Marketing automation takes digital contact with customers so much further than en masse generic email sends. Through a series of steps—a workflow—the automation process delivers the right content at the right time, helping to maximize conversions and sales.

These 5 best practices will ensure that you set up your marketing automation system correctly from the beginning. This will minimize the headaches for you and your team in the future.

Step #1 - Layout the Wireframe Map

Your wireframe or workflow should define the business processes that the marketing automation system needs to use. 

Because it is automated, the workflow is completely scalable.

Generally there are four basic elements of a marketing automation workflow:

1. Triggers: The action that starts the workflow, such as registering on a website or purchasing an item
2. Delays: The time differences between steps of the workflow
3. Conditions: Explain what must occur for each step in the workflow to take place: for example, if a customer buys one type of product, you might take a different action than if they buy another type
4. Actions: State what should be done whenever any specific conditions occur

Every step in your workflow is important, but not equally important.

The first step is the most important as it kicks off the entire workflow.

Make sure you are using the right tools for automation. If you’re not automating essential parts of your workflow, it’s easier for things to go wrong.

In some cases, workflows break down due to poor planning (see 1 and 2 above), and in other cases delays and setbacks occur because there’s no automation in place to begin with.

Steps that don’t require human approval should be automated. Notifications and reminders for human-assigned steps should fall into that category as well.

With your marketing and sales remember there are 3 options: Yes/No/Maybe.

In most cases everyone plans for the yes and no but don’t forget the maybe. There are huge opportunities with this segment of your leads. 

Now that you have mapped your workflow you can move to step 2

#2 Stage Goals

Stage goals are necessary steps that must happen prior to completing the main goal. 

For example, if you’re doing a webinar, someone can’t buy your product if they don’t take the small first step of registering for the webinar. That act of registering for the webinar would be considered a stage goal. 

Then, the subsequent and logical stages would follow: attended the webinar, saw the offer, watched the replay, purchased, etc. 

Each of these steps would be small stage goals progressing to the overall goal of the campaign: a purchase of your product initiated from the webinar.

Your goals could include:

• Download PDF
• Watch a video
• Register for event ie webinar
• Fill out survey
• Get Phone Number
• Attended event ie webinar
• Book a consultation
• Buy a product

Optimize Each Stage

After we have this wireframe stage goal map laid out, we then begin to break it down from left to right (or top to bottom, if you made a list). 

So, as an example, our first stage goal is to get them to download the free case study PDF. 

From a marketing perspective, this would likely translate into a few emails in a sequence over a few days. 

Let’s imagine that it was four emails we trickle out to them over the next ten days.

For example, let’s consider the first stage goal of registering for the webinar.

We may create four emails that will be potentially delivered over ten days. (However, because Infusionsoft is goal completion based,)

Your CRM system should let you know when they register for the webinar (via the application of a tag) and complete that goal immediately. 

This means if they register for the webinar after the first email, there is no need to send them the next three emails.

Clarifying Stage Goals

This is exactly how stage goals work. 

You create a series of smaller, bridging goals all aligned towards your primary goal. 

They are simply designed to advance you towards your destination but do so in small increments.

#3 Tagging Best Practices

Tagging allows a granularity of information that is very powerful, but also easily abused.

This will keep things well structured and under control, as well as easy for others to understand.

Creating a document for tagging practices within your system is strongly suggested. 

That way, you can keep their usage consistent and well understood by everyone in the organization.

1. Never create orphaned tags

An orphaned tag is a tag that has no category. All tags should be categorized. The category gives the context of the tag usage and becomes part of the organization and documentation of the tag.

2. Create standard categories

Functional

Functional tags are tags that serve only to perform some functional action, such as to start or to stop a campaign. If you use start and stop tags, as most users do, you need to make sure and clean up after yourself.

Forms

Create tags for every Web Form you create.

Campaigns

Create tags for every campaign you create.

Marketing Lists

Here is where you list out your various marketing lists. This way, when you want to send out a general broadcast email, for example, you can merely select the appropriate tag within this category.

Customer Tags

Customer Tags category is where you keep both the general and specific customer tags. 

For example, whenever someone buys anything, you can apply a generic, “Customer” tag. 

However, if someone buys a product from one of your campaigns you can apply a specific tag. For example you may run a campaign offering a step by step process to get started with Facebook Ads. Here you can apply a specific tag, such as “Facebook Ads 101” if they purchased you Facebook Ads 101 course

Subscription Products

This is not a literal tag named “Subscription Products”. However, if you have a subscription product named “Group Coaching,” you would have a category named the same.

In that category, you would have tags for the subscribers, active subscribers, refunders, billing failures, etc.… You always want to be able to identify and differentiate between “subscribers” and “active subscribers.” This is very important.

Now you need to build a system to learn what is the best medium for your various clients. Some may prefer email, others video etc so you need to know what is best for your clients.

So you set up tags that show what they engage with.

Expose them to various channels of communication

For you to get the maximum out of your relationship with your subscriber, you need to meet them where they are, as opposed to trying to force them to engage with you via your preferred method.

What that means is you need to embrace multiple channels of communication, such as email, your blog, PDF reports, YouTube videos, Facebook posts and more. The channels will vary depending upon your audience and your niche.

That’s why we suggest you just focus on the three dominant social platforms in your niche. If you have a big Facebook and YouTube presence, for example, focus on those, plus your blog and email. 

This is not about trying to be all things to all people. Rather, it is about recognizing the 80/20 of your audience, and catering to what is most effective.

Beyond just exposing them to these channels, though, you want to get them to opt in via those channels. What I mean by this is, you want them to subscribe to your YouTube channel, Like your Facebook Fan Page or join your Facebook Group. 

The point is, you want to maximize how many marketing hooks you have into them. 

That way, if they unsubscribe from your email list, they will still see your retargeting ads on Facebook or your videos on YouTube. This allows you to maximize your relationship with them and, perhaps, bring them back into the fold on your email list with a future promotion.

Track and rank their engagement by channel

Taking it one step further and tagging them by those channels, as well. 

Best Practice recommendation is to create a tag category called, “Engages With,” and create tags for each of the channels of marketing you focus on. 

So, you might have tags that look like this: 

• Engages With -> YouTube 
• Engages With -> Facebook 
• Engages With -> Blog

This way, you can begin to learn from my audience by tracking their behaviors. 

Please note, I don’t recommend or suggest that you tag them for every video or every blog post they engage with. 

These are just high-level, general channel tags. Don’t confuse this with a segment of your list based on interest type. 

That would be a separate, “Interested In” category, and would contain topics relevant to your primary three or four list segments. 

For example:

• Interested In -> DFY Services 
• Interested In -> DIY Projects

The way to apply these tags would be based upon actions the reader takes by clicking on links in your emails. 

So, if you have a link to a blog post in your email about how the average consumer is better off hiring a DFY (done for you) service to complete their home repair, then on that link in the email builder, you would add two tags:

• Interested In -> DFY Services 
• Engages With -> Blog

 Now, if you step back and think of your entire Welcome Campaign as a marketing experiment, you’ll recognize some important takeaways. 

If you want to learn which type of platform your audience prefers, (for example: your blog, YouTube videos or Facebook posts) you need to construct the experiment in a scientific manner. 

What I mean by that is you need to give each of those three channels an equal opportunity to get a click. So you would create, during the course of your campaign, three blog links, three Facebook links and three YouTube links spread out across nine emails. 

This way, you’re giving each an equal weighting and an equal opportunity to get the click. Now your data will be more useful as you look at the percentages of people who engage with YouTube as compared to Facebook. 

But if you only had one YouTube video link in all of your campaign emails and ten different links to Facebook posts, then you would obviously skew the data, and make the experiment null and void. 

Are you beginning to see what I mean when I say to craft your campaign as if it were an experiment?

This type of approach takes some thought and planning, but the data it will provide you is very telling.

So you can craft an elegant experiment and get the data to help you market more effectively.

In the end, though, you still have to be willing to learn from what people tell you. Marketing is not about YOU. It is about your audience and what they want. 

They vote with their wallets and they vote with their clicks, but you have to be humble enough to set aside what you want to do, and listen to them, instead.

This is probably one of the worst mistakes a marketer can make - marketing to him or herself - rather than their audience.

3. Clean up your functional tags (or better yet, don’t use them)

Functional tags are tags that serve only to perform some functional action, such as to start or to stop a campaign. 

If you use start and stop tags, as most users do, you need to make sure and clean up after yourself. The most critical step is to immediately remove a start tag in the very next sequence after it is applied. 

If you do not, that contact will never be able to re-enter the campaign because the start tag is already applied. Likewise, if you use a stop tag, you need to have a sequence after it to remove it.

4. Create Meaningful Naming Conventions

I am a believer in using naming conventions consistently so that intent and usage are easily inferred.

This makes it easier for the team as a whole and not just the individuals. 

#4 Tracking

It is a proven phenomenon that tracking alone can create improvement. 

When you begin the process of tracking certain key metrics in your business, your mind will begin to fixate on them. 

That, in turn, leads to actions during the day that lead to improving those metrics. 

The result is that, just from the action of tracking, you will see improvements in your business.

1 Lead Source

Track the source of your lead, where it was originally acquired, and preserve it.

It is critical you understand that a Lead Source is only set the very first time. 

(After that it is never overwritten or updated unless you choose to do so manually.)

Lead Sources have two separate purposes. 

The first is to track the source of acquisition - where you acquired the lead. 

The second is to track ROI (return on investment). We’ve gone into quite a bit of detail on the acquisition side, but haven’t spent much time discussing ROI yet. 

Today, most small businesses are either driving a significant percentage of their revenue from online advertising, or hope to do so, but just haven’t figured it out yet. 

Either way, online marketing in some way is likely to be part of your business. ROI tracking, however, doesn’t require “online marketing.” 

Any marketing expense can be categorized, and Lead Sources allow you to easily associate expenses with them.

2 Tags

The Second Component Tags, as used in this context, provide the “audit trail” of your contacts progression through your marketing funnels, webforms and campaigns. 

By utilizing a very simple process (I’m going to show you), you’ll be able to see exactly what webforms your contacts have opted in through, as well as which campaigns they have progressed through, and easily search for both.

The first thing you want to do is create two tag categories which you will use repeatedly:

• Create a tag category named “Forms” 
• Create a tag category named “Campaigns”

After every webform in every campaign you build, create a tag with the name of that webform and save it in the “Forms” category.

Apply it to every contact who opts in through the webform. 

In every campaign you build create a tag with the name of the campaign and save it in the “Campaigns” category. 

Apply it to every contact who enters the campaign. 

That’s it - it is that simple. 

We will then use these two simple categories, and the associated tags created therein, to establish an audit trail of where and what your contact has done. 

We’ll be able to see every single webform they’ve submitted, and we’ll be able to see which marketing and fulfillment campaigns they’ve gone through.

3 Referral Partner Links - The Third Component

The purpose of using Referral Partner tracking is to show you what marketing pieces are converting for you. 

So, to recap the three components of the model: 

• Lead Sources provide acquisition and ROI data, 
• Tags create the audit trail and 
• Referral Partner tracking links show your conversions.

You start your tracking with Lead Sources. 

These will tell you where your traffic is coming from and what the ROI of those traffic sources is. 

You follow that up with Tagging in order to see the full audit trail of where your contact has engaged with you and your marketing. 

Lastly, you use Referral Partner tracking links to see exactly which marketing pieces are converting leads into sales.

#5 Responsive Engagement/Emailing

Automation that allows for a very personal approach to email delivery - getting what they want, when they want it. 

If they respond slowly, they’ll get more emails. 

If they take action quickly, they’ll get fewer. 

(To fully take advantage of Infusionsoft)

You need to shift your mindset when you design campaigns to really focus on achieving goals, not just delivering content. 

(That is why I spent so much time above showing you how to break down marketing campaigns into goals. When you truly embrace this concept, Infusionsoft begins to come alive, and your email marketing turns personal.)

Getting Personal, Timely and Specific

The goal of email marketing should be - first and foremost - to establish a personal relationship with your reader.

You can leverage the power of Automation to make your emails much more personal, but you do have to put a little effort into it. 

There are several different tools at your disposal. 

Become familiar with them and use them in your email marketing. 

In one form or another, all of these come down to personalization.

One of the easiest ways to get more personal is to become time sensitive in your emails. 

For example, if you’re sending out your email at 8:00am, then, perhaps, start your email with, “Good morning,” or, even better, in the body of the email, reference something about “this morning.”

Another way of making email more conversational is to reference timely events.

The perfect opportunity to get personal and to make a timely reference to a recent event would be in the very first email after a “Link Click Goal”

 At that particular point, we know they just clicked to watch video one. We know what they did and we know when they did it. 

This gives us the perfect chance to make a personal and timely reference to a recent event. This will allow our communication with them to be much more personal. 

You could say something like:

So, ~Contact.FirstName~, what did you think? 

I really wanted to get some feedback on the video you saw yesterday so I can make sure it covered the most important questions you might have. 

How did I do? Anything I didn’t cover you’d like to know? If so, ~Contact.FirstName~, can you do me a quick favor and just reply and tell me your thoughts?”

Take that example further, and combine multiple fields of information into a couple of sentences. Perhaps you reference their job type, or one of their major life goals.

“Hey Paul, good to see you on the webinar yesterday. 

I saw your question about XYZ product and I know you’re concerned if it will work for you in direct sales. 

One of the biggest needs when you’re struggling to hit that six-figure level in your business is becoming more efficient.”

Remember these three principals: personal, timely and specific.

Split Testing

Split testing is the practice of evaluating the effectiveness of something (email copy, an offer, a price point, etc.) by dividing the traffic up equally, sending it down two different paths, and evaluating the end result.

Automation is all about systems and efficiency. There is nothing more efficient than split testing, because, at its core, the purpose of split testing is really to get more from what you already have.

If you have an email series going out to promote a product, don’t you want it to be as effective as possible? 

Well, with split testing, you can learn which types of subjects and which email styles and tonality work best for your list.

You can create two different variations, run the test, and observe which has the bigger impact.

Part of understanding Best Practices is to understand they have to be customized and tailored to your own usage. Split testing is definitely an example of that.

Responsive Engagement is about leveraging the power of automation capabilities to create scenarios that respond to the contacts’ engagement within the system, and bubble up events or opportunities to re-engage them.

RFM (Recency - Frequency - Monetary) is an example of Responsive Engagement.

RFM is a way of tracking and reporting on how recently (R) a customer has bought, how frequently (F) they buy and how much they spend (M). 

Typically, however, these are looked at as a reporting mechanism.

Recency is designed to report on how long it has been since the customer last made a purchase. You can measure the days and report on it, so that you can improve your numbers.

If your average customer recency value is 38 days, what type of marketing could you do? How could you modify your campaigns to try and reduce that average from 38 days to 23 days? That is the concept behind recency.

A very common example of Responsive Engagement would be the traditional abandoned cart sequence. 

When someone starts a checkout process, and adds an item to their shopping cart, but does not complete their purchase, smart marketers will send them out an email a little while later trying to get them to come back and complete their purchase. 

This action is a perfect example of Responsive Engagement. You’re engaging the client in response to an action they took.

It all comes back to engaging the contact at the right time with the right message. 

Because you’re using an event to trigger the communication, and because that event is in response to some action they did or did not take, the communication is both timely and specific

It also has a reason for being sent. 

Many times, just having a reason for emailing them is enough to break down the barriers of jaded interpretation, and get them to actually read what you’re sending.

Get It Done Then Make It Better

You have to get those campaigns out there, see some results, determine how to improve on those results and continue to move forward. 

The easiest way to do this is to start simple. In the beginning, don’t try to accomplish everything with your campaigns. Make them short and straightforward.

So, rather than trying to make things perfect, you focus on getting them done at a minimal (n MVP (minimal viable product)) level of functionality as quickly as possible.

Continuous Improvement

Continuous Improvement (Continual refinement) goes hand in hand with the minimal level (MVP) model (introduced above). (This is not contradictory, it is complimentary) 

You need to get things done quickly. At the same time, though, you need to develop a mindset that nothing is truly ever done.