Make Your Website Work for You 24/7 with Automated Marketing Campaigns
Instead of having your website sit around and collect dust, what about turning it into a powerful machine that does work for you 24 hours a day. Does that sound like something you’d be interested in?
All right then, let’s get started.
In this article, we’ll take a look at 6 components that make up an automated marketing campaign. Learn which marketing and technology features your website needs to guide people down the path you want them to take.
1. Strategy
Start by answering a few important questions. Who are you trying to attract to your website? What is it that you want people to do when they get there? What goals do you need to reach? How are you going to measure whether your campaign is a success or not?
Not every campaign is for generating sales from leads. You can also use marketing campaigns to help minimize operational expenses, get more email subscribers, create brand awareness, etc.
It can be difficult for companies in the construction industry to find qualified employees. We helped Bentley Welding, Inc. create a campaign to overcome this challenge. With the goal of attracting more prospective hires, they sponsored the Welding Technology program at the local community college.
Bentley saw an increase in qualified applications submitted through the website and saved their human resources department time by automating a big part of the hiring process.
Something to think about
Are you using your website to save operational costs?
2. Lead Generating Offer
Most people don’t buy the first time they visit your website. Creating a lead generating offer will keep them involved with your business while they evaluate your competition and weigh their options.
To encourage people to give you their contact info, your lead generating offer should provide immediate value. Design your offer to help people solve a problem and understand the benefits of your products or services. This demonstration of your expertise will reduce hesitations people may have in buying from you.
Examples of good lead generating offers:
- Free Consultations
- PDF Downloads
- Webinars
- Product Demos
- Sample Kits
NOCO ENERGY STAR® Homes created an ebook to help people understand new home construction standards and the benefits of energy efficiency features. Included in the ebook are definitions of common terms, in-depth explanations of nationally recognized programs, and an illustration to show how they stack up against each other.
To further their efforts, NOCO ENERGY STAR® Homes also created a condensed version of the ebook as a brochure to hand out at trade shows and distribute to their channel partners. The brochure gives a quick overview of the benefits and prominently features the URL to download the full, free guide.
Something to think about
Do you have an offer on your website that is consistently generating leads?
3. Calls To Action
What do you want people to do when they get to your website? The call to action (CTA) is used to encourage your website visitors to take the actions you want them to take. Popular formats for CTAs include graphics, simple buttons, and hyperlinks weaved throughout the text of your website. Creating all of these formats works best.
Your CTA can be a lot of things, but to be effective, it needs to match your campaign goal. It also must be very specific so people know what to expect after they click it. “Click Here” is not a good CTA.
Examples of good calls to action:
- Schedule a Call
- Download the PDF
- Sign Up for a Webinar
- Register for a Demonstration
- Request a Product Sample
Something to think about
Are your CTAs specific or are you just using "Click Here" and "Read More"?
4. Landing Page
People will typically arrive at your landing page after clicking one of your CTAs. The goal of your landing page is to get people to send you their contact information.
Your landing page should include these three elements: a high quality image of your offering, a description of the value they will receive, and a trackable contact form. It can also be effective to include what is at stake if they don’t take you up on your offer.
Your landing page design should make it incredibly easy for people to get your offer.
Take a look at the landing page we created for our Digital Marketing Audit service.
Something to think about
Do you use landing pages on your website?
5. Automated Email Series
The next piece is your automated email series. We like to build email marketing software directly into our customer’s websites as opposed to using third-party apps that require a subscription.
Your automated email series is triggered when somebody sends you their contact information from your landing page. Multiple emails are sent over a period of time.
Write your emails to continue the work started by your lead generating offer: to help people solve a problem and understand the benefits of your products or services while demonstrating your expertise and reducing hesitations people may have in buying from you.
We find this series of 5 emails to be very effective:
- Introducing Your Company
- Problem/Solution Case Study
- Testimonial from a Relevant Customer
- Overcoming an Objection
- Asking for the Sale
Something to think about
Do you have an automated email series that helps sell your products and services?
6. Continuous Improvement
There’s always room for improvement.
When developing your strategy, you decided what goals you need to reach for your campaign to be considered a success. It is important that these goals are measurable. If you can’t measure your results then you won’t know how to improve them.
You’ve likely heard of Google Analytics. It is a free tool for tracking activity on your website.
Before launching your campaign, set up Goals in your Google Analytics account. Inside your Google Analytics dashboard, you will be able to see how many website visitors complete your goals or where they drop off.
| Buying Stage | Statistic to Track |
|---|---|
| Researching | Number of visitors coming to the site |
| Evaluating (Step 1) | Number of people clicking on your CTA |
| Evaluating (Step 2) | Number of people taking advantage of your Lead Generating Offer |
| Purchasing | Number of people purchasing your products or services |
Because every business is different, we help our clients discover which success metrics will help them achieve their goals.
Something to think about
Do you know how many website visitors you need to get 1 sale?
Conclusion
I hope this article has clearly explained how to build an automated marketing campaign for your business. We recommend trying it because we believe you will like the results you get.
Imagine competing against a company that is saving money on operational costs, creating lead generating offers that help your customers deal with a nagging problem, and continually making improvements to their marketing campaigns. What are the odds you can win against that company when you are bidding on the same projects?
If you don’t have a marketing website that is working for you 24 hours a day, then it’s time to start building one. If done right, your automated campaigns could make you a significant amount of money this year. The best part—it’s a very cost-effective way to get new customers.
If you're not sure how to improve your marketing in a cost effective way, grab a copy of our Strategic Marketing Ebook. It'll help you get predictable results and make your company more money.
If you are interested in learning more about our approach to the items discussed in this article, call (970) 744-3611 or send us an email so we can talk about what that would look like.
Warren Diggles
President and Creative Director
