It can take a minimum of eight brand touchpoints before a prospect converts into a paying customer. In any form of marketing, follow-up is crucial for converting qualified leads into sales. But going through 1,000 prospects to separate the qualified possibilities from the vaguely interested could cost your team many hours. Using automated follow-ups can streamline your ability to respond and find your next ideal customer.
Why automation is so useful
Automation uses software to handle some of your business’s repetitive tasks like social postings or email marketing, but not just for the sake of efficiency. Done right, the technology will give your prospects and customers a tailored, enhanced experience, leading to better outcomes. For example, using your existing mailing list, you could automate a birthday greeting email, offering a discount or special opportunity. You could program reminders to that same list with seasonal updates about upcoming events or specials in your company. In a more complex scenario, you could automate a chain of responses that start when a prospect or customer interacts with your website. Using analytics from those automated interactions, you will be able to understand and serve those customers better.
Automation can be as simple or as complicated as you need it to be
The automation process starts with understanding the needs or the pain points of your prospect. Do they have a problem to solve, or do they simply need more information? What they ask for triggers the next step, in a very specific way, and starts an automated chain of responses that continuously adapts to the prospect’s requests.
In a simple automated sequence:
- A prospect visits a page on your website and submits a form for a free download
- A message pops up on the screen, personalized with their name, thanking them for the request
- An email is sent to them that enables them to click a link to download
- A schedule is triggered so that one day (or week, or month) later, another email goes out with relevant information that guides the person to the next step
Companies that want to promote special offers, upcoming events, or new products are good candidates for simple automation. Restaurants, entertainment venues, brick-and-mortar stores, or services like hair salons or dog groomers could increase their customer base and raise their local profiles through simple automated marketing.
For large companies, e-commerce, or B2B marketing, a more complex, interactive automated follow-ups could unfold in this way:
- You get leads at a conference
- You set up an automation so that three days after the conference, the leads are sent an email
- If a prospect doesn’t respond, they get another simple email
- If a prospect does respond, they get a free download
- If they use the download, they get an invitation
- This continues, with each successive response tailored to the actions of the prospect
Your website could also set up specific forms on specific pages, with each one putting the prospect into a different automation schedule appropriate to their interests or your products/services. This type of automation yields another benefit: analyzing and tracking the percentage of clients that come from your website. It is a powerful indicator of your website efficacy as well as how well your website is performing in online searches.
Automated follow-ups build relationships and keep prospects aware of all you offer
Through automation, you are continuously and dynamically helping your prospect to get answers. Then you can capitalize on opportunities that will grow naturally out of those interactions.
The same tools that automate will allow you to see and analyze the results. Who clicked on your email? Did they open it? Did they click the link inside? Knowing these answers will help you get to know your prospects and then refine and optimize your next series of follow-ups.
Automation and Apple’s privacy settings
A potential stumbling block to automation is the privacy settings available to macOS and iOS users. Mail Privacy Protection allows its users to choose a setting that prevents automated email tracking and response. It impairs your ability to customize further emails because you don’t know if the initial email was opened, or what information the prospect is actually interested in receiving from you. Trillion has been aware of this issue since it was first announced and has found a few ways to mitigate it.
Using analytics, it is possible to determine which browsers and operating systems your prospects are using. If you can distinguish what percentage of those viewers are macOS or iOS users, you could assume they may use Mail Privacy Protection eventually and try to find a workaround to reach them. One small silver lining, not every iOS user may be using Mail Privacy Protection; it needs to be specifically enabled by the user and they must be using newer versions of the systems. Remember that these specific Apple users may still be receiving, interacting with, and absorbing your automated content but you may not receive data back because of their privacy settings.
Creative ways to use automated follow-ups
- Set up calendar reminders to call/reach out to people: simple but effective
- Include links in your emails with tools like Calendly that allow your prospect to automatically schedule time with you for a call or meeting
- Set up responses with text messages instead of emails
- Customize the emails: design emails with graphics or images, or create a plain-text message that looks personal but is actually automated
- Certain email tools, like Saleshandy or Vocus, work with your Gmail account to send messages directly from your email. It will give you all the records and statistics behind it, but it will be susceptible to Mail Privacy Protection
Automation will make your life easier
Admittedly, it is a big job to set up automation in its most advantageous format, but once it is done, you will have lead generations happening automatically. It is as if you added 20 people to your team, and the process runs continually in the background while you conduct the rest of your business, even after hours, on the weekend, and during holidays. You are getting the benefit of serving your customers/prospects without having to rely on a person.
Automated emails need the right branding and messaging
Making the most of automation means that each email in the sequence looks and sounds the right way. At Trillion, we can help target and implement the most effective places for outreach with automated follow-ups—and we assist with setup. We ensure all communications look good and are branded correctly, establishing the content and imagery, and providing the proper technical support to make them as fruitful as possible. Automation makes responses happen, and Trillion makes sure they happen well.
If your organization could do a better job of capturing leads, automation may be a great new addition to your marketing efforts. Reach out to Trillion and learn more about automating your follow-ups.
