By now, everyone already knows that automation makes marketing easier, better and more efficient. It improves sales conversions, shortens the sales cycle, extends the customer lifetime, increases ROI and creates a more cooperative work force.
However, for all its benefits, marketing automation can come at a heavy cost. Especially if it’s not implemented correctly.
In such cases, it’s not uncommon for businesses to lose thousands of dollars with almost no end result. Poorly designed automation strategies are especially common in small businesses and entrepreneurs who have to do everything on their own due to a lack of fund.
To help you design the optimal automation strategy, we’ve written the following post, which will cover the most common automation mistakes that you need to avoid to create successful campaigns.
We understand that you may still have some doubts about marketing automation. If that is the case, we recommend that you first check out our detailed guide on marketing automation and CRMs.
Now, let’s move on to the most widespread marketing automation mistakes and explain how to avoid and fix them.
The most common marketing automation mistakes
Mistake 1 – Not having a plan
You’ve purchased a marketing automation software and you can’t wait to start using it. However, before you start using your preferred software, you need to develop a detailed plan and strategy. Without it, your automation will amount to little and you will continue losing leads and prospects.
Mistake 2 – Not integrating your database
Another widespread automation mistake comes in the form of unused databases. If your automation software does not contain a database with the most valuable information, you’re essentially starting with a huge disadvantage.
Always make sure to integrate and incorporate your database into your marketing automation solution. This will help you make data-driven decisions and develop highly effective strategies.
Mistake 3 – Developing a grand strategy
Most entrepreneurs and business owners are too eager to automate everything within their companies as soon as possible. However, that is rarely the optimal solution.
While corporations such as Amazon and Google can automate entire systems, smaller companies need to approach automation more carefully. Start by automating small tasks and processes and slowly work your way up.
If you attempt to automate everything at once, chances are your automation will fail before it even kicks off.
Mistake 4 – Prioritizing quantity over quality
This is a common mistake among many online businesses. In an attempt to beat the competition, you may be tempted to prioritize quantity over quality and focus on churning out more content than anyone else in the niche.
However, low-quality content will not bring the desired results. Automation is designed to help businesses develop highly personalized solutions for your clients.
Invest more time in your content development strategy and make sure you’re only sending content that is exceptional in terms of sheer quality.
Mistake 5 – Not using your software to full extent
This is not a marketing automation mistake on its own, but it’s one of the most common oversights.
If you’ve purchased a marketing automation software, it’s likely that you had to invest handsomely to get the best solution for your company. These programs often come with tons of useful features that are easy to overlook if you focus too much on getting your content in front of the target audience.
We advise you to carefully go through your program and its documentation to identify all features that may help you grow the company. There is more to marketing than sending email campaigns.
Try out all the functions that your software can offer – you may be surprised to find out what you can do with it.
Mistake 6 – Playing set and forget
We understand that the purpose of automation is to relieve the work load and bring better marketing results. However, that does not mean that you can just set an automation campaign and forget about it.
Automation will undoubtedly save you countless hours of work, but you still need to guide the marketing campaigns and monitor its progress.
Further, you may find that your marketing efforts aren’t returning the desired results. This usually isn’t a reason for concern and it happens to all marketing campaigns over time, but it means you need to analyze your data and develop more optimal strategies.
Marketing is a dynamic field. If you don’t stay in the loop and continue to work on it, your campaigns will get progressively worse.
Don’t get lazy and fall into the trap of this common marketing automation mistake.
Mistake 7 – Testing more than one variable at a time
While many marketing teams forget about testing their campaigns, there is a surprisingly high number of marketing experts that go off in the opposite end. Too eager to improve their performance, marketers are sometimes tempted to test more than one variable at a time.
Of course, this type of testing can be beneficial and it’s far better to test more than necessary than to not test at all, but it brings a host of other potential problems. For instance, if you’re testing multiple variables, you will never really know what variable brought the results that you’re getting.
This means you will have to perform more rounds of testing to find the positive variable. In other words, you’re only losing valuable time because you will still have to test each variable on its own.
Mistake 8 – Spamming your contacts
Many businesses start sending emails in smaller intervals in an attempt to increase the total number of conversions. If you’re sending unwanted or spam emails to your contacts, you’re not only decreasing your conversion rates, but you’re also building a negative reputation for your business.
You can send emails more regularly, but always ask yourself whether you would be comfortable with receiving a certain number of emails per week. If not, it’s likely that your prospects aren’t either.
Even if they don’t unsubscribe, your messages will become more likely to end in the spam box. Email algorithms are very good at detecting spam emails – you probably won’t be able to outsmart them.
Mistake 9 – Using more than one automation platform
Marketers are sometimes too eager to automate tasks. This may require more than one automation platform, but we highly recommend against it.
Naturally, multiple platforms can bring more features than a single automation program, but it also brings a host of unnecessary and unwanted options. If you’re starting to automate your processes, a high number of features may be counterproductive and it may be hard to monitor and analyze the feedback.
Additionally, if you’re using more platforms, you run the risk of forgetting to check up on certain tasks and processes, which makes them more likely to malfunction or perform poorly.
We recommend that you do your research before you opt for any marketing software. If you’re looking for an all-in-one platform that will help you guide your marketing efforts, we advise that you check out Simply CRM.
This powerful platform will allow you to store and process your customer data as well as automate all types of marketing tasks.
Mistake 10 – Not being GDPR compliant
If your business is operating within the European Union, you simply must ensure that your company is GDPR compliant. You need to protect your customer data and use it in accordance with the user agreement between your company and the clients.
Furthermore, you need to allow your clients to unsubscribe from your emails with a clearly visible link at the bottom of your message, accompanied by a physical address of your company.
Failure to do this may result in lawsuits, which could ruin your business.
Final words
There you have it. The ten most common marketing automation mistakes and tips on how to avoid them.
Do you think we’ve missed a widespread marketing automation mistake? Let us know in the comments below.
If you need help automating your business, feel free to contact us and our teams will set up a powerful automation platform that you can use in your everyday work.