Automated marketing gets you more customers.

This is subject that’s been the epicenter of a raging debate for years. Some abuse automated marketing, others swear by it, and some still refuse to have anything to do with it.

Like most things, we believe that automation is good in moderation. Our philosophy is to automate what you can while still maintaining a human touch. As long as your digital presence is approachable, then you know you’re on the right track.

One of the biggest ways automation works is with lead nurturing. An automated email workflow can work wonders for your sales team, as long as you’ve got three crucial elements on lockdown. This post is designed to help you understand why you need to nurture leads with email workflows, how to plan a follow-up campaign, and then offer some suggestions about setting up your own automation.

#1: Understand why you need to nurture a lead.

Even when someone comes to your website looking to buy, they may not immediately be ready to pull the trigger. Your services may be good, the pricing fair, and everything about be perfectly in place for a sale – but they’ll still want to look at their options before pulling the trigger.

That’s where lead nurturing comes in. It’s the friendly reminder that goes directly to your lead’s inbox that says “hey, don’t forget about this awesome thing that can really help you!” It’s what pushes them back to your site and continues to offer value until one day, they become a customer.

If you don’t have this concept in mind, you’ll fall into the mistake of thinking that your landing page and website will do all the work for you. No matter how effective those tools are, if you’re not following up with all the leads you capture and nurturing them toward a sale, then you’re missing out on quite a few customers.

#2: Plan and build your follow-up campaign.

Now that you know why you need to nurture leads, let’s talk about what that looks like.

Actually, let’s start with what that doesn’t look like. Lead nurturing is not pushy, spammy sales. If you want to know what that looks like, I’m sure the spam filter in your inbox has plenty of fresh samples for you to choose from.

When you’re building out an automated marketing campaign, you need to keep it casual, readable, and brief. Don’t talk about yourself too much, but offer something useful to engage your lead. Break helpful information down into a series, and then map out how you can share that information over a period of time. Too much info all at once can turn your lead away before they even start to consider you seriously.

Once you’ve mapped things out, sit down and create the content that will be delivered. Make sure it’s evergreen, and be sure to edit for any mistakes!

#3: Automate the campaigns so no one falls through the cracks.

Once you’ve mapped out and created the content for your follow-up campaign, then it’s time to automate. We highly recommend a service like MailChimp, because it allows you an unlimited amount of customization to your email. You can add graphics, signatures, and anything else that will help your lead open up the email. You’ll also be able to set up when your emails go out.

Really you can use whatever platform feels best to you. Just make sure it has all the functionality you need (including analytics!)

Speaking of analytics, You should always be asking “How did we do?” You’ll want to keep tabs on important info like open rates and click-through rates, which will tell you how effective each email is. Tracking this lets you refine your emails over time to get more leads to engage and potentially become customers.

Automated marketing is a wonderful tool if utilized correctly. Use it to win more sales, and you’ll be on your way to becoming a digital marketing pro. It will save you time, make you money, and help you grow your brand in leaps and bounds.