Is there anything better than when your Customer Relationship Management software (CRM) does your job for you? It’s brilliant. The CRM system will automatically send out your marketing campaigns, however, you will have to setup the process and campaigns first. Here are some quick marketing automation tips to have the best campaign success.
Clean up Contacts in your CRM
A CRM won’t be happy unless it’s clean. Some systems may require you to find separate marketing automation software to link in with your CRM. However, there are CRMs available that actually provide you with automated marketing software. Check your CRM software for duplicates. You could have somebody under the name Bill, William, and Billy, yet they’re all the same person. The same goes for when you group companies together. Maybe you have Post Office, USPS, US Postal Office and yet they’re all the same. That gives you a ton of clutter. Merge your records, delete the unnecessary ones, or do whatever you think is best to get rid of the extra entries.
Verify Email Addresses
If your CRM application doesn’t have a verifying procedure built in, then you’ll want to do some research to find a verification service. There are a couple things you can check for first, such as removing anything without the ‘@’ sign in the email address because it will not be deliverable. You want to keep your bounce rate low, or else you could risk your email domain reputation. It’s hard to get off the blacklist of domains and IP addresses. Generally, keeping your bounce rate under 10% is recommended. Make sure to check those email addresses!
Openly Communicate With Your Sales Team
Sales and marketing go hand in hand. The two teams have to work pretty closely together to make sure everybody is on the same page with promotions, how leads are marked/tiered, how leads are input into the system, specific drip marketing campaigns etc. There are a lot of details to cover and each company handles these things slightly differently. It’s pretty critical to have an open line of communication between the sales team and marketing team before those automated campaigns start up.
Verify your resources
There is a lot that goes into your marketing automation procedures that you may not consider. You’ll need to make sure you’re also on the same page with your IT department. Having things like the opt-out forms ready, making sure unsubs are not emailed, website redirects, tracking capabilities, lead assignment processes etc. are all handled before you start sending things out. You’ll also need to create all the content for emails, social media, blogs, dynamic content etc. While the automation is incredible, you still have to put in the work to set it up.
Education
Marketing trends are consistently changing. You always have to be sure to keep abreast of what is happening with your competition, and looking for innovative ways to keep ahead of the game. Don’t be afraid of changing up your content either. That is the only way you will be able to evaluate the results. Attend seminars, listen to webinars, read current news and blog posts, and look at anything else that might be of interest. Keep your skills sharp!