5 reasons why marketing automation is critical to COVID-19 recovery planning

As much as being focused on how to communicate during a crisis is paramount, it is also essential for businesses to understand how to prepare for the exit out. At this stage marketers must turn their heads to planning longer term strategies to take into account changing consumer behaviours, a revised competitive landscape and new internal challenges.

By implementing marketing automation marketers can not only improve internal efficiencies, but also ensure their brand stays ahead of their competition.

Here are the reasons why you should consider ramping up your marketing automation as part of your exit/recovery planning.

1. Improves the customer experience

The ability to send triggered emails based on behaviour allows brands to deliver a deeper level of personalisation whilst providing consumers with communications that are useful to their everyday lives.

In this example by Audible, this email is triggered when the listener has remaining credits to use. Not only is this a personalised trigger to my behaviour the email is further personalised with recommendations in line with content that I have engaged with before on the platform. Audible go one step further and integrate data from Amazon to give me recommendations on themes from my Amazon account.

2. Increases the ROI of teams

With many teams on furlough, or budgets reduced, it will be essential for marketing teams to remain lean as well as agile. Once implemented, marketing automation reduces the amount of time needed to set-up and deliver individual campaigns, which in turn means you get a greater efficiency from the team you have.

3. Increases average order value (AOV)

Product recommendations are one of the most revenue boosting features in the marketing automation arsenal. They are a great way to cross sell and upsell products whilst the consumer is in the buying process.

4. Recover lost revenues

Ecommerce brands can increase their revenue by an average of 12% by automating forgotten baskets. However, non ecommerce brands can also use abandonment campaigns to recover form drop outs to bring back those that have not converted yet.

This example from Holland & Barrett is a great use of abandoned browse, it not only reminds you of a product you were looking at but also invites you to subscribe and save whilst doing so. We are starting to see more examples of brands offering a subscribe option on products that have a short life and may need replenishing often.

5. Increase customer lifetime value

Automate welcome programs, requests for reviews and feedback. Send exclusive previews to high spending segments, and trigger re-engagement campaigns if your audience starts slipping away.

This welcome email from Aromatherapy Associates is a great introduction to the world of wellness. Their email sets the tone for their brand and their emails going forward. With beautiful imagery, white space, succinct content and clear call to action with an offer – what’s not to love?!