Marketing automation is considered to be an incredible tool to step up your marketing game. But you need to know how to use it to its full potential.

Because if you are unable to understand how you should be using it or if you don’t have the necessary planning, execution, and analysis, then your marketing automation will not let your business grow.

What should you be careful to avoid when using marketing automation?

We go over some of the most common missteps in this post.

Mistake # 1: Buying Because Everyone Else is Buying

According to a recent survey, more than 70% of B2B marketing influencers use marketing automation to some extent, and about 3 out of 4 feel that marketing automation is crucial to marketing’s overall performance.

But don’t you remember you mama saying “you won’t jump off the bridge just because others are doing so”?. Then why should you buy a marketing automation tool just because others are doing so?

The reason to buy marketing automation tool is that you understand its function and know that your company needs it. It means that you must define how you will be using it, what are you going to gain from it, and what financial value will those benefits provide.

Some possibilities include the following:

• Generating qualified leads by allocating a specific budget to more productive programs.
• Saving down the costs by creating your landing pages and surveys.
• Sending qualified leads by nurturing campaigns and pre – building relationships lead scores deciding who is ready for the sale.
• Identifying the organizations with anonymous website visitors and reach out to likely contacts

Mistake # 2: Not having clear goals and objectives

The very first thing you need to ask yourself as a marketer is, what are you trying to achieve through marketing automation?

There are many automation software’s out there in the market, specifically designed to streamline a large array of the business processes. Without having a clear objective or strategy in mind, you will not be able to optimize the entire marketing process, delivering no value to your clients and customers.

Here are the most important goals of a marketing automation strategy based on a survey by Ascend2 and its research partners:

1. Increase lead generation
2. Improve Lead nurturing
3. Increase sales revenue
4. Improve customer engagement
5. Increase marketing productivity
6. Improve campaign targeting

Mistake # 3: Assuming that marketing automation is easy

By its nature, marketing automation is considered to be detailed and complex. You need to have a high empirical, data hungry mind to enjoy working within parameters to unlock its potential.

Marketing automation success is also considered to be a cascade effect, as it takes a lot of effort to know how to get things right. That is why it is deemed to be important to accept the fact that not all marketing automation implementation will be easy, and to make it easier, you need to call on various services that will help you get where ever you need to.

For example, have a look at your company’s lead scoring strategy. If you do not define the strategy in right manner, or how to wash away the data improving data hygiene, then it will definitely have a negative impact on the leads that you pass to the sales team.

Mistake # 4: Not Testing and Optimizing enough

Fortunately, we have come across marketers who are now realizing the downfalls of the spray and pray techniques, when it comes to advertising.

However, when it comes to a similar concept within email marketing is the email blast that does not take into consideration marketing automation features, which in turn can make a huge difference to the different ways users can respond to marketing automation.

Take time to find out what your audiences are responding to. Break it down to the buyer’s persona and then consider how well emails can be opened and sent out to other users with better content.

Have the data analyzed at every stage implementing optimizations whenever or wherever possible.

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Mistake # 5: Sending too many emails in one Shot.

Marketing automation has made it easier for all the business executives to send multiple, automated, personalized emails at a scale.

And just because the technology allows you to increase the email volume substantially that does not mean you should continue doing so.

If anything, the real value of marketing automation is the one that allows you to email faster, with information that is relevant.

Do not make the mistake others do, bombarding the database with emails just because you have the power to do so.

Mistake # 6: Never stop nurturing your database

According to a study conducted by Hubspot, the average email addresses in the database expires at the rate of 25% per year.

It means that a database with more than 50,000 email addresses will shrink to 21,000 in just three short years.

The best ways to fix this erosion is to replenish the funnel with new leads at a higher rate than you burning through. Or else you’ll just end up finding yourself with diminishing returns.

So before you begin with marketing automation, do ask yourself what have you been doing to fuel the top funnel? In short, marketing automation is a fantastic tool with further qualify and nurture leads, but when you don’t generate enough for sales then what’s the point??

Mistake # 7: Using Marketing Automation as a most glorified Email Marketing tool

Marketing automation is created to help entrepreneurs manage their entire email marketing process. However, this does not mean that marketing automation works well for everyone.

Say for example Marketing automation is a great tool that can help you automate your entire social media marketing strategy. There are various tools you can use to reschedule posts week in advance, triggering responses you have got towards certain actions. For example, you can use automation to send a welcome email to all your clients and customers, or every time you get a new follower on Twitter.

In the offer below, one of the most common tools on the market gives us a good example of how useful and versatile marketing automation can turn out to be.  If you are using it just for email, you are then limiting its potential.

Mistake # 8: Don’t ever forget that marketing is a comprehensive process

Despite the fact that your buyer’s personas are specific and well defined, do not forget that any digital marketing strategy leads to a comprehensive experience.

So if you are focussing entirely on email marketing, then the leads aren’t seeing the same message that they got from you in their inbox through their website. Instead, they see them differently through fragmented messages and value propositions depending on where to go.

This kind of fragmentation is ineffective. At worst it’s the liability if you have been putting a special message or offers in front of their specific audiences.

Mistake # 9: Not Setting a Clear Process

Automation and other tools related to marketing are very efficient… if used correctly and in an organized manner! Without having a clear strategy, it can turn out to have adverse consequences on your business.

Sending targeted emails is another great way rather than sending emails to a database of prospects and continue waiting for some positive results.

When it comes to marketing automation, you will need to understand that not having a proper preparation done will have a direct impact on the effectiveness of your strategy and company reputation.

Instead, you can build a clear marketing strategy advising to develop the entire automation process based on this flowchart, before you begin implementing it.

To conclude

Some of the above marketing automation mistakes are very easy to be resolved, others will require a solid content marketing strategy plan, and are a bit more challenging and complicated to be sorted out.

In any case, it’s always good to learn from someone else’s failure and then to avoid the mistakes mentioned above.

I really hope my suggestions will help you see an increase in the ROI for the technology you have invested in.

Jenni is a VP from Ampliz. She has been working in strategy, business intelligence, and marketing for large organizations. She helps to make unique campaigns work, especially through social media and Email marketing. If you want to get in touch, you can leave a message here, or write her on Twitter or LinkedIn.”