CRM Setup: Email Automation Tools And Startup Tips

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Today, we're going to learn about CRM setup, namely how to get your email automation tools in place so your outbound marketing strategy can be automated. We'll be talking about setting up marketing automation campaigns and the two levels that you and your team need to think about when setting up your CRM.

Inside that CRM, you'll have your contact records (customers, prospects, etc), your messages (drip campaigns), your messages, and task management.

When it comes to CRM Setup, there are two different schools of thought, mostly based on who's driving the need for the CRM.

CRM Setup On The Macro Level (ie. CEO's & Managers)

The first is the macro level thought process.  Macro level CRM thinking tends to include a general explanation of how your buying sequence progresses.

Here's what I mean... When you walk into a grocery store, you usually walk in the front door, you go to the right, you go through produce, then you proceed through the outer wall of the store.  Next, you get into the aisles and then you end up at the cash registers.

That's a macro level view of grocery shopping.

CRM Setup On The Micro Level (ie. Marketers & Sales Managers)

Then you have your micro level automation.

Your micro level automation includes the things that happen in each of your email marketing campaigns. So somebody goes to your landing page, they fill in the opt-in form, they download your lead magnet.

Now what happens?

Like specifically... what happens?

What is the text of the email that they are getting sent?

What is the text of the text message that they are being sent?

Are they getting a phone call, and if they are getting a phone call, who is making it?

Are they getting a postcard if we have their physical mailing address?

How many emails are they getting before they either do something or not? And of each of those emails, what is the content of those emails?

That is the micro campaign level that you need to think about.

The Buyer Journey Understood As A 4-Year Old

So we have a four-year-old, and he loves this show on YouTube called Mighty Machines. It's really a cool show. We've learned a lot about how tractors operate, how front loaders work, and all kinds of other crazy stuff.

One of the episodes was this semi truck assembly line. (If anybody is familiar with my story, I used to drive a semi truck 14 years ago, and then I went off to start digital marketing.)

In the assembly line, way off in some distant corner of the factory, they start by building the frame of the tractor-trailer. Then, the undercarriage starts taking shape when the airbags for the suspension are added, the transmission is bolted on, and the engine is added.  It goes from stage to stage to stage, until you have this freshly-painted, polished, beautiful truck rolling off of the assembly line, ready to go to market.

Now if that frame was to skip a bunch of steps and then go right over to the paint booth, there's nothing to paint because the cab isn't put on it.

Or if it was to skip the engine loading phase, there's no engine in the semi. It can't drive off the assembly line when it's done.

Your CRM setup can't skip stages either.  Your email marketing campaigns need to have a framework applied.

CRM Setup - You Need Macro And Micro Level Automation

When a prospect comes to see you, they're all over the place. They bounce from one campaign to the next to the next, and if they drop off, your automation system moves them to some sort of a nurturing campaign.

Now we've worked with a lot of Done For You sales funnel clients over the years.  Oftentimes, when we're setting up marketing automation, we're setting up campaigns for them. What they give us is very different than what we actually need to get the job done.

Oftentimes, they explain their business processes - the buyer journey - and they say setup a CRM for us.  Now, that's usually fine because we write email copy and text messages and put all of those things in place. But with email automation tools, you need to have much more than a macro-level view of marketing to get it set up correctly.

Then you have the micro level view of email automation.  The micro level consists of these emails that go out, these text messages that go out, these tags that need to be applied, these forms that need to be filled out. That is the stuff that makes up the campaign.  That's what gets the job done in an email automation tool.

So if you have the macro level without the micro level it won't work because you have a lot of idea and strategy around the general framework without the individual components of the campaign...  The stuff that actually sells a prospect.

Without the individual components in your CRM setup (like emails, text messages, phone calls, tasks, etc), the whole thing falls apart and you aren't able to go to market with it.

Your Campaign Collateral Will Take Time

That's really what I wanted to get at in terms of building marketing automation campaigns inside your CRM.  You need to understand that there is a high-level campaign that needs to be built out with the right framework. Then, you also need to know that it's going to take a bunch of time to write the emails and the text messages and all collateral to get your email automation tools firing the right way.

Oftentimes, somebody downloads a lead magnet, they might get three or four pieces of marketing before they engage. That marketing could be emails, texts, or phone calls. So moving through those campaigns, you have a lot of different collateral that needs to be written.

When Traffic Comes In, What Happens?

In talking through this macro and micro level campaign layout, imagine you have traffic.

Traffic comes in, and a new lead gets added to your email list. What do you want them to do?  Book a sales call?  Assign a rep to actually call them?  Go through a sales sequence?

On the micro level, they'll start being sent emails, texts, calls, and other email automation-type material.  Those all need to go out. Then the next campaign would fire if they're interested in what it is you have to offer.

When they get on a sales call and say yes, you send them a proposal.

Or if they're not interested, you still want to keep them engaged, so we add them to a nurture sequence. The nurture sequence would consist a selection of blog posts or emails to keep them engaged.

If they are interested, then of course they become a buyer. They pay you money, they become a customer, and they're added to a fulfillment sequence. After they're added to the fulfillment sequence, they get a welcome call, log into their member's area, or have their materials mailed.

Each of these macro-level campaign elements, need to be backed up by the actual creative that fires with the micro level campaign content.

What setting up a CRM, how often should creative go out?

Follow-ups should to be broken down into days, because not everybody checks their email every single day.  You should think about your campaign in terms of what someone will receive from you on each day AFTER they become a lead.

For example:

• Day one, you're sending an email, text and a call.  (3 pieces of collateral that need material for).
• Day two, email, text, call.
• Day three, email, text, call.
• And so on...

If there isn't a response, you put them in the nurture sequence.

You'll be sending a LOT of campaign material from your email automation tools.  You don't want them to forget about you or what it is you're doing. All of that campaign material is really focused on getting somebody to schedule a call. Then, after they schedule the call, you need to be reminded about the call... After the reminders, we break the campaign in the CRM down into a logic switch...  Did they attend the call or didn't they attend the call?  Are they are they interested in what you're selling or are they not interested?

Need Help With Your CRM Setup?

What ends up happening is to get all this done, you need a lot of content...  Specifically, a lot of email to get your CRM setup. Plus you need the sales material, lead magnets, marketing, and all the marketing pages.

There's so much that goes into this marketing automation sales funnel, and we are happy to help work with you through it, starting with an action plan call.

Click here to sign up for an action plan call with us. We will get on, talk about your business, figure out where you're looking to go and what it is you want to build, and we will put together an action plan for that,

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