4 Common Mistakes People Make with Marketing Automation

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Most people are under the impression that marketing automation is a one-size-fits-all solution. However, this could not be further from the truth. To get the most out of marketing automation, you need to understand how to use it in a way that aligns with your business goals and target audience. Marketing automation can be a powerful tool to help you grow your business, but if it’s not set up correctly, you could be wasting your time.

We’re going to look at four mistakes people make with marketing automation and how to avoid them.

1. Starting Out Without a Plan

When you’re working in marketing automation, you need to understand that is all about understanding your audience and their behavior. You can’t make informed decisions without having the right data. If you don’t know who your target audience is or what they like, it’s going to be almost impossible for you to make informed decisions when it comes to marketing automation.

So, here’s a question: how do you gain that crucial understanding? Well, the answer is relatively simple. You need to perform a digital audit. A digital audit is where you take a detailed look at all of your data and use it to inform the decisions you make with your marketing automation. This will enable you to build a detailed buyer persona and gain a deep understanding of your target audience.

SEE ALSO: Three Digital Marketing Trends: Skills to Know to Break Into the Field

2. Not Listening to Customer Feedback

When you’re working with marketing automation, it’s important that you listen to what your customers are saying about your brand. This might sound obvious, but we’ve all seen brands that have failed at this seemingly simple task. Let’s take a look at some examples.

For instance, if your customers tell you that they like getting surprise gifts with their purchases, then you need to make sure that you’re rewarding them for their loyalty. Customers aren’t always able to articulate what they want, so the onus is on you to listen and adapt in response to feedback.

3. Failing to Test and Optimize

If you’re not testing the results of your efforts, then you’re probably wasting time. You need to understand that marketing automation is all about testing and optimizing. Even if you go through the trouble of building a detailed buyer persona, it’s no guarantee that your assumptions are correct. So, instead of taking an “if-it-ain’t-broke” approach to marketing automation, you should test everything.

Not only will tests help you learn more about your target audience, but they’ll also enable you to optimize your campaigns and get better results in the future. So, if you don’t want your marketing automation effort to be time wasted, you need to always be testing.

SEE ALSO: What Is Home Automation & How Does It Work?

4. Providing Irrelevant Content

Automating your marketing makes work easier, and it also becomes easy to provide too much irrelevant content. With the right marketing automation, you’re able to provide your leads with content that is perfectly tailored to their needs. However, if you’re not tracking their behavior and/or providing them with the right content, they can soon get fed up. This will lead to disengagement, which could result in lost business.

There are lots of reasons as to why you should implement marketing automation as soon as possible. It’s faster than one-to-one emailing, and it can help you engage with new leads. However, if you’re going to get the best out of marketing automation, then you need to avoid common mistakes. 

By avoiding the five mistakes we’ve just outlined, you’ll be well on your way to better results. And if this is not your area of expertise, you can always contact a marketing automation consultant to start off the process right and increase your chances of getting great results.