By now, most if not all marketers are already aware of the importance of utilizing Marketing Automation tools. One of its primary purposes is to deliver right content, to the right person, via the right channel and at the right time. Customers’ trust has to be nurtured, and marketing automation is the perfect software to achieve that because it keeps track of all your campaigns across various marketing platforms from one single platform. In doing so, companies ensure that the tone of their brand remains consistent. However, if the automation tool is not used correctly, things can start to unravel pretty quickly. That’s why I am going to highlight what are some of the biggest mistakes in using the automation tool and how to correct them.
Messages being sent are not relevant
There is nothing more annoying that being on a receiving end of an email that links you to something like an expired coupon. You can be sure that there is a price to be paid for making such a mistake. In one survey, 54% of people indicated that they would unsubscribe immediately from the company’s communications that make such mistakes.
I have a personal example of receiving such an email from one of my often-visited restaurants here in Atlanta, GA. In the midst of COVID-19 crisis when all restaurants were closed, I kept receiving automated emails from the specific restaurant encouraging me to go visit them as they haven’t seen me there for a while. Really? They do know that they were closed anyways, right? Receiving such messages is disappointing because it shows how an automated email without prior thought can truly backfire. This was an example of a personalization attempt gone very wrong. Emails are not to be sent the automated way just for the sake of sending them. They have to be relevant and reflect the times we live in, and address anything else that might be affecting the world of your audience at the moment.
No personalized messages
Personalization is at the core of a digital marketing automation strategy. When used correctly, personalization can have an immense effect on how a potential customer perceives the brand and how much the company knows about his/her interests. However, if the personalization is not used correctly, it can have an opposite effect. Think of a time you may have received an email that tried the personalization effect by stating your actual name, only to say “Dear First Name”. This is such a classic problem and it has probably happened to every marketer at least once. What is a way to avoid this? Make sure the database you are working out of has accurate customer and prospect data.
If you have any data that is missing and you would still like to personalize it in the best way possible, create a default version of the email for anyone whose name is unknown in the database (blank), and you can create a rule that any email with missing contact information can state e.g. “Dear friend”. Let’s be honest- that does not sound embarrassing as the first “Dear First Name” scenario.
Holding on to irrelevant contacts
If you tend to hold on to every single contact you have in your database, you are not the only one. Companies sometimes get into hoarding mode thinking that the more contacts they reach out to, the better. Please, please, please- do not hold on to contacts just for the sake of holding on to them. You are doing your company a huge disadvantage. Majority of contacts that have not interacted with you for a long time are dead-weight contacts, and you need to rid your database of them. Otherwise, you are at a greater risk for being classified as spam or junk.
Always respect that the party on the receiving end of the email may want to opt-out of the communications with you. However, you can use that as an opportunity so that whey they do hit the unsubscribe button, you can try to retain them by sending a follow-up email to see if they truly want to opt-out all together, or if they are just not happy with the content being provided by your emails or possibly they want the reduce the email cadence. Treat each piece of information obtained as another opportunity to learn more about your customer and how you can utilize potentially your last chance to enlighten their experience with your brand.
At Enidan Marketing, we will treat your data as our own. And we will make sure that you put forth your company and your brand in the best possible light to your customers and potential prospects. What this means for you is that you will get better results, more click-throughs, more sales, and at the same time you will be investing less time and energy as you entrust us with your marketing automation needs.
Contact us today and see how we can help.
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