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Content and Automation: How to Align Them for Better ROI
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One of the main goals of your content is to gain new customers and get a good return on investment, ROI. It’s likely that if you haven’t given it much thought you may not be getting the most from your content marketing. Marketing automation is extremely helpful and necessary in improving your ROI. You can better align content and automation to get a much better return on your investment.
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Photograph by Alfa Photo via Bigstock
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What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation is the use of automation to perform tasks that used to be performed manually. Some examples of tasks that could be automated include such things as managing contacts, testing website pages, obtaining and segmenting leads, email marketing and measuring performance results.
All of these tasks are quite useful or even essential in making sure that your marketing is successful. Yet handling these by hand could be difficult and time-consuming. The use of marketing automation allows you to better align your content for use while not having to spend excess time or waste energy taking care of tasks. Almost every function can be automated through technology. You can choose which functions will best meet your needs through the use of automation.
Creating a Perfect Mix of Content and Automation
Before you can begin to implement automation tools you need to create a content marketing strategy. This plan should include as much detail as possible about your target market and what you want to accomplish with your marketing plan. Set clear goals so that you can take meaningful steps to reach them.
There are many different automated features that can be beneficial. However, take note that not all automated features are necessary for every company. You should evaluate the benefits and advantages of each one before you decide whether you want to implement it on your website.
Landing Pages to Capture Data
Your landing page is the first stop for people visiting your website. It should be structured to capture important data from visitors. Landing page content marketing is extremely important because it is where people decide whether to continue further or abandon. Lead forms are often utilized on the landing page. A lead form is a place where people enter information in order to receive more information, promotional offers or newsletters.
Gathering leads from your landing page is one of the most important automated functions that you can include on the page. It is essential that the landing page provides readers with useful, interesting and relevant information as well. If you force people to participate in a data capture it could backfire. Many people do not like being forced to enter their personal information before they can enter a website. Therefore, you may want to consider making participation optional.
You may choose to utilize more than one landing page. It is good practice to test out two or more landing pages to see which works best. Gather data from each one to see which produced the best results. You can continue to work on updated landing pages over time.
Automated Contacts and Emails
It is helpful to use visitor data to build contact lists and email marketing directories. Your website should have a method for people to contact your company. Whether you have a customer service department or simply have a person designated to respond to questions, it is imperative that this function be automated. Provide an automated option for people to contact your company by filling out and submitting an online form.
Some businesses like to have live customer service representatives available to answer questions and take leads. This can be extremely important in competitive service companies such as law firms. If you do not offer this option a potential client may simply click on the next law firm instead. To ensure that you improve ROI you should have automated options available to customers when it makes business sense to do so.
Email Marketing Campaigns
People who are interested in your product or service may like to receive emails from time to time. Email marketing campaigns can be automated using the data collected from your landing pages and forms. Create high-quality marketing materials that can be sent to your list of recipients on a regular schedule. You can include interesting information in the form of short content marketing articles as well as promotional information and discount promo codes.
Email marketing is one of the best ways to convert sales. It is interesting to note that most people visit a website up to 7 or more times before they make a purchase. Don’t think that you have lost a sale just because you didn’t convert on the first visit. Email marketing is a great way to target those who are not yet decided on their purchase. These targeted emails are ideal because you have an audience that is made up of very interested potential customers.
Improved Customer Support
Another automated function that you may opt to provide is the ability to reach a customer service representative. For example, if a customer wants to place an online order but runs into difficulty you don’t want to lose the sale. You need to give customers the ability to reach an agent if they need to. This will help to keep the customer happy and might improve your ROI.
Smaller companies may not be able to provide immediate support. Instead, have an email set up specifically for questions and concerns from your website. Then, dedicate an individual who is responsible for checking that particular mailbox at regular intervals to ensure a fast response.
Advanced Automated Technology
In addition to these basic automated functions you may also opt for more technologically advanced solutions. For instance, you may want to gather specific data about what site visitors like based on their navigation on your website. Then, you can target specific sales marketing to them designed around their particular tastes. This is something that large companies do quite readily.
For example, when you visit an online store you may see pop-ups or additional information that shows you similar items based on your searches. This very specific marketing can be extremely powerful because it gets into the minds customers and can boost sales. When you are standing in line at a brick and mortar store you will see a variety of items at the checkout lanes. These are additional items that may be easily added to your cart to increase your order. The same holds true for online sales. You can increase your ROI by offering add-on products that fit the anticipated needs of a customer based on their previous searches.
Automation That Works
While automation on your website can greatly improve your ROI, it can also be detrimental in some situations. When an automated feature stops working or isn’t accessible it can be frustrating and infuriating to customers. When you use automation on your website you must always ensure that it is working properly at all times. It has to be tested to make certain that all the features work from all the pages of your website. If any changes are made you must retest the features again. This can be cumbersome but if you have hired a content marketing company they may be able to take charge of this to ensure that your website is fully functional.
Content marketing specialists will help provide you with high-quality content that is necessary in order to increase your ROI.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” custom_padding=”50px|||” padding_mobile=”on” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_divider color=”#7e8f7c” show_divider=”on” divider_style=”solid” divider_position=”top” hide_on_mobile=”off” /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” custom_padding=”17px|||” padding_mobile=”on” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”on” gutter_width=”2″ padding_mobile=”on” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on” custom_padding=”50px|||” custom_padding_tablet=”30px|||” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” custom_padding=”17px|||” padding_mobile=”on” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_divider color=”#cc4315″ show_divider=”on” divider_style=”groove” divider_position=”top” hide_on_mobile=”on” disabled_on=”on|on|off” /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”Blog post main Section” fullwidth=”off” specialty=”off” transparent_background=”off” background_color=”FDF3E7″ allow_player_pause=”off” inner_shadow=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” padding_mobile=”off” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” make_equal=”off” use_custom_gutter=”off” prev_background_color=”#000000″ next_background_color=”#c97824″ custom_padding_tablet=”50px|0|50px|0″ custom_padding_last_edited=”on|desktop”][et_pb_row make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” padding_mobile=”off” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_image src=”https://iriscontent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/AIIIA.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” animation=”left” sticky=”off” align=”right” force_fullwidth=”off” always_center_on_mobile=”on” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” _builder_version=”3.0.101″ show_bottom_space=”on” /][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_team_member name=”Annie Ianko” position=”Chief Content Officer” background_layout=”light” facebook_url=”https://www.facebook.com/IrisWebContent/” twitter_url=”https://twitter.com/Iris_Content” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” custom_css_main_element=”box-shadow: 0 0 20px rgba(0,0,0,.1);||” _builder_version=”3.0.101″]
Annie has 18 years’ experience as an editor and content creator and manager. With work in television and written media, she has dedicated her past 10 years to learning the ropes of online content creation, from writing to editing, from SEO to content management.
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