Automagic Marketing: How to Put Your Marketing on Autopilot

What is automagic marketing, you ask? Well first you take automation and you add a little marketing magic and you get automagic marketing. (Truthfully, it’s just a way to use my favorite word, automagic, in a post that helps you understand how to build an online sales funnel).

A caveat about automating your marketing: yes, it is possible to take the human interaction out of many aspects of the marketing interaction, HOWEVER, remember, that while some of your customers are totally happy serving themselves and can skillfully navigate the entire sales process themselves, other customers will want your help.

Give your prospects the option of hitting the EASY button at any time during the process and going back to the human interaction because while it’s nice in theory to remove the costly frontline people, it’s not worth the cost of losing a sale. Make your email, telephone and live chat options visible throughout the automagic process in case of customer confusion emergency.

How to Put Your Marketing on Autopilot

Generate Web Traffic – Organic web traffic through search engines like Google is the best form of automagic marketing because if you set up your keywords properly, you will be able to attract the prospects that are looking for you. Don’t forget about Pay-Per-Click, online press releases and social media marketing as well!

Engage New Prospects – Use information and free resources to engage your web visitors. Think of it as building the sales relationship online. Just as you wouldn’t try to sell the customer the second they walked through the door, you don’t want to bombard web visitors with offers and “Buy Now” buttons the moment they land on your site.

Answer Key Questions – Help your web visitors make their decision by answering their key questions online. Mirror the sales process you would walk a customer through face-to-face. Chances are most customers ask the same questions over and over. Answer them in easy-to-understand language (bonus points for including illustrations or virtual product demos).

Make It Easy to Buy – Don’t frustrate potential customers by making it difficult to figure out how to buy. If it’s possible to buy directly from your site, include links to your shopping cart in the web copy as well as in the navigation bars. If you use retailers, help them locate a retailer near them. Remember, the Internet is all about the instant gratification!

Ask Them to Subscribe – Give the web visitors who aren’t yet ready to buy the option of staying in touch with you. Now it’s common to see both the option of subscribing to an email newsletter or the RSS feed for their blog. Giving them the choice lets them decide how they would like to receive communication from you. Remember, you are asking them to give you their email address so make it worth their while with a free resource or some other bribe.

Entice with Updates – Stay in touch with your subscribes by sending out regular email communication. Share the latest news, helpful tips and of course, special offers to entice your subscribers to take the next step and become customers. Follow the 80/20 rule: 80 percent value-added content and only 20% promotion.

Be Social – Maintain your social media presence by scheduling regular updates (the automatic part). Social media not only allows you to automate your updates, but it allows you to extend your interaction from one to many. Don’t forget to be present and interact (because unlike other aspects of your marketing, social media is one that you cannot completely automate).