It is not by surprise that the SaaS industry spent 1.3 Billion dollar last year on Marketing Automation tools. More companies now see the clear value Marketing Automation software brings, the operational efficiencies it helps to create, and the fact that it crafts the ultimate experience to their end customers and how it helps bring them closer to revenue.
But what most SaaS CEOs and Founders are struggling with is finding these Mops and or Demand Gen Pros to help them navigate their ship using a Marketing Automation platform.
As we’re drifting into the future, there are more and more software, buyers are getting smarter with time, and the shortage for skilled professionals increases.
So, what should SaaS CEOs do in order to keep up with the pace and grow their Startup?
But obviously, there’s much more to that. Today we’ll reveal the 5 best practices successful marketing teams are using to help them create operational efficiencies and get them closer to revenue. Let’s dive in.
Today, Marketing Automation platform can be described as the heart of your business, where all behind the scene processes happen. It governs your customer experience and their journey, it allows your skilled Marketers to go beyond their wildest dreams and craft the best experience to your end users by building workflows, automate email send, notify account owners about their users activities, to name a few.
But why is a Marketing Automation platform a must have for any B2B SaaS business?
Simply put, by implementing a Marketing Automation platform you declare yourself as a customer-centric business. You keep your customer experience top of mind, your employees feel it, and your customers feeling it too. Businesses who know how to utilize Marketing Automation see high returns which translate into higher revenue, low churn, and high employee health score.
The main purpose of a Marketing automation platform is to replace the manual and repetitive tasks your team or users were doing in the past and saves time (to EVERYONE).
With less manual and redundant tasks your Marketing team can focus on strategy, and your users can get this tailored experience that will help them take faster and more educated decisions about your product or service.
Ever wondered what are the top secrets or best practices successful Marketing teams are using in order to increase operational efficiencies, and remove roadblocks to revenue?
Well, you’re not alone, and you probably also found it hard to discover the answer to this question by just browsing online.
Fortunately, we came up with this definitive guide to help you discover what others are doing and how you can incorporate those processes at your organization.
Let’s take a look at our top 5 Marketing Automation practices.
You already have some information about your existing records, why ask them the same questions all over again? Try using Progressive Profiling to replace redundant questions in forms and to get more information about your records to enrich your database with new information you can actually act on!
For example, in case you already know their company name, why not replace this field (question) with their company size and then use this information to run an email marketing campaign based on company size?
Or in case you already know their phone number, why not replace this field (question) with their Twitter handle or username and then run a targeted ad campaign that is based on their Twitter handle or username for laser target reach.
Please note that Progressive Profiling will only work if the following conditions are met:
There are multiple ways to do this, it’s just a matter of how you’ll act on the information you collect using Progressive Profiling!
Wouldn’t it be AWESOME if you can engage with records who visit the different pages on your website? Or moreover, email them the perfect content to help them move further down the funnel? Or even alert account owners about their activity on the specific page so they can follow up using the appropriate message?
Well, good news, you can do just that and much more.
By building website page-views based workflows you make sure you interact with the accounts that matter the most, at the right time, with relevant content based on where they’re at in the journey.
So, how will this work? Simply by choosing the pages that matter the most for you and your team you can set up a workflow that triggers by page visit and then decide what action would you like it to follow with.
For example, if a user from one of your targeted accounts visited your company’s pricing page, you can alert the account owner of this activity and they can email or DM this record to see if they need any help or have any questions related to pricing.
Another good use of website page-views based workflows is when a user from one of your targeted account have visited one of your white papers or case studies pages but didn’t took any action, e.g. downloaded the guide or the case study, you can trigger the workflow to send them the guide or ask the account owner to do so, that way you help them re-engage without them taking any action on your website.
Slack is the most popular app for any Startup out there. By automating form submissions to appropriate channels you and your team can stay in the know with anything that requires an immediate action, as opposed to email, Slack notifications are more disruptive and allow all channel members to interact at the same time without anyone losing the action.
So, how do Marketing & Sales teams get the most out of Slack?
For example, you can create an Inbound channel and push all your website forms submissions there so your Marketing and Sales teams can see this information and act on it immediately.
Another great use is if you run an email marketing campaign and want to know how many and who downloaded the guide you offered, you can simply push the form submissions into the appropriate Slack channel and keep all relevant people in the know.
The major benefit here is that people can always stay on top of things using Slack.
Conversational Marketing is the way to go. To be more specific, in case you’re already using Intercom or Drift as your Chatbot platform you better leverage the integration they have with Clearbit and Salesforce to create a personalized website experience for your targeted accounts.
How will this work?
Every time one of the users from your target accounts is visiting your website, they will be shown a welcome message by the Chatbot that will also include their company name, that way you grab their attention and create curiosity by inviting them to interact with your bot.
A recent study showed that 47% of website visitors preferred interacting with the Bot after receiving a personalized message rather than filling out a form!
Exit-intent is the point at which a user seems likely to leave your website without taking the desired action, hence, purchase, signing up, or just engaging with your content.
In order to craft a strong exit-intent strategy around your website visitors you must firstly gather as much insights as possible about your website users and their behaviors. Parameters like what browsers they use, average time on page, and location are paramount to the success of your strategy.
By gathering the right insights about your website users you can identify the different behavior patterns and craft the right content to keep them engaged.
For example, you might want to display an exit-intent pop-up or offer a special discount to encourage users to stay on your site.
Or display a pop-up to help them find better (related) content on your website.
While Marketing Automation platforms are nothing new, many teams still don’t know how to get the most out of it. We hope that our 5 best practices can help you take your Marketing Automation strategy to the next level, empower your teams, and ensure your customers are getting this exact same experience you wish to deliver.
As mentioned, getting the right tool is important, but what’s even more important is having the right people to operate it, create the right strategy that aligns with your business goals, and always keep your customers top of mind.
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