What is marketing automation? Essentially, it's a technology that manages your marketing processes for business owners 24/7. This allows customers to feel looked after around the clock and ensures that a smooth and stress-free shopping experience is had by all.
Modern-day consumers can be a demanding bunch, with the latest research showing that 71% of customers expect marketing that feels 1:1. Of those, around 76% get frustrated when they don't get it, meaning that your marketing needs to be super-relevant to the person in question, catering to their interests, needs, and behaviors.
Marketing automation can be hyper-personalized using the unique data your efforts produce, resulting in an experience inherently tailored to each customer.
Klaviyo Automation Personalization Benefits
The perennial issue for eCommerce businesses is the fact your customers aren't physically there with you, making interaction trickier. So, the main goal of marketing automation is to get as close as possible to a customer walking into a brick-and-mortar store, picking up a product, and asking for help. Let's take a look at just some of the benefits it offers:
- Personalization at Scale Can Be Achieved - while ¾ of eCommerce execs - according to a Klaviyo study - understand that personalization is a marketing essential, just over 41% of them stated they were unable to keep up with all the necessary tasks. When you use Klaviyo automation, however, that gap is closed.
Taking care of the bulk of the work, automation is able to deliver a 1:1 shopping experience that feels like it's tailored to them, specifically. Particularly when talking about enterprise-level businesses with huge client bases, automation replaces the large team they'd need to offer the same type of personalization across all touch points. - Build It, Set It & Forget It - when using Klaviyo automation for personalization needs, marketers are able to deliver meaningful shopping experiences without having to spend all day at the keyboard. Instead, you can build your auto-responses, set them and forget them.
With this in place, it doesn't matter when a customer enters your funnel, as you can set core areas on the customer journey, allowing them to send any time of the day. This spares your team from the task, freeing them up for other important work. - An Improved Bottom Line - margins are tight for most marketers these days, so it’s nice to know that Klaviyo marketing automation typically returns $5.44 for every dollar spent. Research also shows that 3 out of every 4 businesses increase their conversion rates with marketing automation in place.
These are proven tactics designed to drive ongoing revenue, and while there's quite a bit of effort at the outset, it works on its own from there.
Laying the Foundations For eCommerce Success
While Klaviyo marketing automation is set up differently for each business, there's one thing that remains true with them all - you can't wing it! As such, you need to put lots of thought into selecting the right marketing automation technologies and working out your strategy.
Creating sound foundations for your marketing automation requires a methodical approach that takes the three main pillars into account; 1) data, 2) tech, and 3) a coherent strategy.
Pillar #1 - The Data
Without quality data, everything else counts for naught. It's about more than just understanding your audience in its entirety. It's also about having a clear knowledge of the needs of each segment of your customers based on the following:
- How they engage with your website/texts/emails
- Personal preferences willingly divulged
- Demographic sets
- Geographical location
- Their age group
- Their purchasing history
This SMART data is ideally in a consistent format, super-current and clean so that you're ready when events are triggered by customer actions. Your data is very much the foundation for everything.
Pillar #2 - The Tech
Another vital element of Klaviyo marketing that needs to be addressed is the tech you'll use to meet your needs. When choosing yours, you should ask yourself a few key questions, such as “What level of personalization are we aiming for?" or "Does it offer enough functionality?"
Also, think about the features you absolutely can't do without, which might include:
- Pop-up email-collection forms
- Emails triggered by certain actions
- SMS & email in one platform
- Automated A/B testing
- Dynamic content personalization
- Segmentation-based emails
In addition to meeting your budgetary requirements, you need a platform that suits you now and gives you room to grow. Other concerns include aspects like the quality of customer support you'll get from the platform, how easily implemented your plans are within it, and the level to which things can be customized. Needless to say, Klaviyo is a great choice for taking care of all these important tasks.
Pillar #3 - The Strategy
When you have the right tech, an abundance of customer data, and all your segmentation plans worked out, you've then got to consider your marketing automation strategy. You'll consider how many messages to send, which customers to send them to, and in which circumstances they're triggered.
Of course, your tech should be clever enough to make these kinds of decisions for you, however, there’s nothing better than you and your knowledge of your brand. Sure, automation is pivotal in bringing things to life, but human input is still required.
Using predictive intelligence, you can estimate important dates on your calendar when customers are most likely to buy again, allowing you to send messages at the most opportune time. This keeps your brand top of mind while engendering loyalty.
Delivering a Highly-Personalized Experience Matters
The most successful companies deliver a personalized service from start to finish, with the customer taking center stage throughout. The curated messages you send should offer real value that's relevant to your customer's needs, and that's only realistically possible through marketing automation.
Get it wrong, and your messages may get dismissed as spam. Get it right, however, and you'll enjoy the rewards that come from making customers feel like they are your number one priority.
