Key Things to Remember When Mapping Your Marketing Automations

Marketing automations can be a powerful tool for attracting prospects, nurturing leads, and converting customers. However, they need to be deployed with intent. In other words, they need to be mapped to the different stages of your sales funnel.

What your particular "map" looks like will depend on the nature of your business, the makeup of your customer base, and a range of other factors. The key factor is to make an effort in the first place — and if you need to tweak the positioning of a few marketing tactics later, that's okay.

Let's look at an example of what automation mapping may look like in practice:

Automation Mapping Case Study

Here's an example of B2B marketing. Let's say that the sales funnel for our fictional manufacturing company begins when Bill from ABC Corp visits the Plastics Inc. website.

Top of Funnel

Bill reads interesting content and a case study he likes on the website. As a result, he subscribes to the Plastics, Inc. newsletter. Greg from sales sees that Bill visited the website, and assigns him a lead score based on his activity. Within a day (or perhaps hours or minutes), Bill gets an automated email thanking him for subscribing, along with a PDF of a bonus case study. In the following weeks, Bill received additional emails that introduced him to the Plastics Inc. brand.

Middle of Funnel

Two weeks later, the latest company newsletter mentions a new certification for Plastic Inc.'s manufacturing plant. This piques Bill's interest since he must use suppliers with this certification to abide by the terms of his customer contracts. He visits the website again and registers for an upcoming webinar.

Greg receives an alert that Bill has visited five pages, and spent 10 minutes total on the website. Since Bill is in the lead scoring threshold for a direct follow-up email after the webinar, Greg makes a note to send that ASAP, along with a personal phone call.

In the meantime, Bill hasn't taken any additional actions after attending the webinar. However, an automated sequence of post-webinar emails keeps the information fresh in his mind. Moreover, Plastics Inc. has turned off the other automated email sequences Bill was receiving, so there's less "noise" for the post-webinar sequence to overcome.

Bottom of Funnel

After several email exchanges, Bill and Greg meet for a video conference. At this point, Bill already knows quite a bit about Plastics Inc., and Greg has personally emailed him additional resources to address his specific concerns. With this background, their meeting goes very well; so well, in fact, that after the video call, Greg prepares a proposal and soon closes a new customer.

As you can see, there's great power in well-mapped automations when they meet the needs of customers at each stage in their buying journey. But how can you successfully map automation to your company's sales funnel?
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Important Points to Remember Regarding Marketing Automation
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• Your automations are only as good as your content. No matter how detailed or accurate your mapping may be, if your content is not informative, useful, or engaging, then you can't expect good results from your efforts. Make sure you're producing content that aligns with the interests and needs of your customers.
• Use automations and a CRM system that play well with one another.  Don't scatter your information between a multitude of software applications. Invest in a "single source of truth" — it's absolutely worth it.
• Use the right tool to plan out interaction points, triggers, content, and ownership. For instance, use the Sales Placemat pictured below to align your sales and marketing teams, and clearly define the strategies, processes, and tactics you'll use. Read more about the Sales Placemat in this blog or in chapter 11 of our new book Sales & Marketing Alignment. 

• Choose the right automation platform. There are a ton of options to choose from, including HubSpot, Marketo, Customer.io, and Pardot. As of this writing, HubSpot is one of the most popular choices in the marketing automation sector, and for good reason: it's an all-in-one platform with powerful email marketing, CMS, and analytics tools, along with robust online support.
• Remember that good technology does not equal good strategy. For example, it's true that HubSpot enables solutions; however, it doesn't replace a well-designed marketing and sales strategy. Your technology should be an extension of the processes your team builds, rather than a quick-fix solution to strategic issues.

Good People + Good Technology = Success

It's no secret that there are some things only a human being can do. That includes anything that requires flexibility and adaptability in the sales process. Sales reps need to constantly shuffle priorities, make on-the-fly decisions, and navigate their messaging as they interact with leads and customers.

Automations, when designed and utilized effectively, can take a lot of the mindless, repetitive tasks off your sales reps' plates. Of course, as with all things in life and business, there's an important balance to strike here. Too little automation could mean your sales team is overworked, and can't get around to warm leads as quickly as they need to; too much automation could take the human factor out of the equation, and drive away leads with unique concerns and "one-off" situations.

It's vital to keep in mind that when the best-coordinated marketing campaigns — the ones with the most detailed and painstakingly crafted automations — fall flat, you can always lean into your most important resource for help: the people on your marketing and sales teams. Even something as simple as personal calls to leads, instead of automated messages, can work wonders for conversion and retention rates. 

In summary, make good use of the automation tools at your disposal. Map the right automations to the right stage of the sales funnel; it will help your reps be more effective at nurturing leads and closing deals. Just remember that automation is only one aspect of a well-rounded sales and marketing strategy. Never ignore the power of the "human touch." Implement your technological solutions as extensions of your well-founded and time-tested processes. If you take that approach, you'll almost definitely be able to improve your company's sales performance.

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A healthy relationship between sales and marketing is vital to an organization’s success. Dive deep into this effective strategy in a new book called Sales & Marketing Alignment. If you'd like more insights on how you can improve your sales leadership, contact us. Or sign up for our newsletter for more valuable resources.

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