Using technology to enhance the personal touch of your marketing program

When you think of marketing automation, you might imagine a warehouse full of robots or a collection of algorithms that can click buttons and communicate in humanoid ways, but remain devoid of human emotion.

It's a common misconception -- but one that could hurt your business.

Effective marketing automation doesn't strip your business of the personal touch. In fact, automating your approach to marketing can actually help you inject more personality into your campaign, often in unexpected ways. Here are a few automation strategies that make your marketing strategy more human -- not less.

Marketing automation won't make your communications more robotic.
In fact, it can help make them more personalized. 

Add recipients' names to emails

An email campaign can do wonders for your marketing ROI, but it can also seem detached and impersonal. Manually writing and sending emails to thousands of prospects so you can include their names is hardly efficient, however. This is where marketing automation services can help.

Adding names to emails can dramatically improve conversion rates, but you need an efficient system to make it happen. Automation software will pull the recipient's name for each email and insert it into the subject line, salutation, or anywhere else you want to use it. Without any extra effort, your prospects receive personalized greetings that make them feel included and appreciated.

It's worth noting, too, that you can set your business apart with personalized emails. According to Marketing Land, 70 percent of businesses neglect this feature, but employing it in your email marketing campaign can boost your transaction rates by six times or more.

Send emails based on consumer behavior

You might get irritated when your smartphone alerts you to a new email and, when you open it, you find an advertisement for a product you'll never use or a service you don't need. However, if that email contains relevant information about a product or service that you're interested in, your reaction completely changes.

Consumers don't mind when they're interrupted by content they can actually use. Fortunately, marketing automation can help you analyze consumer behavior and activity so they receive emails and other communications only that apply specifically to them.

For instance, you might initiate a specific marketing campaign when a prospect visits a certain page on your website or clicks on a particular social media ad. However, you don't have to manually initiate that chain of events. Smart marketing automation services handle it for you.

Adjust your website content to fit the customer

Automation is the difference between a one-on-one conversation
and a speech delivered with a megaphone into a crowd. 

Marketing automation also allows you to change the way your website looks to different customers. For instance, a returning visitor has different needs than a first-time visitor. You can direct users to different landing pages based on their past interactions with your business.

In the future, you might be able to completely mold your website to suit the individual customer. Creating personalized greetings on your home page or using different calls-to-action on landing pages could revolutionize the ways in which you are able interact with your customers. 

Marketing automation is a powerful force in creating a fully personalized experience for your prospects. If you're looking for additional ways to connect more fully with your audience, get your free copy of our B2B Guide to Inbound Marketing.

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