How to step up your marketing automation game to benefit the Customer Experience (CX)

Marketing automation has become somewhat of a buzzword. Many organizations look for ways to automate their business processes and create more efficiencies. Some use spreadsheets or workable documents and try to band-aid the processes with more than one tool or system, which in turn creates a lot more work and becomes ineffective. True marketing automation refers to a software platform specifically designed for marketing teams or departments to implement marketing using multiple channels and systematize repetitive tasks.?

Marketing Automation versus CRM

Marketing automation software should not be confused with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. The key difference between a CRM and marketing automation platform is that the latter is used primarily for marketing and the former is primarily for sales purposes.

However, most organizations will integrate their marketing automation platform with CRM to ensure cohesiveness between sales and marketing functions within the business, to foster better collaboration.

Why is a great CX important?

Consumer behavior is changing, it’s more than just the fallout of the pandemic. 61 percent of consumers admit that their priorities keep changing as a result of everything happening in the world, according to recent research from Accenture.

There are many ways to improve the CX, here are just some tactics that aid in delivering a better customer experience:

1. Have your marketing and sales team establish a clear CX vision

2. Know your customer, understand who they are and what they want

3. Capture feedback in real-time, that’s where a CRM becomes super helpful

4. Listen to employee feedback

5. Implement a blueprint for the development of your team, such as best practices to follow

How marketing automation provides the data required to work better

Recently, my team worked on a project for a homebuilder that wanted a more robust and streamlined platform to gather customer data and utilize it to better connect and communicate with its customers. We were able to integrate one of the most popular inbound marketing, sales, and customer service platforms, which allows our client to create email drip campaigns from our customized CRM solution. Integrating the two platforms empowers the marketing team to generate automated campaigns targeting specific groups within their database. The customer information gathered from the CRM also helps the homebuilder identify and determine the type of homes or communities they plan to build and design automated campaigns that target leads for those new homes.

The data helps the homebuilder learn more through traffic analysis and capturing demographic and psychographic information of those touring their active communities. They use the information to also create messaging and campaigns for social media and to design an overall marketing effort that is more consistent. The overarching goal of the project was to provide the company with timely access to customer data and reports that ultimately allow the marketing department to work smarter and more efficiently.?

Are you ready to step up your marketing automation game to benefit your team and customers?

Making internal changes and updating proprietary procedures is a big undertaking in any business. Employee buy-in takes time and making a case to those who manage the budget is no easy feat.?Wiplfi can work with you to plead your case, showing the needs and benefits of marketing automation and integration. If your company is serious about CX, take the next steps and set up a discovery call. Wipfli prides itself on bringing the curiosity needed to uncover what’s being overlooked.