Marketing Automation Strategies: 6 Steps & Examples to Inspire You

Marketing automation software helps to automate repetitive marketing tasks and processes, to create more personalized and efficient customer engagement. To make the most out of your tools, we've hand-picked inspiring use cases for your marketing automation strategies.

Did you know that B2C businesses using marketing automation have seen a 50% increase in conversion rates? It all starts with putting customer insights at the core as your compass to build successful marketing automation strategies and smooth customer experiences.

Achieving this requires three essentials: reliable customer insights, mastering your marketing automation tools, and knowing how to wield them effectively with analytics.

No matter how user-friendly your platform is, achieving full automation can be complex. To guide you, here are some effective steps to build your marketing automation strategies and example Mapp Marketing Cloud use cases to inspire you!

Six Steps To Create a Marketing Automation Strategy

• Define Goals, Objectives & Target Audience: Design your campaigns around what you're trying to achieve, e.g. lead generation, customer acquisition, reducing cart abandonment. Use customer insights to segment the right audience for each campaign.

  
  

• Customer Journey Mapping: Before assembling your marketing automation strategies, use your insights and our free customer journey map to nail down every touchpoint, analyze how customers navigate around your brand, and plan how to weave them together for a seamless experience.

  
  

• Selecting Automation Software: Choose software that aligns with your goals, whether for partial or full automation. Ensure it offers or integrates with essential components like customer insights, AI, and analytics and can handle the heavy lifting for you.

  
  

• Create Your Personalized Communications: Use customer insights to craft personalized messages across channels like website pop-ups, banners, emails, SMS, and push notifications that resonate with your audience. Depending on your software, these can be automated too.

  
  

• Build Your Marketing Automation Workflows: Use insights to time your messages perfectly, delivering them on the right channel when your customers are most receptive for a personalized experience.

  
  

• Analyze and Optimize: Use analytics to track customer behavior across journeys, identify opportunities, and predict their next moves. This data-driven approach helps refine your marketing automation strategies and extend the success of your campaigns over time.

Three Essential Types of Marketing Automation

Event-Based Marketing Automation

Event-based marketing automation strategies triggers actions based on particular user behaviors or events. These triggers could include actions like a customer making a purchase, abandoning a shopping cart, or signing up for a newsletter. The automation responds to these events in real-time, ensuring timely and relevant interactions with your audience.

1. Set up an Abandoned Cart Campaign

Objective: Send a reminder message to users who add a product to their shopping cart but do not complete the purchase within 3 days.

Example of abandoned cart campaign

EXAMPLE

Jack adds a product to his online shopping cart but doesn’t complete the purchase. To combat this, you automate a reminder process. First, track his cart activity and store this information. Next, create a dynamic reminder email that pulls product details from the cart. Finally, set up an automation workflow to trigger the email three days after the cart is abandoned, unless he completes the purchase. This helps recover potentially lost sales by nudging customers to finalize their purchase.

2. Assigning Customer Loyalty Levels and Automate Follow Up Emails

Objective: Assign a loyalty level (e.g. Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze) to your contacts based on the value of their first order, and send them a follow-up email.

Example of event-based loyalty use case

EXAMPLE

Sarah makes her first purchase on your website and signs up for emails. Based on her spending, she is added to a loyalty group: Platinum, Gold, Silver, or Bronze. After 5 days, Sarah receives a thank-you email and her bronze status. This personalized follow-up makes Sarah feel valued and encourages her to keep shopping with you.

Scheduled Marketing Automation

Scheduled marketing automation strategies involve sending messages or executing campaigns at pre-determined times. This type of automation is often used for regular communications, such as weekly newsletters. The key feature is that the timing of these messages is set in advance, ensuring consistency and timeliness in your communications.

1. Sale Announcement and VIP Reminder Emails

Objective: Automate a sale announcement followed by a last-minute reminder to your VIP customers, using a scheduled workflow to manage time-sensitive campaigns with multiple sendouts.

Example of sales announcement and reminder emails for VIP customers.

EXAMPLE

You’re planning a one-day sale and you’re giving early-day access to your VIP customers. A week before the event, you send an email to your contacts to announce the sale. Then, shortly before the sale starts, you send a reminder email to ensure your VIP customers don’t miss out – with an extra 10% discount. This simple, automated approach helps maximize participation in your event.

2. Reactivation Campaign to re-ignite your spark

Objective: Run a reactivation campaign to reduce customer churn when response rates drop due to inactivity.

Example of a re-engagement campaign automation

EXAMPLE

Tom hasn’t visited your website in a while, so you decide to re-engage him with an email through an automated Whiteboard. The email is designed to remind him of your offers and encourage him to return. If Tom doesn’t respond to the email, he is automatically removed from the group to prevent further unwanted messages. This approach helps keep your contact list active and focused on engaged customers.

Recurring Marketing Automation

Recurring marketing automation strategies involves setting up campaigns that repeat at regular intervals. These can be personalized messages sent to customers based on recurring dates or patterns, such as birthdays, anniversaries, or subscription renewals. The focus is on maintaining ongoing engagement with customers through consistent and repetitive touchpoints.

1. Birthday Email Sendout

Objective: Celebrate customer birthdays by offering a special discount.

EXAMPLE

On the day of each customer’s birthday, an automated email is sent offering a discount voucher as a gift. The system checks the customer’s date of birth daily and sends the email to everyone celebrating that day. This personalized touch not only makes customers feel valued but also drives repeat purchases.

2. Regular Newsletter Sendout

Objective: Keep your audience engaged with a consistent weekly or monthly newsletter.

EXAMPLE

When John signs up for your newsletter, he’s automatically added to your email list. On the first day of each month, John receives a personalized newsletter with the latest updates, promotions, and content tailored to his interests. This consistent communication helps keep your brand top-of-mind and maintains an ongoing connection with John, encouraging repeat engagement and loyalty.

3. Coupons Usage Based on Conversion Probability

Objective: Reduce unnecessary costs while increasing performance by offering personalized incentives based on user segments, including conversion probability, purchase history, and product interests.

EXAMPLE

Segment your audience by conversion probability and refine it further by incorporating purchase history and product interests. For instance, instead of offering Sarah, who is highly likely to purchase, a generic referral coupon, she’s sent a loyalty reward or early access to a sale—something more likely to resonate with her established brand relationship.

For Mike, with a lower conversion probability, a personalized bundle offer that aligns with his past purchases addresses his specific hesitations like product relevance or price sensitivity. This approach not only motivates purchases more effectively but also avoids training customers to wait for discounts, preserving profit margins and full-price sales.

This article was first published by Mapp. Permission to use has been granted by the publisher.