Marketing Automation Workflows: Streamlining Your Campaigns and Nurturing Leads

You may already be familiar with the term “marketing automation,” the process of using software to automate marketing tasks. By automating repetitive tasks and streamlining customer journeys, businesses can significantly improve their efficiency, increase ROI (return on investment), and foster stronger customer relationships.

In this article, we’ll discuss marketing automation workflows, which are a way to streamline processes and deliver personalized experiences while reducing administrative time and effort. We'll also explore how to create streamlined campaigns and tailored experiences that nurture leads, engage audiences, and drive conversions.

The Buyer's Journey

But before creating your workflows, you must understand your buyer's journey. A Customer Journey Map outlines the stages a potential customer goes through before making a decision to purchase. The four main stages of the Customer Journey Map are awareness, consideration, decision, and post-purchase. 

In the awareness stage, potential customers become conscious of a problem or need they have — and most are looking for a way to solve a pain point (though a smaller percentage of buyers has an idea about something new and different they could provide if they only had the resources). This desire to solve a pain (or achieve a gain) leads them to do research and exploration. Ideally, in the process of their discovery, they stumble on information about your product or service!

The next phase is the consideration stage, during which potential customers are actively considering the options they have discovered. They begin comparing features and benefits, costs to acquire, costs of ownership, and how they will be supported. During this phase they are communicating with you (and likely your competitors!), asking questions, reading in-depth materials, and forming an idea of what their purchase could look like.

In the decision stage, your potential customer forms an intent to purchase, and you do the work of helping them make a final decision and close the sale.

Once you close your sale, the customer transitions to the post-purchase phase, and most companies hand off to a customer success team at this point. Now the work of onboarding the customer and making sure they are thrilled with their purchase begins.

Each company’s Customer Journey Map looks slightly different … even if they sell a very similar product or service. When you understand your own customer’s journeys and how that journey is supported and influenced by your brand, you can tailor your actions and content to design marketing automation workflows to help guide your leads through the process.

You can learn more about Customer Journey Maps here.

Implementing Marketing Automation Workflows

To begin designing marketing automations, start by setting clear goals. What outcome do you expect from this automation? Is it increased engagement, better lead nurturing, improved customer relations, or something else? Once your goal is clear, start at the beginning and decide the trigger, or the beginning of the workflow. Is it a form on your website? A request for a meeting? An email open or link click? This trigger will automatically enter your prospect into the workflow.

Now, visualizing your Customer Journey Map, plan the next steps in the sequence. Think about it as a salesperson directly interacting with the customer. Do they typically ask for more information at this point? What type of information? The next step could be sending a personalized email with that information included. Then what’s next? Would they ask for a meeting to get more answers? The next outreach could be an email with a meeting link. Or would they be more likely to appreciate a visually appealing FAQ document or infographic?

Map out the steps a customer typically takes from the trigger to your desired outcome. And remember, you may have several different automations to help guide prospects through the purchasing cycle.

You can learn more about creating Buyer Personas here

Many platforms offer pre-built workflow templates as a starting point. These are terrific to get you started, but be sure to tailor these templates to your specific Customer Journey Map and brand experience. In some systems you can even create workflows that adapt based on customer behavior. For example, a lead who opens multiple nurturing emails could be segmented into a group that receives more tailored offers.

This is why modern CRM technology is essential. To remain competitive today, your CRM, e-commerce platform, email marketing, and social media channels must all come together to create a single source of knowledge about your customer behaviors, needs, and desires. CRMs like HubSpot and Keap allow you to make better and more complex automations, including the ability to start workflows in response to social media interactions or purchasing behavior.

Once you set up a workflow, it’s not set-it-and-forget-it! You need to test, tweak and improve all the time. This is where A/B testing comes in. By trying out different versions of emails, subject lines, and even the timing, you can figure out what really works. By following these principles and using your marketing automation platform, you can create effective workflows that drive results.

You can learn more about A/B testing here.

Best Practices and Tips for Marketing Automation Workflows

Marketing automation is like having a personal assistant for every customer - and every salesperson!It is an essential tool for companies looking to improve productivity, nurture leads, and increase conversions. By taking time to truly understand your customers and their purchase journey, and supporting them with useful, relevant experiences, you will experience greater customer satisfaction and sales success.