Workflows are the backbone of any marketing automation strategy. Workflows are an indispensable link between the main actions of a company’s marketing team, saving valuable time and optimizing available resources, which can then be invested in higher-value activities. It’s a matter of cost-effectiveness, convenience, and common sense, coupled with higher and more complex motivations that are fundamental in today’s customer-centric marketplace:
If we continue with the mechanical metaphor, we can then identify in the content, and in personalized content, in particular, the fuel to make the automation engine work to the maximum of its possibilities. Later in this post, we’ll see how interactive and personalized tools, such as those in the Doxee ix – interactive experience line (Doxee Pweb® dynamic microsites and Doxee Pvideo® personalized and interactive videos) are at the heart of any content strategy developed to make the most of the immediacy of automated workflows.
Designed to channel the potential of marketing automation workflow in the construction of a quality digital customer experience, Doxee Pweb® and Doxee Pvideo® enhance the value of customer data, the wealth of information from which the most advanced digital marketing starts, to transform them into articulated and responsive conversations, in a path that intersects with the contemporary customer’s journey, offering content, special offers, and information in line with his needs and expectations.
Marketing automation workflow, personalized and interactive content: Let’s identify all the essential elements from the outset. But how do these three objects, the cardinal points of every organization’s marketing strategy, relate to each other? And how should they be managed to contribute achieving the brand’s business objectives? In this post, we will try to provide some answers.
Before we go any further, let’s dwell on a few definitions. First, what is marketing automation? Marketing automation refers to both the methodological approach and the technology used to automate certain manual tasks, usually the most repetitive ones, according to a set of rules or conditions. Here is an excerpt from our post on Marketing automation: what it is and how it works:
“Marketing automation software allows you to implement digital strategies without having to manually press “send” to send every email or message, to trigger every single step of a campaign or distribute targeted blog posts or video content. Good automation tools are key to identifying target audiences, designing appropriate content, and automatically triggering actions based on schedules and customer behavior.”
A different and more sophisticated way of thinking about marketing, in short: a total multilevel approach enabled by digital technologies. Automation in marketing acts on processes by eliminating redundancies, redistributing workloads, and allowing people to focus on more creative activities.
And what are workflows? How do they fit into this “total and multilevel approach” that we have described so far?
Workflows are nothing else but command structures – we are used to visualize them as a flow because they foresee consequential instructions – that make marketing automation strategies operationally possible, i.e. they put them on the ground. Let’s look at them in more detail.
Workflows typically have an “if/then” structure, meaning that the moment a certain condition is met, a certain action occurs. In a digital marketing context, an automated workflow always involves the following elements:
In general, every workflow is configured like a predetermined succession of instructions put in action to obtain two objectives:
In particular, workflows
Setting up the most appropriate workflows can play a crucial role in both lead generation and lead nurturing strategies. In particular, lead nurturing strategies that exploit automation offer the enormous advantage of nurturing an important process of enhancing brand-customer relationships along the entire customer journey and, for this reason, they are at the core of the most advanced forms of digital marketing, as we have described in this post about lead nurturing.
On the other hand, an adequate marketing automation workflow strategy is also indispensable to deploy the power of lead generation actions, so that a communication process aimed at acquiring and qualifying contacts is activated.
Therefore, workflows help companies acquire new customers and help ensure their loyalty over time. Workflows are designed for each of these two objectives, involving different channels and controlling specific moments of the customer journey.
The trigger, most often, is the completion of an application form. Once the form is received, the contact list is automatically updated, and the workflow related to welcome communications is automatically initiated.
The starting point can be the creation of a pop-up or landing page linked to the customer database, from which the gated content can be downloaded by filling out a form. The name of the contact will then be added to the list by default. From there it will be necessary to design a series of actions to distribute relevant content, at the right time, to the right person in a targeted way .
Lead nurturing workflows need to start as early as possible, from the very first stages of the sales journey: from signing up for a newsletter or requesting a demo, for example. The huge advantage of an early start lies in the fact that once you enter the workflow, you can then monitor the lead’s engagement level and based on that, further customize their buying experience.
In the long term, onboarding workflows bring numerous benefits:
Several touchpoints can trigger a request for feedback, for example, the purchase of a product or a customer’s spontaneous interaction with the support team. Subsequent messages can then be articulated around the response of the individual customer (who will have been contextually listed) for:
The first step in this case is to establish whether a contact is actually inactive and since when: it could be a customer who has not opened the brand’s email for some time or has not purchased its products. Analyzing the user situation also allows you to establish the best entry point into the workflow and the most effective type of message: an email, a series of emails, the most suitable call to action.
Re-engagement emails are also useful for cleaning up and eliminating contacts that are no longer interesting from the contact list, for example by adding the “last chance” step to the workflow, a sort of ultimatum asking the customer to reactivate his position, before removing him from the list.
Similar considerations can be made in the case of “proceed to purchase” workflows, used above all in e-commerce. Here, the follow-ups generally consist of a message reminding the user of the items left in the online cart and containing a link to complete the purchase.
Workflows are effective not only because they simplify processes and save the cost of marketing activities, but they also allow you to achieve even more ambitious goals: adding value to the customer experience, maintaining vital customer relationships, and increasing revenue.
In the picture we’ve outlined so far, after explaining what workflows are and describing those most frequently used, there’s still one essential piece missing: content. What do automated workflows convey? The messages, distributed by email, can contain text and images, of course, but what represents a real turning point in marketing strategies is another type of narration, that of personalized videos that are widely used in each of the workflows we have analyzed.
But that’s not all. Today, Doxee Pvideo® combines the expressive power of moving images with great opportunities for personalization and innovative interactive features. It allows you to produce videos that can be successfully used as a welcome message or in onboarding content to convey information in a clear and engaging way on any subject, to update the user on the situation of his account or his purchase path, to invite him to perform – putting him in a condition of real operation – the actions necessary to solidify his position.
Doxee Pvideo® is a bi-directional communication tool capable of shortening the acquisition funnel and guaranteeing very high conversion rates. Doxee videos inform, explain, convince, and above all learn – and make the company learn – at every interaction, something more about the world of customers and their desires.
This article was originally published at Doxee.com, by author Elisabetta Severoni. Original article >>
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