When it comes to completing tasks, sometimes we just need a little help. So many movies from just a couple of decades ago depict our fascination with technology that can do things for us. Total Recall (1990) featured a self-driving car. Electric Dreams (1984) portrayed a smart home. As far back as 1962, The Jetsons relied on a robot vacuum.
All of this convenient technology exists today in some form, but when it comes to tech that can impact millions with just a click, automation in business practices is perhaps one that helps out the most. To maximizing efficiency, account-based marketing (ABM) makes it easier for marketing teams to focus attention on key accounts through awareness and communication and content optimization.
When properly implemented, marketing automation quickly proves its worth and delivers measurable benefits, including:
- Increased annual sales revenues
- Higher ROI on ABM activities than other marketing activities
- Increased sales through nurtured leads
Let’s take a look at a few of the key ways that automation can help drive your ABM efforts.
Automate the Most Basic Tasks
When it comes to task reminders and notifications, there is really no reason you shouldn’t be fully automated yet. Most CRMs provide you with the option to set a one-time or recurring reminder and task notifications for things like follow-up phone calls or emails.
When following up on leads, most organizations are not quick enough. Don’t risk letting a good lead go cold. By setting automated reminders, you’ll never again forget to follow up with your key accounts, send regular emails, or make that phone call that always slips your mind.
These automated task reminders are also helpful for ensuring that the entire team is on the same page with their assigned tasks. Most importantly, automated reminders allow you to create and maintain momentum by keeping in touch with your clients or customers. To nurture a lead, you need to be there every step of the way, and having automatic reminders can really help.
Learn More:
- The 8 Best Outbound Sales Automation Tools for Cold Emailing
- 7 Easy Ways to Generate and Convert More Qualified Leads
- 9 Mission-Critical Lead Generation Metrics You Need To Track
- The Ultimate Recipe for Effective Customer Lead Generation
Achieve Smoother Workflow with Automation
Internally, the benefits of an automated workflow are many.
Just like an email cadence that sends out messages periodically or changes the response due to triggers, your CRM and marketing automation platforms give you the option to set up workflows. This is especially helpful if you’re going to be using a similar email or outreach cadence for several accounts or several individuals within the same accounts.
In terms of nurturing a lead, you want to make sure your organization has access to a new lead throughout the early stages without being overbearing or aggressive. A steady—but not overwhelming— flow of useful content via scheduled email is a good way of building awareness before they are contacted by someone in sales.
To that end, keep the three Ws in mind to optimize your results:
1) WHAT You’re Trying to Do
Assuming that you are in the early stages of this connection, you are most likely attempting to convince the lead to reach out to one of your sales staff. Maybe you’re just trying to provide them with more information. Perhaps you’re trying to close a sale.
Regardless of what your intention is, be aware of it. You don’t want to send out any content without a purpose behind it. If you do, it may come off as unintentional, useless or impersonal, which is off-putting.
2) WHO You’re Trying to Reach
Make sure you’re sending out quality, tailored content. You don’t want an email blast going to to every contact with every piece of information. Focus on figuring out what is relevant and who it is relevant to.
Manage your contacts wisely and understand their needs as well as their readiness to take the next step with your company. This way, they’ll get exactly what they need without feeling ignored or overwhelmed.
3) WHEN You’re Sending It
Timing (and spacing) matter. Any contact you have with a lead should be intentional, and that intentionality should be obvious. If you set up your emails to go out at 1 a.m., your content will not only likely be overlooked in the morning email rush, it will also be recognized as a poorly timed mass email.
Instead, understand your lead base as a whole and use analytics to determine the very best timing and spacing for all your communication. From easily creating and sharing documents to managing and monitoring tasks, workflows save time and energy.
Better Targeting, Better Remarketing
Targeted remarketing ads are another great way to nurture a lead. These targeted ads can help reach an audience that you haven’t made a transaction with just yet—but want to. Once someone has visited your website (or a particular portion of it), you can set the IP address you’re trying to reach or drop a time-sensitive pixel to raise awareness of your product. This approach works great for retargeting anonymous site viewers with tailored messages.
Or you can use a list-based retargeting approach to stay on the radar of a new prospect. This gives them the time and freedom to decide on their next steps with your organization, all while providing them with more information and incentive to reach back out. This is ideal, since closing the sale invariably takes more than one touch to get a customer to commit.
Remarketing is as close to “set it and forget it” as marketing automation gets.
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Learn More:
- How to Boost Lead Generation and Authority with White Papers
- Automation Master Brad Martineau on How to Set Up Successful Sales Funnels
- How to Use Social Media for B2B Lead Generation
Social Media Monitoring and Alerts
Social media is an effective tool for businesses.
According to HubSpot, 80% of marketers claim that their activity on social media leads to increased traffic. Forbes claims that social media improves brand loyalty, conversion rates and search engine rankings. But you will only see these benefits if you are using social media in a savvy way.
Any organization that has ever attempted to maintain a social media presence knows it can be tough. It is a lot of work for what sometimes seems like little reward. Strategic, successful plans for social media marketing are complex and sometimes complicated to implement.
Fortunately, automation can help.
If you’re targeting specific audiences, you’ll want to know what people are saying about you—either good or bad— so you can interact with them. Try automated social media monitoring, which alerts you based on company, tag or keyword use. You get near-real-time oversight of the narrative surrounding your business, and you can jump in when necessary to answer any questions or clear up any misunderstandings.
Automated alerts also ensure that you will stay on top of any communication directed at your company, which will make you seem more personable and customer-focused by being highly responsive. Everyone wins.
Scheduled posts also ensures that your followers are receiving quality content with minimal effort on your end. Analyzing and understanding when your target audience is online and active can help you make determinations about when to post, and information about their preferred interactions will shape the types of content you share. From there, you simply need to pick a set of times and frequency with which you want to post, then let the automation process take it from there.
Learn More:
- How to Excel in Lead Nurturing: A Quick Guide for Digital Marketers
- Turning a Lead into a Prospect with MOFU Content
- How to Increase Mobile Conversions With Facebook Lead Ads
Final Thoughts
We love when things are easy, and automation can do just that: make your job a little bit easier. You’ve put a lot of effort into creating a great marketing strategy, targeting your audience, and implementing your idea. Why not let technology take over some of the small stuff so you can focus on what really matters?
The post 4 Ways to Use Automation with Account-Based Marketing for Better Lead Nurturing appeared first on Single Grain.
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