How to take your marketing automation strategy to the next level
Do you want to level up your marketing automation strategy and platform? Like many B2B marketers, you will have taken the first important steps to automate the customer journey. These will probably include email marketing, setting up of forms and gated content as well as creating some basic lead nurturing flows. This is the stage that we refer to as ‘Stage 1: single campaigns’. Now it’s time to up your game:
Some of the features of next-level marketing automation
The advanced stages referred to as 2, 3, and 4 allow you to improve results by making full use of the capabilities of your marketing automation platform. Some of the most important steps in this stage include:
- Advanced lead scoring: going beyond your initial lead scoring sheet, you might want to add additional lead-scoring sheets that are tailored towards a segment or persona.
- Progressive profiling: the standard forms that you built during stage 1 are nor helping you become more educated about a prospects’s needs or characteristics. Progressive profiling allows you to ask additional questions on subsequent form submissions to gain more information about that prospect.
State-of-the-at CRM integration and ABM: the next level in CRM integration will enable an account-based marketing approach. Use the information from your CRM to give that red-carpet treatment to your most important prospects and customers. It supports account-based lead scoring and will help you in your marketing & sales alignment efforts. An example from Marketo:
Attribution: what channel helped to create that lead? Did it come in through Google Ads, organic, email, or that webinar? Or a combination? Single and multi-touch attribution will help you analyze this and make the right choices for future campaigns. An example from Hubspot:
Advanced reporting: most marketing automation platforms offer standard reports. Connection a real-time dashboard helps you to combine data from your marketing automation platform, paid ads, social media, and many other sources in your own desired ways. An example:
- Personalization: personalizing emails, forms, chats, and web content will help improve lead quality and nurture the leads more effectively.
- Multiple business units and branches: larger enterprises typically start using a marketing automation platform in one business unit or branch. In the next stages, they typically implement other BU’s.
- Advanced-Data infrastructure architecture: something that is often overlooked in stage 1 is the setup of good data-infrastructure architecture. Connecting multiple sources (including CRM, ERP, and other legacy systems) force you to think about this. We have developed a blueprint that has been implemented for many customers (it requires some explanation, so schedule a meeting below if you would like to learn more):
Can your marketing automation software take you to the next level?
Like many other marketers, you may not have considered stages 2-4 when selecting a marketing automation platform. Chances are that your platform may not scale to support your future requirements. In that case, you may need to change platforms. We recently wrote a blog on that topic which you can find here. We’ve helped a lot of marketers like you, switch from one platform to the other. Before switching however, make sure to select the right platform for the next 3-5 years. We can help you in this selection procedure, as we are an agnostic Martech agency that has worldwide experience with all major B2B platforms, including Act-On, Adobe Marketo, HubSpot, SalesForce Pardot, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing.
We can help you to take your marketing automation to the next level
Whether it is helping you take your strategy & existing tooling to the next level, migrating your marketing automation platform or auditing your current martech stack, Marketing Guys is here to help. Schedule a free 30-minute discovery here:
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Have questions about marketing automation, CRM, or integrations? Together, we’ll find the best solution for your organization.
