10 Inspiring Examples of Marketing Automation

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation software automatically sends campaigns to your pre-selected customers. Using pre-defined triggers, these automated messages are set up and sent off when a subscriber meets the trigger. The platforms used in marketing automation include email, social media, and websites.

10 Examples of Marketing Automation

To give you a better idea of how effective marketing automation can be, here’s a look at some of the ways they’ve been used in the real world.

1. Welcome Emails

First impressions count, which is why a well-crafted welcome email is one of your most effective marketing automation tools! They’re already excited to have invested in a new product or service, so it’s now time to build on this momentum and keep the good vibes flowing with either a once-off welcome email or one that starts a series of emails to create brand awareness.

Example: The online retailer of tickets for Broadway shows, Broadway.com, places a subscribe form at the bottom of its website to capture subscribers and share great discounts to encourage the first purchase.

2. Customer Loyalty Programmes

Through marketing automation, customer loyalty programmes will ensure your audience constantly feels appreciated as you’re able to deliver the right message at the right time. Through marketing automation, you can track customers across different communication channels and send triggered messages related to searches or other details.

Example: Udemy, an online course provider, sends targeted Facebook posts such as photography courses when interested parties search ‘digital photography tips’.

3. Reminder Emails

This form of marketing automation allows you to deliver timely messages directly to customers as a way to encourage continued purchases of products and services. For those in the automobile industry, reminder emails can be particularly valuable.

Example: Nissan collects information about customers such as the purchase date of a car as a way to send reminders about service appointments, maintenance tips and suggestions about new purchases.

4. Lead Generation

To keep your company growing constantly, you need to look at generating leads and marketing automation is a great way to do this. A lead includes contact information related to an interested or potential customer. Through automation, you can generate leads through chatbots, advertisements, videos and podcasts.

Example: Finland’s rental housing provider, SATO uses chatbots on its website to connect with both potential and new customers. Potential tenants can leave their contact information and details of what they’re looking for to be contacted later. Existing tenants can check their payments or report items using the chatbot. The chatbot lets anyone live chat with operators.

5. Birthday or Anniversary Messages

Personalised communication with customers is another really effective marketing automation strategy to cement customer loyalty and ensure they feel recognised. Once you’ve collected new customer information, such as birthdates and wedding dates, you can send regular reminders to customers to congratulate them and even generate more product purchases to celebrate big days. Things like special day discounts will also enhance customer relations.

Example: Monica Vinader, jewellery retailer, ensures customers fill in these details so they can send personalised automated messages with a ‘Treat yourself to 10% off the next purchase'.

6. Quizzes and Surveys

A clever way to ascertain a significant amount of personal information from customers is through quizzes which will result in customised recommendations. People love taking online quizzes, so it benefits both you and the customer. Alternatively, surveys on products and services also provide useful information and these forms of marketing automated can be sent out after triggers on purchases or product updates.

Example: The Foundation is an online programme that helps entrepreneurs set up software businesses. They sent out a ‘Do you have an entrepreneurial mind?’ quiz which was paired with Facebook adverts to increase leads. Through this quiz and promotion, the company was able to get thousands of leads and generate millions in revenue.

7. Reminders and Re-engagements

One of the biggest missed opportunities for eCommerce businesses is abandoned shopping carts before checkout. Through targeted marketing automation, you can cut down your cart abandonment. This will encourage shoppers to complete their purchases with a simple email reminder and link directed to their cart. In addition to such reminders, you can also re-engage with customers who haven’t purchased in a while through messages to ‘save on the next purchase’. Marketing automation can be triggered to send based on subscribers’ actions or non-actions.

Example: Whiskey Loot uses its copywriting cleverly in its abandoned cart emails by including a list of reasons why the customer should purchase the product, as well as answers to frequently asked questions. The customer is empowered with all the information needed to make that purchase.

8. Newsletters

Email newsletters are a popular and effective way to connect with subscribers on a regular basis and give a general overview of what your brand has been up to, as well as useful tips and other information for subscribers. If done well, your audience will be actively engaged and re-directed to products and services. If done badly, however, people will consider this more spamming and unsubscribe. Newsletters can be sent out weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or quarterly depending on the content being sent.

Example: Unsplash, the free stock image sharing platform for photographers, sends out a weekly newsletter, and another every month or so. The weekly one is simpler with captivating imagery while the second one is more of a classic newsletter with funding and partnership information.

9. Social Media

While it might seem like there’s a new social media platform every week, ignoring these platforms would be detrimental to any business operation. Social media engagement offers long-term benefits and, through marketing automation, you’re able to engage with customers quickly and easily.

Example: Pampers uses effective social media campaigns that focus on the special bond between parent and child – rather than the changing of dirty nappies! Pull at the heartstrings to pull at the purse strings.

10. Product Launches

If your company is launching a new product, then marketing automation is the best way to reach out to potential and existing customers. Email marketing for product launches allows for a personalised messaging strategy.

Example: Apple, in introducing its new iPhones to existing customers, uses marketing automation effectively. This is because customer loyalty is strong and they’ll understand the benefits of the many new features of the latest edition.

What Are the Benefits of Marketing Automation?

Here’s a look at how marketing automation can benefit your business in so many ways.

Increased Efficiency

Through marketing automation, you’re eliminating the need for manually performing extremely time-consuming tasks, which increases your efficiency.

Meet Sales’ Goals

Through marketing automation and by working co-operatively, you’re able to effectively define your leads, sales and marketing as a team and meet these goals.

Improved Lead Conversion

By implementing marketing automation, companies have noted a jump in lead conversion by about 10%.

Re-direct Workflow

Because marketing automation enhances your overall efficiency, your team is able to redirect energies to operations that improve the business and boost revenue.

More Effective Spend

Because time is being spent more effectively, so is your money. Your marketing budget won’t necessarily be tied up in labour costs liberating staff to get on with implementing business-enhancing solutions.

More Collaboration Between Departments

The sales’ team is constantly hounding the marketing team for sales, but with marketing automation, everyone is on the same page. The more lead generation, the more opportunities the sales team has to close deals.

Scalability

Any growing business will get to the point where its existing marketing techniques need to evolve to meet a new market. This is where marketing automation comes into play. Your business is empowered with the right marketing tools to meet the larger population and continuously expand your contact base.

How to Improve Your Marketing Automation?

If you already have a marketing automation strategy in place, then there’s always room for improvement. Here are a few ways this can be achieved.

Personalisation

The more personalised your marketing technique, the more likely you are to generate the leads. Make sure that offers are tailored to improve click-through rates.

Smart Content

You can consider interactive content marketing to drive engagement rates and boost conversion rates with your customers.

Mobile

Mobile phones are increasingly used for retail operations, which means that your marketing automation needs to be tailored for mobile use. This could mean synchronising mobile with CRM channels and making apps more accessible to build multi-channel engagement.

Analytics

Data is a vital component of effective marketing automation so it’s important that you’re accessing the most relevant, up-to-date data for meaningful insights to improve marketing performance.

By working with the best in the business, you’re able to enjoy all the associated benefits of marketing automation while constantly learning about new ways to get ahead. With the Mobile Marketing Cloud's automation tools, you can automate all the important moments in your customer's journey.