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My husband Michael, for supporting me and my BIG dreams, and loving me throughout this journey. I wouldn’t be a wife, mother entrepreneur or published author without you by my side. I LOVE you. To my children, Lilly, Harper and Grace – you are my joy – I LOVE you. Grow up and become all that you desire to be. There is no limit to what you can dream about or what you can achieve when you make a goal. I am looking forward to watching you grow throughout all eternity.

My mother Janet and step-father Keith and my Dad Jeff and step-mother Ros for their love, support and guidance over the years. I am grateful to each of you for all you have sacrificed and taught me. To my mother in particular for encouraging me to grow up and become a millionaire – as though it was easy. Jacqui, Rebecca and Jason for helping me grow up strong. I wouldn’t be the same had I not been blessed to grow up with sisters who have become my best of friends, and a brother who chased me around the house with a chainsaw (turned on). I LOVE each of you.

I’d like to thank all members of the Ignite Digital team both past and present. You are each uniquely amazing and I am grateful to know each of you. I am grateful to you for your efforts and for all that you do to serve our customers.

Valerie and Brian it’s a joy to have you in our home. You enrich our lives. Aunt Helen, I love you very much. You have always been a compass in my life. Aunts and uncles who helped shape my life, and cousins that I truly care for (but don’t see very often) – you are each wonderful. Carolyn, David, Bec and Christopher Allen, I wish we lived closer. I miss you all too much. You have each shaped my life. I am grateful to know you.

Tracey Barker and Marianne Broderick, I LOVE you both dearly. I wouldn’t be the woman I am today without you both by my side during my childhood and teenage years! Rachel Fisher, Caroline Stirling and Glen Farebrother, you each mean so much to me. Thank you for your dear friendship, wise counsel and encouragement. I will love you always. Lisa Sully, I am so glad you are my crazy friend. My life wouldn’t be the same without your support, love and encouragement. I LOVE you babe. Simone Thompson, Melanie Martin-Fehlberg, Stephanie Williams, Lauren Hilton, Anika Strahan, Sofia Khan, Nichola Kneeshaw, Kathryn Ward, I love knowing each of you. It has been a joy to see our children grow into good humans as we have become fabulous Mothers. No role in this world is more important than motherhood. Ramptin Sohrabian, Derek Bell, Morgen Boehme, Todd and Sam Rimmer, thank you for being your wonderful selves. I am eternally grateful to each of you. I will love you always. To my KPI accountability group – THANK YOU. I struck gold to be grouped with you. This I know for sure.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Author, Creator and Publisher.

The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only, and does not represent professional advice. It is not intended to provide specific guidance for particular circumstances and it should not be relied on as the basis for any decision to take action or not take action on any matter which it covers. Readers should obtain professional advice where appropriate, before making any such decision. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the author and publisher disclaim all responsibility and liability to any person, arising directly or indirectly from any person taking or not taking action based on the information in this publication.

In the past 15 years there has been an explosion in the number of digital marketing channels available to marketers. Fifteen years ago there were 10 mainstream marketing channels, today there are over 65 mainstream marketing channels, with over 420 social media networks, and this is continually growing as technology and internet adoption grows. Once upon a time you could be an expert in all 10 marketing channels – now that is a fairytale. No one individual can possibly know all the best practice techniques in 65 digital marketing channels. Additionally, I haven’t come across any digital marketing agencies that are experts in all 65 marketing channels. Yes, I do know marketing agencies with capabilities in multiple best practice strategies, however not across the full breadth of marketing channels.

During the past 10 years I have witnessed an increase in the frequency of marketing required by a business to keep top of mind with a customer and to cut through the thousands of marketing messages that individuals are bombarded with on a daily basis. Additionally, I have witnessed firsthand the necessity to create more personalised digital marketing communication automated journeys in order to reach the point of conversion with a prospect or customer.

The use of marketing automation enables businesses to streamline sales and marketing programs by replacing high-touch, repetitive manual marketing with personalised automated solutions. Millions of businesses have achieved increased profits by implementing marketing automation coupled with best practice marketing optimisation techniques.

For Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs), Business Owners and Marketers the goal of marketing automation can seem unachievable. Knowing how to implement the right software, best practice marketing automation strategies, cost-saving techniques, where to invest effort and how to structure resources and assets to keep costs to a minimum while maintaining the momentum of marketing activities can make or break your marketing efforts.

Innovation in marketing is a necessity in order for businesses to succeed. The major innovation required for businesses is to understand the strategic marketing automation journeys that can be created to underpin your company’s everyday manual communications. On top of this, I suggest you create best practice acquisition, conversion and retention communication programs as the cornerstones of your marketing communication plan.

When you have the correct automated customer journey programs in place, you’ll be in a position where you have freed up your resources, time and energy to operate, maintain and focus on your ‘front of mind’ digital campaigns, such as newsletter programs, social marketing, campaign marketing and ad hoc selling-focused marketing.

This book has been written to enlighten you with the best practice techniques to achieve increased results from your conversion marketing. What’s more, you’ll learn the skills required to plan, prioritise and implement automated marketing programs while having the ability to continually add to your marketing automation programs as the business grows, changes direction or adds new products and/or services.

I help CMOs and Marketing Managers every day, one by one. Many of you are facing the same problems: 31% of CMOs and Marketing Managers I surveyed said that they had no idea if they are doing the right thing with their marketing, and 18% said they are concerned about the costs and wasting money. They aren’t confident to spend their company’s marketing budget until they understand more about what they should and shouldn’t do. And 17% are concerned about the momentum of their marketing. How do you keep up with the marketing (newsletters, social posts, website, blog posts) once you start? The commitment and ongoing work is stopping many CMOs and Marketing Managers from moving forward. And 13% said they have tried but not achieved the results that were needed, and as a result have now given up.

So, I know what the issues are, and from this knowledge I have written this book to help you. Yes, you. I’m concerned about you and I want to support you and help you with what I know works in digital marketing automation so that you can become a digital marketing hero.

This book will provide clarity about the key digital marketing automation foundations of conversion marketing. You will know where to invest your budget and where to hold off. I’ll also teach you how to create digital marketing campaigns that align with your company goals and strategy. I’ll include smart ways to develop your marketing assets, how to plan and prioritise your automated marketing, measurement and optimisation techniques, and much, much more. My hope is that this book will enlighten, teach and inspire you, and help you to create AH-Mazing customer journeys through automated digital marketing techniques.

Most of the following chapters address a particular automation program you can use in your business to significantly increase conversion rates. Each of these chapters starts with a discussion of that program, and then examines:

Let’s start by looking at a common type of conversion. We often hear the word ‘conversion’ in reference to religion. Person ‘x’ has converted to religion ‘y’. The individual has confirmed or changed their beliefs through a process of questioning, learning and enlightenment. The speed of conversion may be fast or slow depending on the information encountered by the individual. Sometimes the speed will depend on the individual’s appetite for the new religion or disaffection with the old one; sometimes the speed can be dependent on the number of touchpoints and locations of the content or communications they encounter. Sometimes conversion is impossible, or premature.

In marketing, we also frequently throw around the term ‘conversion’. We are hoping to change person ‘x’ into a paying customer – often by taking them away from another supplier – and then subsequently into a repeat customer. These are ‘conversions’ in marketing.

For the individual, conversion often includes a change in behaviour in addition to a change in nature. Conversion is a process, and also an event. Conversion comes as a result of efforts to do better, to obtain information, to find a new way to do something or a new ideal lifestyle.

There are many steps to converting a prospect into a customer. Additionally, there are possibly many conversion points along the way. Put simply, conversion is getting the individual who has seen your marketing to take the next step or action that you’d like them to take. In its most simple form, conversion is getting the person to respond to your ‘call to action’, to take the next step, to do what you have asked of them to continue to engage with you and your brand.

When a prospect shows interest in your company’s products or services, often they have already undertaken a few steps of conversion. They may have clicked on your pay per click (PPC) advertisement; this is a form of conversion. They may have browsed your company website or landing page, or entered their details into a form to download an informative e-brochure (another form of conversion). They may have then clicked on an email link (another conversion) and then purchased your product from your website (another conversion). Every small step that you have asked them to take, and that they then have taken, is a conversion point.

This book will focus on the best practice marketing automation strategies to convert a prospect into a paying customer. This is the ultimate conversion. It’s the only conversion that I really consider to be a true conversion. The other ‘lead to prospect’ conversions are really a showing of interest. It’s like when you have a business idea and you say to a friend, ‘I’m thinking of starting this business … ’, then you tell them your idea. They agree it’s a great idea and placate you with nice comments about it. The problem is that you then go into business and they don’t buy from you. It’s because they were just being nice. They clearly aren’t willing to put their money where their mouth is. They showed an interest, but then didn’t really convert.

When you have the right conversion strategies in place you will find that you will transact with and convert customers 24 hours a day – automatically. Your sales will build, your reoccurring revenue will build, and you’ll be lauded as a hero within your company.

Over the past 20 years I have specialised in the optimisation of automated marketing programs to drive revenue and engagement for my clients. Having worked with hundreds of businesses of all sizes, I have come to know the right strategies to drive greater results.

I have created the following diagram as a backbone of all the standard best practice marketing automation programs. I have found that when CMOs, Marketing Managers and business owners see this diagram, their first reaction is to be overwhelmed with the sheer number of automated marketing programs. This is a natural reaction. The way to approach this is to focus on implementing the programs that will drive your company revenue the quickest. We often refer to this as the ‘low-hanging fruit’. It is the greatest opportunity for the least amount of effort – AKA ‘quick wins’.

If you plan to be more systematic in your approach, the place to start is conversion marketing. This is the focus on changing a prospect into a customer. Once you have been successful at conversion, the next area of focus should be onboarding marketing, engagement marketing and retention marketing.

This book is focused on only the conversion marketing automation strategies, as detailed in the preceding diagram. Conversion has also been created into an online e-learning Masterclass. The conversion online Masterclass includes video tutorials, program examples, downloadable documents, resources and a private Q&A group.

Conversion marketing automation programs will build prospects’ knowledge, interactions and marketing channels to optimise the opportunity for a purchase. Each program will lead into the next, and if a conversion doesn’t occur, the next program will continue to focus on the opportunity to convert the prospect.

Conversion strategies are most important during the first 12 weeks of a prospect first engaging with your business. All businesses are different, however the following timeline is a good baseline to use when starting with conversion marketing.

Please remember that every business has a different audience. Your prospect and customer demographic, location, age, interests, skills and understanding are unique to your business. The conversion marketing automation strategies in this book will need to be adapted to your unique audience. Test your marketing automation programs to ensure that they are optimised for your audience, then adjust and adapt them to fit your business’s requirements.

TIP

To get the most out of this book, I encourage you to write notes as you read. When you feel inspired, scribble some notes, highlight the text you want to re-read, draw marketing automation diagrams and capture your adaptations for your company requirements. Capture the ideas that inspire you. As you work your way through the e-book, I encourage you to get a notepad or something similar in which you can write down your reflections. It will be very beneficial to have all of your thoughts in one place. There is a ‘Thoughts, notes and ideas’ heading at the end of each chapter, to remind you. Feel free to map out the strategy explained in each chapter to fit it to your organisation.

Welcome emails have the highest open rates of all automated emails. These open rates should be in the region of 60% to 160%. (Open rates over 100% mean that the person is reopening the email to refer back to the content time and time again to read and re-read the information.) If you are not achieving rates within this range, you’re doing something wrong – but, fear not! You’ve come to the right place to learn how to improve this.

In a day when privacy is so very highly valued, it is an honour that this new prospect has given you their personal contact information and has started this relationship with you. Your company has already provided enough value and pertinent information to this person that they have entrusted you with their details. This person has given you this information with the intention of hearing more from you regarding your products, services and ways that you can help them achieve the outcome they are looking for.

These new prospects are your most valuable marketing asset. Each new subscriber has engaged with your brand because they are interested in and researching what you have to offer. The first three to six weeks of your relationship should provide very high interaction rates as this person investigates the products, services and offerings that your company provides. You can expect their attention in this initial engagement. Your job now is to welcome and nurture each individual with the right communication at the right time, to ensure that they have a wonderful experience with your brand and that they decide to purchase from your company as quickly as possible. The earlier you can convert the prospect to a customer, the higher their propensity will be to re-purchase from you on an ongoing basis.

I like to think of prospect marketing as a nursery program. Here we keep our babies, who we treat carefully to educate, develop and convert into customers. We nurture them with everything they need. These individuals are not independent, they are not capable of knowing what to do and what the dangers are, and they are not knowledgeable enough to make informed decisions. By implementing an automated prospect journey you can create the equivalent of a nursery environment where you can teach, nurture and educate to provide the outcome that is right for the individual.

Perhaps your services are a great match and exactly what this individual needs; perhaps they are not. If they are, you want to lead this individual to a purchase. If the products and services are not aligned with what this individual requires, you need to identify that and lead them away from your products and offerings. This may sound strange, however if you sell your product or service to someone who it isn’t right for, you’ll end up with complaints and dissatisfaction, and the outcome could be damaging to your company’s brand.

Additionally, if you come across a prospect with unrealistic expectations, that your company can’t service, it’s best to filter these individuals out and not sell to them. The alternative is multiple phone calls, customer services issues, product complaints, and possible damage to the company brand through a social media or public complaint. You can build your prospect welcome to identify your ideal customers and your not-so-ideal customers. Using data models you can then focus on the conversion of your ideal prospects into customers.

The prospect welcome is the first time you are greeting a new prospect. It’s a little bit like when we walk into a shopping mall and enter a retail store: the sales assistant will greet us. Have you also noticed that they will often mention a special promotion, offer, or make a comment on your hair, clothes or – my favourite – the weather?

How often do you have a shop assistant ask you about the weather? I know they are inside all day long, and that must be hard some days, but every 15 minutes when someone walks into the store they will ask about the weather: ‘Is it still hot outside?’, ‘Is it still raining?’ Do you really think that they are interested in weather updates every 15 minutes? I might be a cynic, but I don’t think that this young person in front of me really cares about the weather on a day when they are not likely to go outside.

Have you ever wondered why they do this? It’s because research has shown that this simple greeting and beginning of the relationship leads to increased sales. This person is simply trying to start a relationship and build up a rapport with you.

After the shop assistant has opened up a conversation with me, I am more likely to ask for help if I need it. I’m also more likely to stay a little longer, browse the merchandise a little longer, and more deeply consider the products on offer.

These are all vital questions to help the assistant narrow down the product or service that this individual needs. However, asked too soon the questions can be offensive or intrusive. But when asked in the right way and at the right time, the questions are not offensive or harmful, they are helpful and lead to the next stage of the purchase process.

Your prospect welcome email is very similar to the preceding process of welcoming a guest into a retail store. I use this as an example because we all shop and are familiar with that scenario. However, for many businesses the first interaction may be a telephone call, a door knock, a flyer, a text subscription, a competition signup or an email.

Regardless of the environment for your first engagement, it’s your first opportunity to communicate with the person on an individual and personalised basis. You now have the opportunity to build on that relationship and increase your rapport with your new prospect.

Creator:	Coombe, Justine, author.
Title:	Conversion.
ISBN:	978-0-9946303-6-0 (paperback)
	978-0-9946303-7-7 (epub)
	978-0-9946303-8-4 (Kindle)
Subjects:	Electronic commerce –Management.
	Marketing – Management.
	Internet marketing – Australia.
Dewey Number:	658.872