​Biggest Marketing Automation Mistakes

​Every business requires a good marketing campaign in order to grow and luckily, the rapid development of technology allowed us to automate most of this process. Marketing automation has become a go-to option for any entrepreneur trying to grow a business. It's a software that covers most of the marketing actions, like email promotions or social media responses, and it does it automatically, saving you a lot of time and money in the process. However, if the software isn't used correctly, it can actually lose you customers and bring you only headaches. In this guide, we'll explain some of the most common mistakes business owners make when adopting marketing automation software.

​No Strategy

​Marketing automation tool won't get you anywhere if you don't know where you're going. If you don't have your goals set, there's not much these tools can do for you. Have a plan in place and tie your strategy to the goals of your company, and only then you can use marketing automation tools to great success. Focus on developing a strategy aimed at attracting customers that will want to hear from you, and only then will your marketing automation strategy have a chance of success.  

​You're Trying to Sell Too Hard

People are wary of salesmen and that's a fact. Instead of trying to sell, you should try and develop a lead nurturing process. Send them engaging content about topics that connect their interest to your products or services, and slowly gain their trust. Once they start opening emails and reading your blog-posts, only then can you start sending them product-related content. Remember, most of your customers won't be convinced of the value you can provide, so having excellent content about the related topic is really important. 

​Lack Of Good Content

​There's more to marketing than just offering products. Every potential buyer has to go through each stage of the sales funnel, from a visitor, through a lead to customer. Content marketing is incredibly important for marketing automation, because if you don't have quality content - you won't have anything to send. Write blog posts, create landing pages and optimize your website, especially when it comes to SEO. If you need help with that, don't be shy and seek out advice from reputable SEO experts who can help you improve your website.  

​No Segmentation

Your client list is full of qualified leads, yet you don't customize your emails at all. This leads to your leads getting emails that are of no use to them. Almost with every marketing automation software it's possible to create an email list segmentation that will bring you good results. There are tons of criteria to set, from demographic to behavioral, so that your leads get emails targeted to them. It's crucial that you don't send everything to everyone because the results will be similar to sending the same road-trip invite to your partner and your neighbor. It can end well, but it probably won't. Instead, use the marketing automation software properly and segment your audience based on their interests and other criteria. 

​Using Marketing Automation Only For Emails

​If this is the case, you're not using the software to its full potential. While email marketing is still very much alive, there are other processes that you can consider automating, especially when it comes to social media advertising. You can automate responses, or even set your software to automatically post new WordPress posts into your Facebook page, landing you more traffic in the process. Tweak with your marketing automation tool and automate as many things as possible, as this will leave you with more time to do research and adapt your marketing strategy. 

​Conclusion

​Having a successful marketing automation strategy demands constant testing and optimization. Don't just set it properly once and think that you're safe. The whole point of the software is to spare you the time you'd have to invest to manually target your leads database, but if it's not doing that then you're just neglecting the most important part of online advertising. The best way to actually test if the software is doing its job is to have your own email in your leads database, and see if the software targets you well enough. If you're not satisfied with it, chances are your potential customers won't be either.