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How To Keep Marketing Personal In The Age of Automation

This article is more than 9 years old.

These days, it seems like everything is automated. Thanks to companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Pandora, the world has become more and more accustomed to buying and using products and services without ever having to talk to an actual human being. As consumer expectations have evolved, so has business.

To survive in business today, you have to be willing and able to adopt technology and processes that boost efficiency. Things have to move fast if you want to meet the needs and demands of customers. That’s why in the business world we’re using marketing automation more than ever before. It’s the only way to keep up with expectations and demands.

But if you want to truly grow your business and take things to the next level, you can’t just focus on automation. You have to also commit to keeping things personal—especially when it comes to your marketing efforts.

Compelling Research

Despite the fact that the entire world is obsessed with using technology to streamline every aspect of life, the truth is, at the end of the day, people still ultimately like doing business with people. According to a recent guide published by Help Scout:

  • 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated.
  • In the last year, 67% of customers have hung up the phone out of frustration they could not talk to a real person.
  • In 2011, 86% of consumers quit doing business with a company because of a bad customer experience
  • 3 in 5 Americans (59%) would try a new brand or company for a better service experience.

As a business owner, you have to remember to keep the human side of your business alive as you adopt and integrate new processes that streamline parts of your business. Because the way you interact, sell, onboard, and market to your prospects and customers still matters.

Helpful Tools To Help Keep Things Personal

When it comes to implementing tools that help you automate your marketing efforts, you have to choose wisely. Not all tools are created equal. The best tools out there are the ones that make it easy and possible for you to continue giving people the royal treatment. Because that’s what people are wanting and expecting from companies now more than ever before.

I think Gary Vaynerchuk says it best here:

“You have to be no less than a customer concierge, doing everything you can to make every one of your customers feel acknowledged, appreciated, and heard. You have to make them feel special, just like when your great-grandmother walked into Butcher Bob’s shop or bought her new hat, and you need to make people who aren’t your customers wish they were.” — Gary Vaynerchuk, “The Thank You Economy

Fortunately, there are a lot of great tools out there that give you the opportunity to automate your marketing efforts while still keeping things personal. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Intercom: Intercom is a tool that can not only show you who is using your product, but it also makes it easy to personally communicate with them through targeted, behavior-driven email and in-app messages. With the app in place, you can reach any one of your customers in a matter of seconds and send them a personalized messages to get them the help they need. It’s a great example of an automation tool that makes scaling your business while keeping the human aspect of business alive possible.

2. Streak: Streakis essentially a CRM tool for Gmail. We use it at When I Work as a way to personally connect with people who might be interested in sharing our content or sharing insight in our blog posts. With Streak, you can automate your emails, but you’re still able address recipients by name and include relevant details specific to each person. Instead of sending all the emails at once, this Chrome extension sends out each email individually, which makes things seem even more personal.

3. Buffer: Buffer is a social media management tool. It’s unlike other social media management tools in that it actually makes it easy to confirm that you’re actually tagging (@ mentioning) the right people in the tweets you to schedule to publish at a later time. It’s similar to other social media management tools in that it allows you to schedule your updates to go live when your followers are actually listening. Both features make it the clear winner for an app that can automate your social media efforts but still make it seem like someone from your team is present and available to interact with interested followers. If you’re looking for another great social media monitoring tool to add to your arsenal, try Mention. It’s different than Buffer and definitely worth checking out.

4. MailLift: MailLift is a handwritten letter service for sales professionals and marketing teams. With this app, you set a template, select recipients, and customize any other details to make your handwritten letter stand out. Then an actual person handwrites your letter for you, and MailLift sends it out on your behalf. When it comes to saying thanks, nothing comes close to a handwritten letter, especially these days. It’s a great way to make your customers feel like they are getting special, personal attention from you even as your business continues to grow.

Effective Strategies To Keep The Human Side of Your Marketing Efforts Alive

It is possible to keep marketing personal in the age of automation. If you’re feeling inspired and want to make some changes, start by following these recommendations:

1. Ditch automated “no reply” emails and replace them with emails from an actual person on your team. Your prospects aren’t expecting they’ll get to talk to an actual person. Surprise them.

2. Send personalized, handwritten thank you cards to each new customer you acquire. Go the extra mile to show them how much you value them as a customer.

3. Pay attention and react to your social analytics. Before you can use software to schedule your social media posts, you have to know when your followers are actually active and listening.

4. Always make it your goal to help solve the problems your customers have, from the moment they first engage with you. This one is important. You can’t convert people if you can’t prove to them that you can help them in some way. If you want to really dive into this concept, listen to this podcast. It’ll help steer you in the right direction.

5. Be transparent.

Give your customers opportunities to get to know you and the people who work for you better. It’ll help you boost customer loyalty and differentiate from competition.

6. Make sure your customers know they can reach out to you in a number of ways. Make sure they know that real people are listening and where they can reach them when they need help.

What other tools, strategies, or advice do you have for keeping marketing personal? Leave a comment for me below.

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