5 B2B Marketing Automation Tips

Josh Astete, Vice President of Digital Marketing, MicroD

For both large and small companies, getting leads and converting them into prospects is vital for growth. Traditional marketing strategies rely on either broad, sweeping distribution or the painstaking job of identifying and categorizing a specific audience. This is not only inefficient but also, often does not generate the volume of leads that can sustain growth.

Instead, by switching to a digital and automated approach, you are able to better serve your clients, and potential clients, by sending targeted content based on user behavior, interests and immediate needs.

What is Marketing Automation and How Can it Drive Growth?

Marketing automation is essentially a group of tools that help to streamline and bolster your advertising campaign via the use of customer analytics, information supply, and dedicated triggering mechanisms. With a platform like HubSpot, you can get all of these tools in one user-friendly configuration.

That having been said, marketing automation is less about a few intricate software solutions than it is about the human element. The trick to advertising is creating engaging articles. Your marketing automation process helps match that content with the exact individuals on your list that will benefit from the content the most.

A successful marketing automation strategy will not rely on majority one-off email sends, but rather utilize emails that engage a customer according to their interaction with your organization

Marketing automation is a staple today, as more organizations of all sizes integrate this technology and make it a pillar of modern advertising. However, for B2B marketers specifically, how do you configure marketing automation to continuously add more leads to your opportunity pipeline?

Continue reading to check out my favorite tips and tricks to optimize your marketing automation process so that it fuels the growth of your business.

Top 5 B2B Marketing Automation Tips & Tricks

Set KPIs

There are many different goals and objectives your company may be looking to achieve through marketing automation. Some of the most common are:

● Increasing brand awareness

● Greater number of leads

● Improved customer loyalty

● Efficient and effective marketing campaigns

● Improved internal processes

But no matter your goal, it is key to identify key performance indicators. These will allow you to determine if your efforts are having an impact. I recommend reviewing the results on a monthly basis and determining if the list of KPI’s are the correct measurements for your business or industry on a quarterly basis.

Keep Emails within a Workflow and Refrain from One-offs

Even though your automated advertising may have begun with an email, your customers have also likely interacted with your company in a number of ways. A successful marketing automation strategy will not rely on majority one-off email sends, but rather utilize emails that engage a customer according to their interaction with your organization. This will ensure generated leads will fit into a strategically crafted workflow, and help move them along through the funnel.

Are you asking yourself, “What is a workflow?”

Simply put, a workflow is the succession of steps to move a contact from the first interaction to the conversion. This relies on your organization’s goals and objectives, and numerous workflows may be required to achieve this goal or develop a lead into a client.

Through HubSpot, your business can categorize their workflows into four main categories:

1. Ticket Workflows

2. Deal Workflows

3. Quote Workflows

4. Contacts & Company Workflows

Making an email campaign that utilizes personalized or exceptionally targeted emails will enhance organizational efficiency and improve the effectiveness of your marketing automation strategy.

Personalization, Personalization, Personalization

Too frequently in B2B marketing, advertising materials seem targeted at machines and can be too generic. It is true that the tone for B2B is going to be generally more buttoned-up than B2C, but the folks reading B2B messages are still people that will react to personalized content better than generic.

In the content you deliver with marketing automation, so be sure you are still talking to people. Automation can help by personalizing your messages depending on the information you’ve got concerning your contacts.

Through HubSpot’s Personalization Tokens, you can personalize the content you produce. Some of my most used tokens are:

● Company Name

● Industry

● Location

● Contact Name

Plus, you can add custom fields specific to your industry -- I highly recommend taking advantage of that feature.

Proper Segmentation is Key

Segmentation centers on separating client listings, or possible prospects, into specific classes. Generally, these segments could be defined according to your business goals or sales objectives. They also help discern the main information from the data.

For example, maybe your company is looking to generate leads from specific industries. If you are looking to target customers in the medical field as well as customers in the education field, segmenting those contacts into separate lists is vital.

In the end, segments may be used to organize your email distributions to deliver the right content to the proper people at the ideal time. Automating this process can quickly result in more effective lead creation.

Configure Lead Scoring and Sales Notifications

Lead scoring is extremely valuable for B2B and proper configuration cannot be stressed enough. Scoring leads may be valuable across a multitude of business models, but it really compliments B2B due to the comparatively longer sales cycle.

The capacity to track behavior on your site, track involvement with your messaging, and create a number of touchpoints across channels is a major weapon in your tool chest. HubSpot’s platform allows you to completely customize how many lead score points you want to assign per each interaction.

We recommend assigning lead scores based on information that can clearly show you who to follow up with. This could be downloading a guide, liking a post on social media or even reading a specific blog post.

May the Automation Force be with you

There is no question that a thought out and properly configured marketing automation strategy is one of the best tools in the B2B marketing tool belt. If you follow the above tips and tricks and soak up as many platform training sessions available to you, you will be well on your way to marketing automation success.

Top Hubspot Consulting Services Companies