8 Must-Have Marketing Automation Workflows for Stellar Marketing Operations

One of the most important aces up marketers’ sleeves is their marketing automation platform.

But let’s face it. You have thousands of contacts sitting in your database and if they are just collecting dust, they won’t do you any good.

So, how do you nurture them effectively through the marketing funnel?

Workflows are the answer.

Many marketers find workflows daunting which is why they seem to not use them to their full potential.

In this blog post, we’ll dig deeper into why workflows are important and the different types of workflows that can work their magic on your lead nurturing efforts.

What are Workflows?

Workflows allow certain triggers that occur based upon a user’s journey, their touchpoints, engagement, and where the automated interactions come in. They are the essence of every marketing automation platform (MAP).

For instance, if a user fills out a product trial request form on your website and the trial period is about to end, your workflow should remind your user to sign up in order to keep enjoying the awesome benefits of your product.

What are the Basic Elements of Workflows?

• Triggers: These are the initial actions that start the workflow, such as registering on an app or a website.
• Delays: These refer to the time difference between different steps of the workflow.
• Conditions: These are the prerequisites that must occur for each step in the workflow to take place. For instance, if a customer signs up for a free trial, you might take a different action than if they buy the product.
• Actions: These are the activities that should happen whenever specific conditions occur.

Why Workflows?

Marketing automation workflows help:

• Convert leads into customers
• Simplify and streamline your internal processes
• Gain more sales qualified leads
• Keep the sales cycle short and efficient
• Scale customer engagement
• Create efficient and effective nurture programs
• Encourage activities like cross-sell or up-sell

Now that you understand the power of workflows, it’s time to understand which specific workflows you should focus on for better lead nurturing. Let’s dive-in.

8 Must-Have Marketing Automation Workflows

To automate your marketing processes and communications efficiently, we’ve got 8 awesome workflows that every B2B marketing team should craft to amplify their conversion rates. And these can easily be created across different MAPs.

1. The Welcome Workflow

What triggers it: A user signs up or registers on your website or app.

Welcome workflows are basic but powerful. Welcome emails are opened 4X more often and generate 5X more clicks than regular emails. They either consist of a single email or a series of successive emails that build upon each other.

Besides greeting your users, you can use these to tell them the next step in your sales process, share hot content they may be interested in, or if your product has an onboarding process, an onboarding email campaign would help ease a customer into using the product.

Here’s an example of Story Chief, a content marketing tool, their onboarding process is educative and starts with a brief walkthrough video of the product to help the user and even has a checklist that drives users to activation.

2. The Topic Workflow

What triggers it: When users register their email address to access content.

When users download your high-value content in exchange for their contact information, they become a lead. With that, you can craft content you know they find interesting and achieve personalized communication.

For example, if a contact downloads an eBook entitled Marketing Automation Migration Tips, your workflow should contain a series of nurturing messages that are relevant to the topic of marketing automation.

3. The Lead Nurturing Workflow

What triggers it: A contact has spent a pre-set amount of time at the top of the funnel or is at the start of the customer journey.

After you collect quality leads, you need to nurture them so that they become marketing qualified leads to pass over to sales. Nurture them with a series of informative content that educates and encourages the leads to make a purchase.

This workflow uses lead information to effectively address pain points or follow up with relevant content to build trust and nudge the lead towards conversion.

For instance, a lead signs up for a product demo, provide them with information on how well it works and convinces them to move down the funnel.

4. MQL Workflow

What triggers it: When a customer meets the pre-set lead score.

To keep your hot leads ‘hot’, set up an internal workflow that automatically notifies your sales team to reach out to them immediately when a contact reaches the “hot lead” status. This status should be based on what you’ve internally deemed to be “hot”; it could be based on the level of fit (position or company size), or user engagement (content downloads or email opens), or both.

For instance, if a lead from a particular company browses your pricing page, your team will be notified. With this, your sales rep will be armed with the lead’s activity information to aid their sales charm.

5. The Anonymous-User Workflow

What triggers it: When a user spends more than a pre-set amount of time on your website or creates an action indicating an intention to leave the website.

Your site should deliver high-value content at exactly the right time to keep users engaged. Create engaging content that effectively attracts the attention of your visitors.

For instance, an interactive quiz or a dynamic CTA could pop up when a user has been on a particular page for more than 30 seconds.

6. The Feedback Workflow

What triggers it: When a customer completes a survey with you.

Ask your customers to complete a small questionnaire or NPS survey or send them a follow-up email after they’ve spoken with a customer service rep. Feedback is a golden opportunity to get an overview of your product or service and provides insights on areas of improvement.

7. The Cart Abandonment Workflow

What triggers it: The potential customers that added items to their cart but left your website/app before completing the checkout process.

According to a study, 67.91% of average visitors abandon their carts. Cart abandonment workflows are pretty common in the eCommerce space. They help get the prospects back in the purchasing frame of mind. You can remind them of their intent with special offers or user reviews to amplify the value proposition of the products.

8. The Re-Engagement Workflow

What triggers it: Users who have been inactive or have not opened the emails over a specified timeframe.

Use re-engagement campaigns to remind contacts of a product, service, or company, and to reinforce the value proposition of your business.

Workflows can help remind them, revive them, and reignite the communication fire with your company or product updates, special offers, a survey, an awesome new piece of content that’s performed well, but just make sure it’s personalized.

As per your need, use the aforementioned workflow spells to charge your marketing automation wand, to witness stellar results!

Wish to create stellar workflows in your marketing automation platform? Talk to us.