Marketing automation doesn’t suck the human element out of your marketing.  In fact, it augments it by giving owners and marketers better information about their prospects so that they can get into real, authentic conversations.

With marketing automation, you don’t eliminate the human relationship with your prospects and customers – you can actually strengthen it.  Here’s how:

Turns Handshakes into Conversations

When you meet someone for the first time, it’s customary to give them a handshake (or a high-five if you’re on the Hatchbuck team).  In our increasingly digital and global economy, your website is often the first interaction someone will have with your business – it’s like a handshake with new prospects.

But where does your relationship go from there?  In the physical world, you’d introduce yourselves, exchange business cards and have a brief conversation, advancing your relationship.  

Marketing automation does the same thing.  A prospect visits your site. If you’ve caught their attention, they’ll leave their credentials behind by filling out an online form.  Then, you can send them an introduction email, and track their visit the next time they come to your site. Without the ability to collect those important contact details, it would be as if you’d never met.  

Helps You Get to Know One Another

So you’ve met your new prospects, and got the conversation rolling.  As they continue to interact with your brand, you’ll have a better idea of what types of content they find the most engaging.

You’ll learn more about their challenges and the solutions they are looking for as they visit specific pages on your site and click links in your emails.  You can then continue the conversation, by delivering personalized emails that address their greatest obstacles, moving the ball down the court.  Like a good friend, marketing automation helps you listen to your audience, so you can deliver the information they need, building trust in your brand.

Helps You Take Relationships to the Next Level

Remember the days when you used to have a landline, and a sales person would call and interrupt you in the middle of dinner? No one likes unsolicited calls out of the blue, and as a salesperson, cold calling prospects can be an unproductive use of your time. Wouldn’t you rather be talking to prospects who are receptive to learning more about your solution?

With marketing automation, you track how prospects are engaging with your website, forms and emails.  It’s like receiving a friendly wink, letting you know that it’s okay to reach out to them – they are ready to go to take your relationship to the next level.

Leaves Robotic Tasks to the Robots

Staying organized makes a big difference in the way you run your business. At the same time, tracking, filing, and following-up can get time consuming if you’re doing it manually – that’s a lot of sticky notes!  And wouldn’t you rather use that extra time to build relationships with prospects,  and make sure your customers are completely satisfied?

Marketing automation takes those organizational and administrative tasks off your plate, like:

  • Sending thank you emails to prospects who download a resource or request more information.
  • Sending a follow-up email after your initial point of contact.
  • Creating follow-up tasks when a prospect takes an action, like visiting a certain page, or reaching a specific tag score.
  • Nurturing prospects through step-by-step, personalized email campaigns, building awareness of – and trust in – your brand.
  • Dynamically segmenting contacts by their interests, tagging them based on their online activity.
  • Tracking every activity along the way, like the pages they’ve visited, the emails they’ve opened, the email links they’ve clicked, and the forms they’ve filled out.

Marketing automation helps you put the human touch back into your business by giving you insight into what your prospects and customers need.  At the same time, automating those no-brainer steps – like sending a thank you, sending a sequence of emails, or creating a follow-up task – saves time for you and your team.  With better insights and more time, you can be focused on the human elements of your business, such as speaking with hot prospects and delivering excellent customer service.