Marketing automation makes life easier, so don’t let jargon complicate things. Between split testing, progressive profiling, dynamic lists and automation rules, it can be difficult to stay on top of the vocabulary.

A/B TESTING (SPLIT TESTING)

A/B testing, or split testing, lets us compare small differences in a marketing campaign to see how they influence customer behaviour. We could test almost anything, from email subject lines to the text on a call to action button. 

By running two variations to a controlled group of customers we can find out which is the most successful and focus our attention there. We can repeat this process as many times as we need to in order to optimise our marketing campaigns.

AUTOMATION RULES

Automation rules will perform an action automatically when a criteria within your customer relationship management is met. Think of them as shortcuts that save us time and effort. 

For example, a user from the UK fills in an online form requesting a whitepaper. Thanks to an automation rule the request is automatically assigned to a representative based in the UK for follow up. No manual sorting is required. 

DYNAMIC LISTS

Dynamic lists let us automatically create and curate groups of prospects or customers matching specific criteria. We might set up recipient lists for an email newsletter signup, or users who are a certain number of days into a free trial for example. 

Dynamic lists are particularly useful for managing prospect data that is likely to change regularly. If someone no longer matches the criteria they will be automatically removed from the list. 

LEAD GENERATION

Lead generation involves attracting potential prospects to a product or service through marketing channels, then converting by providing value in exchange for their data. The value can take the form of content, competitions, webinars, quizzes, or events.

LEAD MANAGEMENT

Once we have generated a lead we need to segment the hot prospects from the cold ones. By identifying genuine leads using intelligent, data-driven insight based on user behaviour, only interested buyers are passed to the sales team. This gives us a much better chance of closing the sale using a customised sales pipeline, rather than resorting to methods like cold-calling.

LEAD NURTURING

Lead nurturing is the process of developing relationships with prospects along every step of the user journey, and throughout each stage of the sales funnel. We combine our marketing and communication efforts, listen to the needs of your prospects, and react based on their needs and behaviour. This means establishing and nurturing buyer relationships, usually with a lead scoring system, which allows us to create a content marketing strategy that resonates with customers. 

LEAD SCORING

Lead scoring allows us to rank prospects by their perceived value, identifying the hottest prospects for follow up. This also allows us to customise a prospect’s experience based on their interest level and position in the sales funnel, by taking the appropriate action in response to their behaviour.

The best lead scoring systems incorporate explicit and implicit information. Explicit information is usually provided by the user themselves, such as industry, job title, or location. Implicit information is gathered by monitoring consumer behaviour, such as how many times they visit a website, the time spent on site, email opens, and activity on social platforms.

PROGRESSIVE PROFILING

Progressive profiling allows us to display new form fields to prospects based on the data points that have already been collected. This means we can gather information over time to allow us to create a comprehensive profile.

For example, a user visits a website for the first time and is required to fill out a few form fields. Next time that same user visits the same sit, the CRM will replace any of the form fields we’ve already collected with new ones. Rather than overwhelming users with long forms, a progressive technique allows us to build up prospect profiles is a more user friendly way. This results in an increased likelihood of completion, as well as higher conversion rates.

TRIGGER-BASED MARKETING

Trigger-based marketing, sometimes referred to event-based marketing, allows us to identify key actions taking place during the lifecycle of the customer or business. When a particular event takes place, a user-specific activity will be carried out using pre-determined automation rules.

This is an extremely targeted form of marketing, and can be very effective if articulated properly because it triggers an action to be carried out at the precise time in which a prospect is likely to be active in a decision process.

CAN WE HELP YOU FURTHER?

If you’d like to discuss how we can make marketing automation work for you, contact us today.