Friend or Foe: Is Automated Marketing Saving You Time or Hurting Your Business?

Online marketing is such a complex and diverse work that introducing marketing automation tools is a smart way of easing the process and making it more efficient and qualitative. Needless to say – it’s not as easy as just doing it. There’s a time when marketing automation can be of huge help, and there’re times when it might actually be causing you more trouble than anything.

A famous case of automation gone wrong is the one with Progressive Car Insurance, when after a tragic accident with one of their clients, all their tweets’ responses were, in fact, auto-tweets – not exactly a compassionate way of addressing the situation.

Therefore, the number one risk that automation can bring if used wrongly is, undeniably, alienating customers – which is exactly the one thing you would never want to do.  

So then how do you distinguish the thin line between a friend and a foe so that you make sure your audience is content and engaged? Here are some tips on how you can use automated marketing and still make sure you keep it human-friendly, warm and considerate:

1. Automate Just a Part of Your Marketing Process

When it comes to automated marketing, the first thing to consider is whether the client is feeling appreciated and respected. If automating your entire marketing process will most definitely have a negative impact on your audience’s willingness to pursue your services, what you should consider instead is sifting through these processes to see which one is appropriate to become automated and which one should stay personalized.

An inspired compromise between these two could be starting the interaction with a potential client by sending automated industry-based pitches and only later on, after their response, a more personalized approach could come in place, such as a salesperson to start working with the client.

2. Partially Systematize Personal Touches

Instead of entirely systematizing a process, you should consider only going for partial systematization. A great example for this is using templates that you can, later on, personalize with small, high-touch elements. It can be a thank you letter or a welcome letter for your first year of subscriptions, which will make your audience feel extremely good and valued.

3. Use High-touch Automation Tools

There are certain personal touches that you can include and that are very suitable for being automated. Personal touches to your marketing strategy are a huge way of getting your prospects’ interest to grow exponentially, since what all humans crave in a world of technology and automation, is, in fact, warmth and personalization. Therefore, all personal touches that can be automated will be a hit for your local business to grow upon.

Think about examples such as the power that handwriting has upon people as opposed to regular computer fonts. Creating handwritten letters to be sent to potential clients has proven to be a very efficient marketing strategy since they can have a very high level of customization mixed with the automated process.

In summary, marketing automation is a wonderful tool to help you with your time management, but it is best to be used wisely. Remember always to test and track all the automated processes you include so that you can gradually implement what works best for your business.