Nirvana for marketing and sales effectiveness has always been saying the right thing to the right person at the right time. In other words, to be relevant. The continuing rise of AI-driven automation is moving marketing and sales ever closer to that perfect place.
In this article, we provide examples of how automation can be used. And we’ll explain how it benefits the customer experience and business performance.
These little helpers can be used intelligently to help a website visitor find what they need, connect with who they need to talk to, or simply sign-up for a newsletter.
For example, you have a potential new customer taking a look at your website. You could serve up a pop-up form to offer them some content, or sign-up for your newsletter. Both of these are good things to do.
Another option is to use a conversational bot to provide a higher level of contextual relevance and choice to their experience. In the example below on our Contact Us page, we offer visitors options of how they can connect with us—thereby empowering them with a choice that suits.
It’s one thing to gather leads, but it means nothing until the lead progresses to the moment of purchase. The stats are compelling:
Lead nurturing works and those who get started now will be ahead of more than half of their competitors.
Automated lead nurturing is enabled by online behaviour that triggers the delivery of relevant content. The contextual relevance of content delivery can be enhanced by measuring things like:
The answers to these questions and others that fit your business and target customers will help you to create lead nurture automation that helps the lead and frames your business as the best solution. Or not, as the case may be. Remembering that we also want to work out who is not the right fit.
Automated lead scoring is a process of awarding points to leads that are actively consuming your online content. Then, once the lead reaches the target score, the lead is classified as a Marketing Qualified lead and passed over to sales.
Over time, you can measure the type of behaviour that increases the probability of sale conversion. Measurement provides the data to optimise the lead score to make it more accurate. The benefit is:
Now your sales team has a nice new lead that has an introductory level of qualification. Now begins the process to qualify fit, need, and readiness to buy.
Sales sequences automate communication with the lead and set time-specific tasks to remind the salesperson to follow up. They can automatically deliver documents and other content that align with specific stages of the sales process. Once again, automation provides better customer experience and increases the effectiveness and productivity of the sales program.
Another immense benefit of implementing marketing and sales automation is that it's all measurable. Every element can be measured for conversion effectiveness, compliance and activity. There’s nothing like having data to know where you are and what is happening. It’s the foundation of continuous improvement in activity, performance and efficiency.
The few examples of marketing and sales automation provided here merely scratch the surface. Despite that, we’re sure you can appreciate the tremendous and undeniable value they will add to your business.
By implementing marketing and sales automation, you will have greater confidence that you are being more relevant and providing the right information to the right person at the right time. You will know that the sales engagement process is operating as you intend. Your business will be designed to improve. And you will unlock new levels of competitive advantage.
Learn more about Marketing Automation and Strategic Marketing.