Sometimes, you just shouldn't automate your marketing. I know that idea might be controversial in this age of 24/7 content consumption online, but it has merit.
Sure, marketing automation is great, and it can really make your lead acquisition and sales process far more efficient, but not everything needs to be drip fed. Sometimes it is better to do things yourself or have an employee or virtual assistant do them.
Don't Automate Customer Service
No matter how sophisticated a Word Press plugin, or a piece of software is, it is still basically a computer program. There will be bugs, there will be updates, there will be times when customers want to talk to a human to address their issues.
Have you ever had a problem with a company such as your internet provider or cell phone provider and when you called them, you got an automated customer service system? How frustrated did you get when you were trying to get your question answered, or trying to reach a human because you knew your problem did not fit their four selection choices? Often because they are rather large business with little or no competition in the area, they can do that to their customers. You might not want to do that though because there is probably far more competition for your customers.
So customer service is a major area where you would not want to have a lot of marketing automation. Basic issues can be addressed by tools such as emailing a new password when someone clicks the forgot password button. If a person needs more than can be handled simply, you need to have a way for them to connect with a person. It can be you, or someone you hire to help you, but that person needs to be able to listen to the customer and figure out how to solve the problem, no matter how odd the problem is.
To Be Social Is To Be Human
Another area where you will want to have at least some human presence is in your social media. If you just rely on marketing automation to handle your social media, like posting from RSS feeds or reposting based on hashtags, you will short change yourself and your audience. In some cases, you may end up getting banned from groups if you only use drip fed posts. The line between automation and spamming can be quite thin.
Be Your Own Content Producing Machine
And one more area where automation does not work well is in producing content. Once the content is created, you can use the tools to get the content out there, but the actual writing or recording of your content needs a personal touch. Believe it or not, there's software on the market that's been developed to emulate how people write, but it's a poor imitation for the real thing. Creativity is not hardwired into computers the way it is in human beings. So if you want something written, or a video made, or graphics designed, you need to do it yourself or outsource to a person, not try to use automation tools to create the content.
When Automation Is Okay
So, while automation shouldn't take place in some parts of your business, it still can and should play a pivotal role in generating traffic and leads. That happens in the form of something called marketing funnels, the sequenced process of getting people from their initial point of contact with you to the moment they become a customer. And creating the perfect funnel formula is an important part of marketing in all types of online business. Want to discover a complete formula formula for yourself? Check out our case study video on how to automate your marketing funnel to get more leads and make more sales like clockwork.