Faster conversions. Shorter buying cycle. More sales.

That is utopia, not just for a marketing professional but for any business entity as a whole. But there is a yawning gap from engaging potential buyers to turning those potential buyers into actual clients who pay money for your services.

To bridge that gap, marketers have deployed all kinds of tactics to turn leads into buying decisions. From email marketing, social media campaigns, and even traditional outbound marketing, there are a plethora of marketing channels and options available. However, just picking and using a marketing channel is not enough to reach “utopia.”

Take, for instance, email marketing. Perhaps, when you started your company, you had only 20 clients so it was an easy-going task sending them personal emails daily.

As your clients’ number grew, say to 500, you realized that sending manual emails won’t cut it. To be able to meet the growing demand, marketing automation has to be employed.

Not all automation is effective automation

Automating your marketing for automation sake is a futile endeavor. Engaging marketing automation for your business without due diligence both internally and externally is a fruitless charade. Here are five things to consider as you take up marketing automation for your business:

• Your goals should be clear

Every marketing automation platform has several marketing tools for you to choose from. What you settle on is based on what your needs are. What kind of company are you? What are you trying to sell? What key metrics do you want to monitor? Answering all these questions will give you a solid footing for implementing your marketing automation.

• Know your audience

Create a buyer persona by finding out about the demographics, habits, buying patterns, and interests of your targeted clientele. Knowing your audience will help ensure that your marketing results will not be up in the air. It will have a big say in the kind of tooling you settle on for your marketing automation.

• Find your voice

Every company has a voice and this voice seeps through all its marketing channels. Some companies, because of their client base, have a corporate sound and feel to their communication.

Other companies have a conversational, warm, and friendly tone. Marketing automation cannot replace voice and feel in crafting your message. Remember, marketing automation only focuses on the mechanics but a company’s voice and feel will still have to be incorporated in its message.

• Be innovative

Don’t get stuck in the rut. It’s a sin in marketing to just recycle your content without creativity and innovation. Remember, the client is human – not some robot that will gulp down everything dished to it. Be cognizant of trends and things that are in vogue and keep in step with the times.

• Choose an effective marketing automation platform

There is an untold number of marketing automation tools available. Sifting through them can be a backbreaking chore. However, if you ask the right questions, the process can be simplified. Firstly, you have to take a critical look at how the tooling solution addresses your needs. How much time does it cut off your marketing deliverables?

Then you also have to consider its functionality. How easy is it to use? It the tooling solution going to create a gulf between other departments and the marketing department? How does it harmonize the work of various departments? Is it scalable? Would you need to find another marketing platform once your company grows to certain heights?

A good marketing platform – like the emfluence marketing platform – would have great reviews from customers who have previously used it. Such platforms are often the toasts of many-a-marketing blog. Ratings and reviews, as well as recommendations from industry experts, can help you settle on a platform tailor-made for your needs.

Wrapping up

Marketing automation is a sure-fire way to ensure potential clients become actual clients. However, marketing automation is not an activity to be done arbitrarily. It requires careful planning, strategy, and execution. Consider factors like your goals, the audience, your voice as well as the things the marketing platform brings to the table before settling on one.