Short, buzzword-free marketing tips
Q: I am reading a lot about marketing automation. My email marketing platform says that their service can do that for me. Is that true?

A: An email marketing platform can automate your email marketing. But it can’t automate your marketing on your website where it really can work wonders.

Marketing automation is simply setting up marketing things to happen in a predefined pattern and schedule based on a certain trigger.

Here’s an example that shows the difference between email marketing automation and website marketing automation. As you’ll see, technologies* that allow website automation can also do email marketing automation.

Email Marketing Automation
• Recipient opens email and clicks on a certain link
• Their action triggers a “Next Steps” email to be sent to them
Email Marketing automation ENDS

Website Marketing Automation starts
• Next, they fill out a form on your website
• Their action triggers a secondary offer landing page and an email
• If they are member (yes); registered for conference (no); and opened but didn’t click on secondary offer email: this triggers an email about the session at the conference on the same topic that they originally clicked on in the first email.
• If they are member (yes); registered for conference (yes); opened 6 of last 8 emails (yes); spent 2 hours on website per month minimum (yes) : this triggers an email with an exclusive offer.

That’s true marketing automation. From email to your website to social – and back to you.

* The technologies that provide marketing automation are called integrated marketing platforms. HubSpot, Marketo, Eloqua are just a few examples.

Get more short, buzzword-free marketing tips from our Association Marketing Answers Series here.

By Monica Bussolati
@bussolati