How to Drive More Website Traffic With Marketing Automation

Marketing automation might be a ‘buzz’ phrase – but with good reason.

It helps marketers reach more of their target audience more effectively and more frequently: always a good thing because that invariably leads to increased web traffic, more hot leads, and ultimately more sales.

Gone are the days when marketing automation was considered mainly a time saver. Recent advancements in the technology mean that the best platforms don’t just make life easier – they help grow businesses significantly.

Make no mistake: marketing automation is a powerful lead generator when you apply the right strategy on the right platform.

So, say you’ve got your website landing pages all set up to convert visitors but you’re not ranking so well in organic search, are not using paid traffic sources, and want to increase the volume of web traffic to your site.

How can marketing automation help make that happen? Here are several key ways …

Email drip campaigns

Starting with the best converting strategy of all: email marketing.

Despite the rise of social media marketing, the traditional email still sees the best conversion rates according to most marketing authorities out there.

The best marketing automation platforms still have email at their centre. From here, you can create autoresponder series that send personalised, relevant emails to different segments of your database over a defined period of time, educating them and encouraging a specific action.

The call to action might be to download a lead magnet, view a particular piece of content, find out more about a product or service, sign up or subscribe to something, or actually buy a product. Whatever it is, as long as your emails are personalised and relevant, they will drive traffic to your website, where landing pages can help convert prospects into sales.

Autoresponder series save time and allow you to continue the flow of contact with a prospect based upon particular triggers: these may be time-based (contact after three days) or behavioural (send this email if they do this; and that email if they do that).

Effective drip campaigns nurture leads along the sales funnel towards the sale; and they’re often more effective with new prospects than single emails because of this nurturing effect.

Abandoned cart & up-sell emails

For ecommerce businesses, how about setting up an email that automatically goes out to visitors who have left your store without completing their purchase?

These tailored emails can be automatically generated based on what the visitor was shopping for. By emailing soon after they’ve checked out with a personalised email showing the products they were considering, you may be able to send the visitor back to your store and reactivate the sale.

In a similar way, emails that suggest complementary products to those they’ve recently bought can be effective in driving users back to your store and making a follow-up purchase (upselling).

These are both excellent examples of marketing automation having a direct effect on the bottom line, using highly personalised emails.

Inspiring content: newsletters

If drip campaigns help you increase the number of new prospects landing on your website, promoting great content can also help you bring existing customers back to your site.

It goes without saying that having original, relevant, and informative content on your website will attract visitors, keep them there, and encourage them to go deeper into your site.

However, you can also promote your great content (informative articles or infographics, educational videos, entertaining posts, for instance) through newsletters sent out automatically each month or quarter to opt-ins from your database.

If your content solves problems and inspires your customers, it will drive more traffic to your website to check out what else there is.

Engagement scoring

If you know that a particular individual in your database has never registered for an event that you’ve invited them to but often clicks through to find about product promotions in emails you send out, how might that change your marketing approach towards that individual?

Alternatively, if someone regularly attends free events but rarely visits one of your landing pages that turn such visitors into paying customers, you might alter your marketing strategy based on these engagement habits.

By better understanding the channels through which individuals interact, you can tailor campaigns to their preferences more accurately.

Engagement scoring helps you do this for everyone in your database. Simply allocate a score to particular interactions and activities. The platform will then calculate an ‘engagement score’ for each individual based on these numbers; and it will highlight who are your most-engaged customers and how they engage with you.

A quick note about landing pages

Your online marketing campaigns will only be as effective as the landing pages you design at the ‘other end of the click’.

Well-designed, well-written landing pages convert interest into commitment. And these too can be automated to some extent, with handy drag and drop builders provided by automation platforms like Swift Digital.

We’ve tested which designs work best for conversion rates so you have a range of templates to choose from. You also have the tools available to track and measure how your landing pages are performing – so that you can tweak them as necessary.

Extra website traffic is all well and good; but your success will be determined by what you do with that traffic. Make sure you set up dedicated landing pages for each different campaign, based on which visitors are coming from where and with which specific needs.

More web traffic – and much more

As you’ve seen, marketing automation can help generate more traffic to your website. But make sure you get the strategy and your choice of platform right.

It’s no good setting up email drip campaigns on a platform that has a poor delivery rate; and it’s no use expecting marketing automation tools to handle all interactions with prospects right through to the sale.

You need reliability and convenience in your choice of platform; and you need automation to handle all the parts of your communication with leads where direct personal contact is NOT required.

Get these aspects right and you can expect to see great returns from marketing automation.

Want to know more about how you can drive website traffic to boost marketing ROI? Simply contact the Swift Digital team on 02 9929 7001.

Swift Digital’s templates help you effortlessly create stunning emails and events communications using our drag-and-drop email and event builder.

You can raise engagement with embedded images, videos, polls, article feedback, and emojis and schedule messages to send at the right time.

Government departments’ unique marketing requirements are covered with Swift Digital, and full compliance with all anti-spam and privacy laws is guaranteed. Swift Digital is also ISO 27001 certified.

Swift Digital is Australia’s leader in marketing automation software and event management working with organisations like the NSW Government, ATO, and companies like Westpac Bank and Qantas.

Find out why we’re the Australian government department’s number one choice for their professional communications and events.

To find out how your business can get the best out of Swift Digital’s platform, contact our team today.

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