What We're Talking About. . . Workflow Automation

We all know time is money. In fact, most businesses are deadline driven, which means that the faster tasks get done, the more things will be accomplished, and the greater your ROI will be. That's exactly what creating effective workflows is all about.

But workflows are only effective (and cost-saving) if they run with minimal effort. That's where automation comes in.

Now imagine if every time a lead entered your system they were nurtured down your funnel toward becoming your customer automatically. No effort required.

That's what an automated workflow can achieve for your marketing! By setting up a workflow, you can let people move at their own pace through their buyer's journey, while still keeping them on track with content specialized for the stage they are in (all while you are busy performing other tasks!).

So if you're ready to learn how it's done, here's what we're talking about. . .

Articles

CREATE BETTER MARKETING AUTOMATION WORKFLOWS via Campaign Creators

Creating a better marketing automation workflow starts with understanding what it consists of. We, at Campaign Creators, looked to answer this for you.

To begin, you'll need a marketing automation system (MAS). This is the technology that helps automate your marketing campaign processes. Next, you'll integrate a marketing technology stack into your MAS with common tools such as a CMS, Social Media Tools, a CRM, Advertising Technologies, and others. Only after you've constructed an appropriate marketing technology stack for yourself, should you begin creating a marketing automation workflow. “A marketing automation workflow allows for certain triggers to occur based on a user's engagement and action taken with your brand.”

Explore this article further to find out some benefits of marketing automation in general, as well as how they can impact your business's success. You'll get a step-by-step explanation of how to implement an automated workflow within HubSpot and even a suggestion on how to handle them once completed. Check it out!

5 Reasons Why You Need Workflow Automation via Gravity Flow

Workflows can do a lot to efficiently power a customer through their buyer's journey, but they do more than just that. They can save you money too! Curious how they might do that? Well, Gravity Flow outlines exactly how revenue is impacted by implementing a workflow automation. They also cover certain considerations you'll need to be aware of before following through with this strategy, some of which are shown below:

1. Eliminating Distractions: Automation eliminates the tedious tasks employees deal with, which improves engagement with those tasks, and allows them to focus on skill-related activities.
2. Reducing Customer Service Burden: Allows for frictionless interaction with customers through quick-to-immediate response times. Additionally, customer service reps won't be entirely bogged down by administrative tasks.
3. Improving Management Efficiency: Managers can get better insight into the work done by team members because workflow automation allows them to analyze up-to-date customer information.
4. Increasing Production Capacity: Save costs that otherwise are put towards unnecessary payroll and software by streamlining your sales process with automated workflows.
5. Shifting the Blame (Appropriately): Allows you to identify bottlenecks in your operations so you don't waste time on tasks that aren't actually benefiting your company.

13 Email Workflows You Should Be Using in Your Marketing Automation via hubspot

If you understand what a workflow is, but you're not sure what exactly they could be used for, get ready to find out! Here are 13 examples of real-life scenarios in which email workflow automation can be used. Implement some of these for yourself, or simply use them as inspiration for your own strategy!

1. Topic Workflows end related content offers, triggered by page views or content offer downloads.
2. Blog Subscriber Welcome Workflows are triggered by subscriptions to your blog, giving new blog subscribers a welcome email, and let you promote your best content too.
3. New Customer Welcome/Training Workflows are triggered when a contact becomes a paying customer and send a series of welcome emails focused on building a relationship between your business and them.
4. Engaged Contact/Evangelist Workflows leverage your dynamic list of contacts (a list of contacts that updates based on levels of engagement with your website), sending them emails that subtly request sharing of content, and are triggered by visits, clicks or form submissions.
5. Lead Nurturing Workflows nurture ToFu (top of the funnel) contacts that are ready to move along in your sales process, sending them related MOFU content to content they previous engaged with, and are triggered by various ToFu conversion events.
6. Internal Sales Rep Notification Workflows inform internal sales reps about leads interacting with high value content indicating product interest, providing them information about the contact so to after send an outreach email, and are triggered by BoFu (bottom of the funnel) page views and conversion events.
7. Re-Engagement Workflows are triggered by inactive contacts and send exclusive offers or coupons to regain their interest.
8. Event Workflows are triggered by registration or attendance of an event and help automate communication between you and contacts before, during and after an event.
9. Abandoned Shopping Cart Workflows are used largely by eCommerce businesses and are triggered by abandoned shopping carts. They remind contacts about a forgotten purchase and motivate them to complete their transaction.
10. Up-sell/Cross-sell Workflows are triggered by past purchases and seek to sell customers upgraded or complimentary products.
11. Customer Happiness Workflows are useable when you administer regular Net Promoter surveys to your customer base and are triggered by a high or low NPS score. Reward happy customers with exclusive content, offers or discounts, and promote content or offers to unhappy customer to improve business with them.
12. Customer Success/Engagement Workflows work well when you keep track of customer success metrics and are aimed at specific cases of customers with low product engagement.
13. Upcoming Purchase Reminder Workflows are triggered by purchases made on a cycle and send automated emails to contacts or customers as a form of reminder.

4 AUTOMATED LEAD WORKFLOW MISTAKES THAT COST LEADS via Marketing Essentials

Imagine putting your time and effort into setting up a complex web of workflows only to have it all be for nothing because of a silly mistake? Don't let this be you! Here are 4 of the most common workflow automation mistakes that cause people to lose leads rather than converting them, told by Marketing Essentials. Give them a look!

1. Know Your Persona: Businesses often fail because they don't accurately target or understand their buyer personas. Don't step into this pitfall. Instead, correctly establish your best buyer personas for your product or service in order to find your best customers.
2. Set Goals for Your Workflows: Don't forget to set goals to track the progress of your workflows. Without setting goals you won't get far into a workflow, as it's practically unfeasible to know your month-to-month plan without them. Also, by setting goals you can adjust as you go along to optimize your workflows.
3. The Follow-Up: Don't let the automated workflow do all the work for you! You should still follow-up with potential leads in a one-on-one setting. It can be so easy to forget about how important personal connections are. Even if a lead travels all the way through your funnel, but doesn't buy your product or service, at least you've established a contact and connection that may benefit you in the future.
4. Having an Inbound Content Strategy: “Strategy should be the foundation of all your marketing efforts, and without a strong foundation, your entire plan could collapse.” Companies that fail to implement a solid inbound content strategy tend to “meander” with their content, goals and plan.

Course

Creating a Lead Nurturing Workflow via HUbspot

Creating an automated workflow in order to nurture potential leads into customers may be a bit complex, and we totally recognize that. However, if you want to slow it down, break it down, or just get more of a complete understanding of the why and how of workflow automation, this is for you. Industry leader HubSpot offers free courses in creating a lead nurturing workflow so that you can become the expert.

The course is just over 16 minutes long and includes three quizzes about different subtopics of workflows, a user guide to creating and operating workflows, and a workbook to test your workflow logic. Similar to our blog, in HubSpot's Creating a Lead Nurturing Workflow course they do a tool walkthrough on how to build a lead nurturing workflow in HubSpot. Take a few minutes out of your day and give it a look. It'll really benefit you!

Video

How to use Hubspot's Workflow Tool via Enduur Vlog

Had enough reading for today? Then sit back, relax, and get ready to see all of this in action. Here is an in-depth video that takes you through the steps of creating a workflow in HubSpot with explanations along the way. We honestly can't recommend this video enough, and there isn't much more to say about it other than: grab some popcorn, get HubSpot up and ready, and take some notes!

Well, we've reached the end of it. Automated workflows can be tremendously helpful for your business, as we've found out. Make sure to implement one or many different workflows to optimize employee functionality around the office, to connect with customers in a direct and quick manner, and to enhance different points and stages within your sales process. There's no reason you shouldn't! Also, if you'd like to find even more information about this topic, take a look at our Definitive Guide to Marketing Automation, where we comprehensively discuss the importance of marketing automation and its tools, email automation, HubSpot marketing and sales automation.