Marketing Automation – everything you should know about your customers

Nowadays, the term „Marketing Automation” is not restricted to only the process of monitoring visits on websites. Systems based on marketing automation are getting gradually more often connected with Deep Data analysis, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in order to provide the website users with the perfectly tailored and personalized content. At the very beginning of the technology’s development, systems based on marketing automation enabled monitoring visits on websites in real-time and delivering marketing information about current behavior of users on website – these monitored and anonymous as well. Thanks to this solution we were able to constantly react to prospects’ needs and adjust the offers not only to what they see on the website but also to what they hear from Call Center marketers, salespeople or what the see in RTB network.

Real-time content personalization provided by marketing automation results in possibility to individually adjust the content to each of the customers’ preferences and needs and to deliver it in all the channels. But it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Using such technology you are able to replace the conventional static communication strategies applied in isolated channels with modern Marketing Automation campaigns. Thanks to this solution marketing campaigns are becoming more dynamic and they start to resemble a real dialog between a company and each of the interested customers. With personalization you are able to utilize the automatization in all points where customer interacts with the marketing company. Not only the contents you provide will be adjusted and tailored individually for all the contacts based on their interests, but also the publicity marketing automation campaigns. Moreover, with marketing automation you’ll to increase the conversion rate managing all your marketing actions. Now that we have the data about customers, what’s left? It is enough? Don’t we need analysis of any sort? Of course we do! Marketing Automation platforms allow creating and analyzing whole customer’s lifecycle.

Marketing Automation system provide the user with the convenient communication ways within all the stages of customer lifecycle. Managing whole lifecycle is a key for optimizing monetization of each of acquired contacts. Marketing customer lifecycle starts in their acquisition, last during the contact’s education which prepares them for a purchase, the retention and increases their loyalty. Marketing Automation measures the engagement on all the stages and provides them with fitting marketing contents. Thanks to Marketing Automation we are able not only to monitor the behavior of a customer on different stages in a lifecycle but also to analyze the engagement level and to educate them with Lead Nurturing campaigns – adjusted to each of the lifecycle stages the customer is on. With Marketing Automation we can take action to increase loyalty of the customers with the highest activity monitored by Marketing Automation platform. However, how to check the engagement level of the customers monitored by the Marketing Automation system?

In marketing automation processes, customer engagement is measured with engagement index, which was developed by the manufacturers of Marketing Automation platforms, i.e. SALESmanago. The marketing engagement index consists of several basic parts. The whole consists of two halves. The first one is responsible for the level of marketing commitment of the customer before signing the contract, making transactions etc. The second one defines their marketing commitment at the stage of customer retention or exit phase. The Marketing Automation system, after placing the customer on one of the halves, measures their marketing involvement considered as activity in several areas like receiving emails or behavior on website and then assigns to the appropriate phase based on the scoring. In Marketing Automation systems, we not only match marketing and sales activities to the stage of the customer’s lifecycle, but also to the extent to which they are involved at any given time. Well, we already know that our client is a committed customer. But what’s next? How will this affect our sales process?

Support for the entire marketing lifecycle of the customer is possible due to the construction of long-term sales programs possible with Marketing Automation. It is obvious that the customer changes over time and so does his needs. Thanks to Marketing Automation, we are able to monitor these changes. Someone who buys clothes today for a 6-year-old in two years will need a completely different size of clothing and completely different products. SALESmanago Marketing Automation allows you to plan such automated sales campaigns as well as perfectly matched and tailored marketing campaigns. In the described situation, the system would receive information that the customer bought a product for a 6-year-old. Now, based on this event, using marketing automation systems, you can create a rule that will in a year send an offer for 7 year olds and in subsequent years for increasingly older children. Such an offer can be delivered to the customer in virtually any marketing channel supported by the SALESmanago Marketing Automation platform. Of course, this is just one of many cases of marketing automation usage. We can freely configure the rules and the moment of transferring new matched offers. The benefits of analyzing the customer’s lifecycle in Marketing Automation systems are in other words: better monetization of each lead thanks to Marketing Automation solutions, advanced sales opportunities – automatic cross-sell, up-sell and win-back marketing campaigns, increased customer loyalty thanks to application of marketing automation techniques and shortening the time needed for reimburse of acquisition and marketing campaigns expenses prepared for a new customer. After analyzing the lifecycle of our customer, it is time to determine their value. After all, this parameter is a very important factor for anyone who ever considered working with marketing automation platform.

Customer Value Marketing is a marketing strategy designed for B2C marketers build around the concept of customer value and marketing automation. Customer Value Marketing aims at building the highest value of a customer over time and in practice, on maximizing return on investment per customer. Customer Value Marketing is redefining traditional outbound marketing by the deployment of advanced methods of dynamic customer segmentation based on RFM (Recency – time from the last purchase, Frequency – frequency of purchases, Monetary – value of purchases) analytics, supported by behavioral (Digital Body Language) analytics used to create real-time multichannel structure of marketing automation processes along the whole customer lifecycle, from lead generation to bringing customer to most valuable segment and fostering long term relationships. After analyzing the CVM indicator, we can create e-Mail Marketing campaigns – containing dynamic marketing messages (email, newsletters). Using the automation rules available in Marketing Automation systems, we can create dynamic product recommendations and personalized contact forms (pop-up) . Thanks to the integration of our Marketing Automation system with Social Media – we will create fully customized marketing campaigns and Facebook Custom Audiences. Moreover, the Marketing Automation platform allows communication via mobile channels: sms, push and mobile applications as well as via telemarketing and direct sales. Each of these communication channels can be used simultaneously to build non-linear marketing processes (as opposed to the linear process typical for the B2B sector) and deliver the right, personalized marketing offer to the right people and at the best moment. All this can happen in real time and in many channels thanks to marketing automation. Customer Value Marketing is marketing strategy standing in contradiction to inbound marketing, as designed for B2B marketers and primarily oriented on generating leads and serving to attract and educate customers through different stages of the purchase funnel and driving website traffic by means of creating interesting content. The main marketing technique to achieve the objectives of Customer Value Marketing is RFM driven Marketing Automation based on dynamic segmentation of customers depending on transactional activity of customer over time supported by the behavioral data gathered about single customer in marketing automation platform. This new, dynamic, RFM based 360 Degree Customer View may be then used to create a totally new structure of marketing automation processes using e-mail, SMS messages, dynamic website content, mobile, social media, advertising networks, POS and direct sales to migrate the customer to the highest value segments of customers. Thanks to the use of the Marketing Automation platform, we can create: dedicated marketing campaigns for Premium Customers – those who buy the most and most often. Communication paths can be different. We can reach our clients through automated discount actions generated by the Marketing Automation platform for customers falling into less valuable segments, dynamic personalized product recommendations on the website and in automatic marketing messages. Using the segmentation, we will also create more effective marketing automation advertising campaigns for Facebook Custom Audiences groups built on the basis of customers’ purchasing activity. But what are the results? The main reason for the implementation of Marketing Automation is real growth of revenue and sales by marketing operations focused on building customer value (customer expenses and profitability over time), revenue maximization from every captured customer, marketing campaigns adjusted to ever-changing customer value as well as distinct marketing strategies to different customer groups, based on their purchasing activity. However, what if we sell goods unknown to the ordinary mortals? What if we want to target the customer for a given purchase without breaking it down with content of marketing background? Marketing Automation platforms are open to such needs and create for us a series of educational messages that do not contain marketing content.

Lead Nurturing is a new marketing concept associated with marketing lead campaigns aiming to prepare prospective customer to make a purchasing decision. Such programs can be run on Marketing Automation systems – like SALESmanago. ‚Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at 33% lower cost per lead’ (ForresterResearch). In Marketing Automation systems, we have the possibility to create various types of information and education campaigns for our customers. The most frequently used educational programs are Drip programs they constitute the essence of Marketing Automation, understood as creating predefined information sets sent at specified intervals to particular customer groups. Using SALESmanago Marketing Automation platform you can create fine-tuned cycles to reach individual customers, different cycles designed for small and medium firms and still others for corporate customers. Targeting all these groups with the same message would negatively impact the effectiveness of sales and marketing performance. Approaching prospective customers with cycles and analyzing their reactions will in the next step facilitate lead segmentation and single out the most promising leads to be taken care of by your sales force. Automated greetings – Marketing Automation system will send dedicated messages to identified leads following their visit to your website. A well constructed greeting message may instantly identify the area of interest of your prospective customers and equip them with the knowledge about your business or your product range. For example, a customer who filled out the contact form expressing interest in a product or service for small and medium companies, automatically falls into the segment of customers covered by the cyclic marketing automation program, which sends the message first immediately after filling out the form, then another message after 3 days and another one after a week.The major aims behind Lead Nurturing is involving your leads in automated marketing program targeting them with a series of automated, customized and predefined sales, marketing or informative messages in order to maintain the contact with a prospective customer. If your leads are not interested in maintaining relations with your company, they will most likely unsubscribe or, at least, show disinterest by ignoring your emails or links. This, in turn, may exclude them from the group of prospects identified by Marketing Automation as prospects to be contacted by the sales team. Through the use of Lead Nurturing marketing automation, we can communicate key concepts to prospective customers – Lead Nurturing programs offer you the chance to unobtrusively communicate key facts, comparisons and reviews to your prospective customer. They may orientate your prospects towards the purchasing decision, which will play a key role in the entire sales process. For us it is a facilitation that will allow us to recognize the best moment for sale – analysis of customer behavior using the Marketing Automation system in response to the targeted Lead Nurturing program allows you to indicate the so-called Trigger Points – moments when it is best to contact the customer. It can be a summary assessment of the customer’s involvement in the information sent, the level of interaction with the website or the expressed particular interest in the various elements of the commercial offer, which translates into the position of the potential customer in the scoring module in the Marketing Automation system. However, what if we do not have a customer base, our site is new and we want to appear on the market? How Marketing Automation systems can help you generate potential customers?

Lead Generation is the process of acquiring customers, which is usually carried out by placing a contact form, telemarketing or affiliate programs on the website. The problem in generating leads is, however, the decreasing quality of potential customers leading to an increase in selling costs, which results from the fact that sales departments gain either uninformed customers or people who simply are not interested in the service. The challenge is to eliminate poor leads not interested in your products or services, who have filled out your contact form motivated by other factors. By using Lead Nurturing programs from the level of Marketing Automation systems, which enable automatic education of potential customers as well as the classification of customers into groups with specific sales potential, we can focus our sales department’s activities primarily on the best prospectives. The use of the Marketing Automation system and its opportunities to acquire contacts makes it possible to obtain contact data with every interaction of a potential customer with marketing content provided by the company. What is important, the system with Marketing Automation technology will automatically distinguish identified and anonymous contacts, thanks to which only anonymous contacts will be asked for contact details. Various, flexible and personalized forms of acquiring contacts make us start generating a lot more leads directly from anonymous traffic on the website. Another way to measure the value of your potential customers is to create an automated scoring system.

Marketing Automation platforms (such as SALESmanago) offer one of the most innovative lead scoring modules available in Marketing Automation tools. Scoring is simply the process of automatically assigning a particular number of points to a particular lead for any detected interaction between the lead and the company. Lead scoring in Marketing Automation system builds up an objective measure of the lead’s engagement and readiness to purchase available in the contact card. Using lead scoring, you may give your sales force clear information as to the most promising leads to be contacted in the first place. The Marketing Automation system awards scoring points on the basis of the following: general scoring rules – these are the rules defined in the system settings, which relate to particular lead behaviors. Marketing Automation systems give points for: new visits to the website, new visits from ads, new visits from search words, clicking on another link in the marketing message, opening an email from the mailing generated through the Marketing Automation system, clicking an email sent from mailbox, clicking an email generated by Marketing Automation system, ‘likes’ or ‘dislikes’ as well as adding or removing a comment. Marketing Automation systems also generate detailed scoring rules – particular scoring rules – set and executed as automation rules enable you to add or deduct points for very specific behaviors, including: visits to specific url addresses (subpages), opens and clicks on particular emails, entries from specific search phrases or sources. Using lead scoring in Marketing Automation platform you can more effectively automate your sales and marketing activities and control them with regard to the actual engagement of every lead. Our users can also set a maximum score which, if reached, defines the lead as ready to purchase, after which the lead is automatically transferred to a dedicated sales rep. Lead scoring can boost your ROI on Lead generation to 200 %.

In a situation where the analysis of basic data about the activity of our customers is not enough, the Marketing Automation systems come to our aid by offering us the so-called Big Data analysis. Big Data is a new concept in marketing that is inherently associated with Marketing Automation systems. All actions in this area result from analysing large packages of quickly generated data – Big Data. As the analysis is performed in real time, all Big Data Marketing activities are triggered on an ongoing basis and are consistently based on the most recently updated customer information. This dynamic combination of customized communication and content with the customer reality supported by Marketing Automation system enables you to provide your customers with what they exactly need at this particular moment. Big Data marketing is based on real-time tracking of prospect behavior on website, data from Marketing Automation, CDP, CRM, ERP, BI and loyalty schemes, monitoring customers activity in social media – supported by integration with Marketing Automation platforms, analysis of gathered data in near real-time and personalized one-to-one communication with the customer using the optimally selected marketing automation channel. It allows recognition and selection of the best target group of recipients, creating audience segments based on their interest and providing personalized content at the right time and the appropriate communication channel adjusted to a specific customer. Another very important effect of actions from the category of Big Data Marketing is linking each new contact with a series of marketing actions on the one hand, and their behavior with the final effect on the other. Systems using marketing automation allow you to compile this data. In this way you get a full picture of your activities and a useful insight into their effectiveness. As well as this, you will be able to calculate ROMI (Return of Marketing Investment) for all campaigns that have been run. In addition to Big Data analyzes, Marketing Automation softwares offer advanced and fully automated Deep Data Integration with some of the most popular eCommerce platforms, including WooCommerce, Magento, PrestaShop and many more. The integration makes it possible to transfer much more than basic data on the behavior of people visiting your online store. It also delivers insights into their transaction history directly to SALESmanago Marketing Automation platform. The integration process itself is straightforward and fully automated. This place the eCommerce platforms integrated with Marketing Automation on a solid foundation of marketing & sales intelligence. For online stores using these platforms, this means a significant increase in sales and improvement of marketing processes. Most data integrations between eCommerce platforms and marketing & sales tools available on the market allow you to transfer only the very basic contact information such as their name, email address, phone numbers or street address to Marketing Automation systems. The Marketing Automation platform allows access to the following insights: customer behavior, purchase history, recent transactions, and revenue brought by customers. As a result, with the use of Marketing Automation tools, our users can better understand their customers and identify their needs, all in real time. In addition to transferring behavioral and transactional data, Deep Data Integration makes it possible to accurately structure the gathered information.

With RFM module, users of the Marketing Automation system can analyze purchase behavior, segment the base and automate all marketing and sales activities. The contact segments built within the RFM Marketing Automation module are based on 3 basic information such as the time from the last purchase, the frequency of purchases and the monetary value of purchases. These data can be freely collated and based on them, the preferences and purchase trends among customers can be analyzed. The combination of Big Data and advanced features of the marketing automation platform takes customer analysis to a whole new level. The Marketing Automation platform allows you to run one-time or periodical, fully automated marketing campaigns for specific customer segments. Moreover, marketing automation activities will take place in real time, in all available communication channels. As a result, it allows full personalization of marketing communication by providing the right offers to the right people at the right time, place and channel. If you think that you are not able to predict the choices of your customers, then nothing further from truth! The Marketing Automation platform is the answer. Thanks to Marketing Automation systems, we can monitor current and historical data on contact activity and transactions, and analyze their purchase path – so-called Customer Journey. The marketing automation platform will match the offer to each of the customers by choosing the best communication channel. Personalization of marketing content is based on the behavior of not only identified contacts, but also anonymous people visiting a given website. Automatic recognition of future customers’ purchase needs, supported by artificial intelligence, enables effective implementation of predictive marketing. As a result, you can address your customers with the right offer shortly before or when the need arises. What benefits will we get from Deep Data analysis combined with Marketing Automation? Unlimited flow of complete behavioral and transactional data about potential and current customers in real time, easy and fully automated management of unique knowledge about users visiting your website, adapting the offer to the behavioral profile of the user and real-time purchase, the possibility of creating an effective marketing and sales strategy based on dynamic customer segments in all communication channels, the possibility of creating a multi-channel marketing automation structure, taking into account the full lifecycle of the customer, personalization of marketing communication based on the behavior of identified and anonymous contacts, and real-time recommendation of products and services to the needs and interests of consumers. Is Marketing Automation, however, a closed chapter, with no possibility of further development? How do the Marketing Automation platforms respond to changes related to the introduction of artificial intelligence?

Traditional Marketing Automation cliche “Right offer to the right person at the right time” with SALESmanago Copernicus – Machine Learning & AI sounds much more clever and it goes “Right offer to the right person at the right time in the right channel”. SALESmanago Copernicus – Machine Learning & AI is an advanced self-learning algorithm that analyzes the behavior of individual customers, predicts future purchases. Then it sends personalized product recommendations according to what the algorithm deems most likely to be bought. This cutting-edge Marketing Automation tool provides insight into customer purchase history, buyer’s journey, and analyzes the way products correlate in categories, allowing for highly engaging and eye-catching offers to be delivered to individual customers. That is why it is so important to integrate data obtained through Marketing Automation platforms with data developed by AI algorithms. The technology of Machine Learning & AI Marketing is based on two recommendation models. Each is optimized to support a specific marketing approach. For inbound marketing – affinity analysis (or the so-called Inbound Predictive Marketing) and for outbound marketing – behavioral analysis (the so-called Predictive Outbound Channel). Used in tandem, the models enhance both inbound and outbound marketing activities. The mechanism of affinity analysis relies on sophisticated algorithms used in association analysis. By thoroughly analyzing transaction data and correlations between specific products and in categories, they calculate the optimal combination of items in each offer. After the resulting data is parsed and modeled, a frame with product recommendations can be shown to each customer. In addition, the use of metadata makes it possible to instantly react to changes in customer preferences. The use of metadata in Marketing Automation systems allows immediate response to changes in shopping preferences. The Marketing Automation system can employ machine learning to compare predictions from product association analysis for end customers on an ongoing basis. Then it assigns scoring to each given recommendation in order to indicate how likely that product is to be bought by individual customers. Moreover, by updating product exclusion grids, the algorithm ensures that products are not recommended to customers who already bought them. Marketing Automation systems can use the behavioral analysis conducted by Machine Learning & AI. It involves a thorough examination of the customer’s activity between the purchases and the identification of the most-frequent shopping paths connected with the purchase. The products recommended through marketing channels are selected on the basis of comparisons of customer behavior between purchases in given categories, as well as on the basis of scoring. Moreover, systems that use Marketing Automation, measure the increase in the likelihood of occurrence of a product category within one transaction. Module SALESmanago Copernicus – Machine Learning & AI will match the products for each customer and recommend the best communication channel, analyzing their shopping path – so-called Customer Journey. Marketing Automation system gathers the information about the behavior of anonymous contacts visiting the website, thanks to which the marketing content on the website can be personalized for unidentified contacts therefore you can analyze the mechanics of their behavior, both for anonymous and identified customers – Behavior Mechanisms. How can an Automated Marketing System supported by artificial intelligence affect the level of communication with the customer?

Inbound and outbound marketing activities greatly benefit from the additional information gained in the process. The knowledge on which products or categories are currently sought after the most, as well as which communication channels result in highest conversion rates, it is possible to focus on efficient solutions and optimize marketing expenditures. What is more, knowing exactly when and how customers act, helps to choose the perfect time to deliver a sales pitch and strengthens relationships between you and the customer.This entire process is what we call “Predicting Customer Journey & Behavior Mechanisms”. Just why all this? Since we have already had the opportunity to match offers to the consumer’s needs? Well, AI gives us opportunities not only to match offers depending on customer’s preferences but also to predict in what customer will probably be interested before they even think about it and hence: Get real results and grow your sales by adjusting your marketing to what consumers want to see. Thanks to the Marketing Automation system supported by AI and Deep Data, we achieve the maximum customer lifetime value in each case, maximizing the probability of purchase and minimizing the overall costs. Also we optimize the use of resources dedicated to marketing activities through detailed analysis of products and product categories that attract most attention and interest, knowledge of customer preferences and the ability to predict which products will be sold in the near future and a complex analysis of transaction data.

To sum up, the Marketing Automation system acquires, collects, analyzes and responds to data from many independent sources. This allows you to take full advantage of the advantages of Big Data, AI & Machine Learning, traditional personalization or segmentation of the database. However, the biggest advantage is the ability to automate the response to the behavior of a single customer and reach him with a personalized marketing offer at the most convenient time and accurately verify the effectiveness and legitimacy of the activities and thus reduce the cost of obtaining a single customer getting the most revenue from each valuable lead.