Marketing Automation: Using Technology to Work for You

Using the Right Tools So You Can Focus On Relationships

In the early twentieth century, the world was on the dawn of a technology revolution. Moving pictures were still silent, radio and television were on the verge of invention and air travel was all the rage. Lawrence Sperry was fascinated with these new technologies and took two of the existing tools and combined them into a new tool that would change travel going forward. Sperry took the gyrocompass (invented by his father) and utilized it to maintain the controls of an airplane, introducing the first successful auto-pilot. His idea continues to evolve into many applications, including Google’s self-driving cars.

A Brave New Marketing World

Today we are living in a technology revolution within marketing. While communication staples such as direct mail and email are not new, marketing automation opens new ways of leveraging those tools to create more effective campaigns with less human effort.

Marketing automation provides the ability to nurture prospective leads through automated logic rules within a programmed platform. Tools such as Hubspot, Marketo, Right On Interactive, Exact Target and Sharpspring are just a sample of the resources available to handle such tasks. The overall goal is to map out a communication plan and develop a logic flow that will nurture the user to the next step you want them to take (the next call to action).

The most effective marketing automation plans include print, email, social media, and web pages. Each of these elements can leverage what is known as “dynamic” variables to provide the most customized and personal experience for the recipient.

An Automated Marketing Workflow Example

Here is an example of what an admissions communication flow might look like with marketing automation:

• A user uses Google to find your blog post about the importance of your distinct offerings.
• While on the blog post, they are offered “gated” content (such as an ebook) that they may download in exchange for their basic contact information.
• Their submission triggers a workflow in the marketing automation software that has been pre-programmed to send them regular emails, printed materials, and social media requests over the course of time.
• Depending upon their response to those emails, logic is built in to switch workflows to move them to the next step in the funnel.
• At certain points, based upon engagement scores and responses, the now “warm lead” is handed off to an admissions counselor to further build the relationship.
• The system continues over the life cycle of the relationship, engaging and informing the user for conversion to deposit, registration, matriculation, and then extended into retention and ultimately into alumni and donor status.

We would love to tell you more about how Fineline Printing Group and Caylor Solutions can set your school up with a marketing automation tool that will provide you greater success in both enrollment and development, while nurturing deeper relationships with your constituencies.

How will you use your time to build deeper relationships while the computers do the nurturing?