Customers rarely mean to keep secrets. They already entrust plenty of vital information to you, and if you ask them for more, they usually volunteer it. Despite their openness, they’re hiding a wealth of data from you – not because they want to, but because some of the most important insights about them come from information they don’t know about themselves.
That’s where marketing automation comes in.
With automation, you’re able to discover more of the hidden data that affects how your leads and customers interact with you. The system notes behavior and correlates it with other data to provide a more complete, nuanced picture of your customers, which in turn helps you provide the service they want. Here are just a few of the secrets your marketing automation system can reveal.
They Move on Quickly
In an information-rich digital environment, something eye-catching and distracting is just a click away. We all have shorter attention spans than we once did, and that includes your leads. If you bore them, they bounce. Deliver content that isn’t relevant to them, and they tune it out. Marketing automation systems that have well-tuned drip nurture programs depend on high relevance and a steady stream of interesting new content to keep leads interested in what you have to say instead of seeking greener pastures.
They Demand Responsiveness
If leads send an email request, they want it answered that day. If they ask a question on Twitter, they expect an answer within the hour. Even if you can’t take care of the problem completely via social media, email, or other real-time communication channels, you need to let customers know you’ve heard them and are working on it. Your marketing automation software’s autoresponse system can send a notification to your lead and trigger an alert for your sales staff or customer service personnel so you can address questions quickly.
They’re More Mobile Than Ever
In the digital realm, the recipient, not the publisher, chooses the format in which content appears. That puts the responsibility on you to make sure that content looks great no matter whether your prospect’s reading it on a smartphone during the commute to the office, on a laptop at work, or on the desktop at home. Responsive design that detects how a user is accessing information and optimizes the content for that device makes the user experience seamless.
They Want You to Anticipate Their Needs
Predictive algorithms on sites such as Google and Amazon deliver information almost before we know we want it, giving us suggestions about what we want to find before we’ve started the search in earnest. Your content should be proactive too, anticipating their needs and telling them what they need to know before they ever have to ask for it. Drip nurture campaigns, email newsletters, well-crafted FAQs, and a frequently refreshed content library let you be there for your leads at every step of the buying journey.
They Want Information, not Just Ads
Marketers may say that content is king, but it’s more accurate to say it was democratically elected. People flock to sites that give them real insights, actionable information, or an engaging read. They flee sites that have nothing but selling on their agendas. That doesn’t mean advertising is finished; quite the contrary, now that marketing automation systems can serve up customized ads based on a lead’s demographic and behavioral data. What it means is that your content should have a purpose greater than “buy from us.”
They Talk to Each Other
Never have people’s opinions been more plentiful or more powerful. Thanks to social media, crowd-sourced review sites, and real-time referrals, your customers can tell everyone they know about a great experience they’ve had with you — or dish about ones that weren’t so great. Marketing automation tools let you pay attention to these thousands of conversations at once and let you know when you need to fix a problem or send out a thank you.
They Want to Be Seen as People, not Data Points
Marketing automation’s greatest asset might be how it frees up time for businesses to interact one-on-one with people. Instead of spending time gathering and poring over data, you turn over those routine tasks to the software, freeing you to answer questions quickly or share a cool tidbit of information with your Twitter followers. Automate the routine tasks, and you’ll have more time for real interaction.
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