A HubSpot survey revealed that the average marketer spends 16 hours weekly on routine, repetitive tasks. If you work a 40-hour week, that means 40% of your time is spent on things like data collection, organization, sending emails.
That's time you could spend on strategy, content creation, magic, and beyond. (Two truths, one lie). If you could recapture that time, you could supercharge your output. How? The answer, of course, lies in marketing automation.
Over the next 10 minutes, we will share ten marketing automation examples that will inspire you to seize back your 40%. Whether it's email marketing, social media, or customer experience, we have you covered.
Let's go!
What is Marketing Automation?
Before we dive into the marketing automation examples, let's first look at what marketing automation is.
Marketing automation refers to the process of automating marketing tasks such as email marketing, SMM, and targeted digital marketing. Using marketing automation tools can save time and increase your productivity.
Now that you know what marketing automation is let's take a look at some of the best examples out there!
Email Marketing Automation Examples
Welcome Email Series
When someone signs up for your mailing list, send them a series of welcome emails introducing them to your company and its products or services.
At the very least, your welcome email series should have two emails:
- An opening welcome message. Send this email immediately upon sign-up. Thank them for joining, and offer a preview of what they can look forward to. If you generated this lead via gated content, they should have access to the resource by the time they get this email.
- A connection invitation email. Send this a few days after the first, and outline the other channels where they can connect with you.
- Optionally, you can send a third email to gather contact information. With this email, you want to learn more about your customers — be clear about why you want this data. (Personalized promos, birthday deals, etc.).
You'll know this automation is working when your dropoff rate during onboarding falls.
Abandoned Cart Emails
Abandoned cart emails are sent to customers who have started the purchase process but have not completed it. These emails remind the customer of the items they left behind and encourage them to complete their purchase.
We say emails (plural) because data shows that multiple messages sent over a given time frame are more effective than one-off emails.
Generally, you'll want an automation like this to get triggered when... (drumroll please) a shopping cart gets abandoned.
Okay, that much is obvious — but we can add some nuance. Here's how you might want to structure your marketing automation workflow:
- A reminder of items in your cart. (Aim to send this within a few hours of abandonment).
- Cart follow-up. (Send another email reminder within a few days).
- Promotional codes. (A few days later, offer a discount on the cart).
The easiest way to tell if this automation series is working? Higher revenues from more orders.
Lead Nurturing Emails
Once you've captured a lead, it's important to nurture that lead until they are ready to buy. Lead nurturing emails are designed to do just that — cultivate your leads until they are sales-ready. These emails typically provide valuable content that helps move the lead further down the sales funnel.
Start by segmenting your leads. You can divide your audience based on their past engagement rates, survey results, demographics, or position in the funnel. According to Omnisend, segmented emails have open rates of over 16%.
Position emails around strategic triggers and milestones. The first of these should be your welcome email. As we mentioned earlier, this should include a thank you and a sneak peek at what's to come.
Your subsequent emails can center around key CX milestones like:
- Downloading gated content
- Signing up for a web class
- Visiting a specific webpage
You should continue sending emails post-purchase as well, but we'll get into that later.
Here's how you can tell the automation is working:
- Higher conversion rates
- Greater pipeline velocity (shorter sales cycle)
Customer Reactivation Emails
If a customer bought from you in the past but hasn't purchased anything since, you have a few options for re-engagement:
- Send them a link to Jackson 5's 'I Want You Back' and hope they get the message
- Set up an automated email re-engagement series
For legal reasons, we recommend the latter. You could automate a workflow like this based on metrics like:
- Days since last order
- Days since last page view
- Engagement score below threshold
The tried and true method of re-engagement is offering a discount code, but you can try these other tactics as well:
- Offer to update sending frequency
- Ask for feedback on your emails thus far
- Hit them with the old 'We miss you...'
You'll know your email campaigns are working when you see higher email open rates and greater revenue.
Social Media Marketing Automation Examples
Automated Posts
Automating your social media posts can save you a lot of time. Several tools allow you to automatically post updates on multiple channels: your blog/website, Instagram, Twitter, and beyond.
The most common form of social media automation is to queue up posts from a scheduler like Hootsuite, Buffer, or Sprout Social. This has several benefits:
- Automate posting at times when your audience is most active
- Your team can create scheduled content in one setting, freeing up bandwidth for other marketing efforts
- Get detailed analytics reports
If your post automation is working, you'll see higher engagement, more followers, and less time spent on manual posting. You can also quickly generate analytics reports to inform your next marketing campaign.
Twitter Auto DMs
If someone follows you on Twitter, you may want to send them an automated Direct Message (DM) welcoming them to your profile. This is a great way to introduce yourself and let the person know what you're all about.
Alternatively, you can also use chatbots to automate routine customer services queries. If your customers tend to DM you with questions like:
- What are your hours?
- What sales are going on right now?
- Do you deliver to [country]?
You can set up an automated bot to answer these queries by connecting to a social CRM. (A social CRM is a database of all your social media interactions with customers.)
Instagram Auto Comments
You can use social media automation to leave comments on other users' posts. This is a great way to build relationships with other users and get your name out there.
For example, Gary Vaynerchuk's $1.80 strategy is all about leaving a comment on the 9 top posts for 10 different hashtags in your niche. You can use marketing automation software like Phantombuster to automate this for you.
When using this strategy, it's essential to:
- Only comment on relevant posts
- Leave thoughtful comments that add to the conversation
- Avoid coming across as spammy or promotional
If you're doing it right, you'll see more engagement on your own posts and a boost in followers.
Customer Experience Marketing Automation Examples:
Transaction Updates and Messages
The customer journey doesn't end when they hit checkout — and neither should your marketing efforts. One way to enhance customer experience through automated tasks is via transaction updates and personalized messaging.
Marketing automation tools can help you send email or SMS updates when:
- An order is confirmed
- A package has been shipped
- An item is back in stock
With a workflow like this in place, you should see higher customer satisfaction reports.
Product Recommendations
Another way to use marketing automation for customer experience is by sending product recommendations. This could be based on:
- What they've bought in the past
- What they're browsing on your website
- What's popular among other customers
- What their zodiac sign is
(Okay, maybe not that last one.)
Not only does this offer personalized recommendations for your target audience, but it also presents an opportunity to cross- or upsell. Success with this automated marketing strategy looks like more sales, higher profits, and greater engagement.
Post-Purchase Follow-Up
Lead tracking goes well beyond the 'customer' stage — you want brand evangelists. Marketing automation can help you follow up with customers post-purchase to gather feedback and ensure they're happy with their purchase.
You can use automated tools to:
- Send a survey and collect the results
- Request a product review or testimonial
- Schedule a check-in call
The goal here is twofold: increase customer retention and get valuable insights for marketing purposes. If done well, you'll have plenty of delighted customers and actionable data to work with.
4 Companies That Used Marketing Automation to Push the Needle
TruWood's Abandoned Cart Automation
TruWood is an eCommerce company selling bamboo and reclaimed wood watches. Their abandoned cart strategy is a unique marketing automation example — SMS instead of email. Here's what made their approach so impactful:
- They used cart value to segment their messaging. Higher-value orders were offered a discount code, whereas the lower-value carts were not.
- TruWood creates a sense of urgency and scarcity. You can incentivize conversions by highlighting how quickly an item in an abandoned cart is selling out.
- They used SMS mobile marketing instead of email. Curious about the average open rate for SMS marketing? 98%. (We'll need a shovel to scoop our jaws off the floor).
This isn't to say email is the wrong choice for this kind of automation or that a series of emails is less effective than a text message. Many of these choices come down to your audience: are your customers mostly under 44? 75% of them probably want texts from you.
Airbnb's Welcome Emails
Airbnb is known for great landing pages, copy, and beyond in the marketing world. This welcome email only adds to the list. Here's what it does right:
- It offers a preview of what you can use the platform for in the header and body copy.
- Its call-to-action is above the fold: that means you don't have to scroll to the bottom of the email to find the button. Since 80% of viewing time is spent above the fold, you don't want to bury your CTA.
- The email is short, sweet, and to the point. People tend to receive over 100 business emails daily, so respect your audience's time with a clear, quick ask.
All in all, it's a great marketing automation example for welcome emails.
Zapier's Onboarding Drip Campaign
While not as flashy as some of the other examples on this list, Zapier 's onboarding drip campaign is noteworthy for its simplicity. It's an excellent marketing automation example of how you can use drips to:
- Introduce customers to your offering.
- Educate new leads about your product.
- Offer up some custom-curated content.
What makes Zapier's marketing automation strategy so effective is its focus on delivering value from the very first email. By the end of the campaign, new leads will better understand what Zapier does and how it can help them.
(In a meta twist, you can also use Zapier to automate several of your own marketing tasks — but we'll save that for another day).
CentricsIT Lead Generation Automation
For a classic example of using automation to streamline marketing processes, we need not look any further than CentricsIT. It might seem obvious at first, but sending batch emails to your leads is a bad idea and a missed opportunity.
CentricsIT used the most essential marketing automation platform in their arsenal — a CRM — to direct leads from landing pages to the sales team. From there, reps had all they needed to convert.
The proof is in the pudding — CentricsIT's lead-gen grew by 60%, translating to over $1 million more in revenue.
Free Up Your Schedule with Marketing Automation Today
Automation can be a game-changer for marketing and sales teams of all sizes. By automating repetitive marketing tasks, you free up your schedule to focus on more important things — like strategy, creativity, and optimizing for multiple channels.
And, when done right, you'll have plenty of delighted customers and actionable data to work with. So what are you waiting for? Start marketing smarter today!
Need some help configuring your martech to do just that? Portage Labs can help. Our team of experts crafts digital experiences and automated marketing workflows to enhance CX and grow your bottom line.
Get in touch to supercharge your daily output today!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is meant by marketing automation?
Marketing automation is the process of using software to automate marketing tasks. This can include anything from email marketing to social media management.
Some commonly automated digital marketing tasks include:
- Sending out automatic emails
- Posting to social media
- Lead generation and nurturing
Which is the best marketing automation tool?
The automation tool of your dreams will depend on your specific needs. Some popular platforms include HubSpot, Marketo, and Pardot. For email, look towards Mailchimp, Sendoso, and Customer.io.
What are the benefits of marketing automation?
Automation can offer several benefits, including:
- Increased efficiency and productivity
- Improved customer engagement
- Greater ROI from marketing campaigns
Moreover, it means you can get more value out of your time.
