁾
• 9% of marketing and communications specialists around the world said improved customer experience has been one of the most significant benefits of marketing automation technology.

Marketing automation can be a huge boon to salespeople, but it isn’t something that can be done once and then forgotten. Too many executives fail to recognize that marketing is constantly moving, which means they must constantly be adjusting.

Cheshire cautions, “Just because it’s automation doesn’t mean it’s going to magically solve all your problems. Bad marketing automation is just going to make sure your bad marketing gets to more people.”

Cheshire’s 4 Tips for Better Marketing Automation

1. Capture—With marketing automation this is more than just compiling the information someone supplies when filling out a form. The forms dynamically adjust to never ask the person the same questions again. Capturing information in this way helps companies adjust each customer journey so they’re more relevantly targeting them.
2. Nurture—Few customers are ready to buy the first time. The key is getting them to come back by sending them some information that will get them ready to buy. Marketing automation helps keep your company top of mind with each potential customer, reminding them you’re there.
3. Automate—This is a system of watching all the nurturing activity and scoring each action the person takes to determine when sales should reach out.
4. Report—This aspect of marketing automation answers the most important question of what’s working and what’s not to determine if all of a company’s efforts are taking them in the right or wrong direction.

“A lot of times we don’t know what’s working without the final step of reporting, but if you report back, now you can make adjustments,” Cheshire says.

“Capture, nurture, automate, and report—if done properly the benefits are tremendous because people know when marketing is sincere,” says Helms.

To listen to the podcast episode on how to use marketing automation with Casey Cheshire, visit If You Market They Will Come or click here.

The If You Market podcast is a 45-minute conversation about B2B marketing—new trends, best practices, and pitfalls to avoid. Each episode features a conversation with one expert guest discussing topics like: content marketing, account-based marketing, social media, marketing automation, PR, etc. The podcast airs on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and TuneIn Radio.

Casey Cheshire is a marketing automation strategist and entrepreneur who leads the #1 Salesforce Partner for Salesforce Pardot professional services, Cheshire Impact. He founded the company in 2010.