You’ve likely heard it before: technology advances at an exponential rate. In other words, the amount of technological developments that occur in the next ten years will be exponentially more than the developments over the last ten years. We’re seeing incredible things across the spectrum of artificial intelligence, space travel, robotics and more. The same is true in our industry. Tools are becoming more advanced. Targeting techniques are becoming more accurate. Automation software is becoming more useful. We’re here today to talk about the last item in that list.

What is marketing automation?

It’s a digital marketer’s best friend; that’s what it is. Marketing automation is the practice of systematizing marketing actions to be able to turn on metaphorical “cruise control”. In today’s marketing environment, touch point requirements are at an all time high. Surfers of the web have a million options for seeking and finding whatever information might be top of mind at any moment. Making sure your organization’s content is right in front of them to meet their top of mind ideas at a moment’s notice is important. This is made easy by marketing automation.

Imagine, for example, a user interested in buying a watch online. They will likely go to one of their favorite online stores, Amazon (which may be one of their favorite onlines stores…), or Google to conduct a search. They may also navigate to a fashion brand’s social media channel or pull up an email from their inbox that they recall having a special discount or offer. It’s also possible that they simply see an advertisement for a watch in their display network and are reminded of their interest through paid advertising targeting. The point is there are a plethora of channels by which we get our information online. As an organization whose committed to putting your best foot forward via its digital presence, keeping all of those channels locked down and operating optimally can be a huge challenge. What’s more, it’s common for small businesses and larger organizations alike, to have a very limited team responsible for the management of all those channels. That’s where marketing automation comes in.

Marketing Workflows

There’s nothing more cruise control than a well designed marketing workflow. HubSpot’s industry leading software allows you to set up a series of rules and regulations based on a number of criteria. For example, you can choose to enter contacts into a drip campaign based off of form submission. Let’s say an interested client submits a form on your Contact Us page. It would be appropriate to send them a follow up email, right? Well, that can be automated so it doesn’t take time out of someone’s day to write and send a nearly countless number of follow up emails. Other enrollment criteria in HubSpot’s workflow tools include viewing a specific page on your website like a Pricing Page, or clicking on a well designed “Get A Quote” CTA. 

In an ideal online environment, you have website visitors engaging with you in numerous locations at all times of the day. This is why we believe a well designed and developed website can be any organization’s best salesperson. It’s working around the clock. In that environment, it is very difficult to keep track of every interaction and every MQL that follows. Marketing workflows help organize and systematize your outreach to make your marketing more effective.

Increasing ROI For Marketing

When costs go down, your return on investment goes up. ROI, mathematically speaking, is equal to profit (total revenue minus total cost) divided by total cost multiplied by 100 (making it a percentage). Not to bore you with simple arithmetic, but as you decrease the denominator of a fraction, that number expressed as a percentage will increase. So what am I saying? I’m saying that if you can find ways to decrease the cost of your marketing while holding on to the same revenue performance, your marketing’s return on investment will increase.

Implementing marketing workflows into your digital strategy can help decrease your marketing costs. Imagine the time it would take, and subsequent dollars it would require, to pay someone to follow up with one hundred leads over the course of a week with customized email responses based on form submissions. Let’s just say that is not going to be an inconsequential number. Now imagine the amount of time it would take (I’ll just let you know – at most 2-3 hours) to design a workflow in HubSpot, write personalized email templates, and launch the final product.

Conclusion – HubSpot Workflows

Business owners at every stage – whether they are just starting out as a sole proprietor, or are a C level executive for an established corporation – are always looking for ways to improve their operations and be more efficient. There are great tools out there to transform your marketing into a model of efficiency. Being Nashville’s leading HubSpot Partner, Horton Group’s inbound marketing team knows how to leverage those tools to perfection. If you’re interested in connecting with one of our Account Managers to discuss how you might improve your marketing strategy, don’t hesitate to Contact Us or click below.