Common Marketing Automation Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)

Are you making some common marketing automation mistakes? We’ve got solutions to help you recover and get back on track.

Making mistakes is part of learning and improving. You can’t achieve success without taking risks sometimes.

That being said, it’s worth regularly examining your marketing automation strategy to see if there’s room for improvement. When organization’s are experiencing problems with marketing automation, sometimes it’s because they’re not using it to best effect.

Knowing what you’re doing wrong is a vital part of learning how to do something well!

So let’s dive into the most common marketing automation mistakes and how you can fix them.

Starting without a plan.

One of the most common marketing automation mistakes is winging it. There’s nothing wrong with initially exploring the features in your marketing automation platform to see what it can do. But when it’s time to implement an automated email marketing campaign, you have to start with a plan. If you don’t have a plan, your marketing automation campaign may end up too generic or disjointed.

Before you start blasting out emails, take the time to develop your content strategy. Fully understand your campaign goals and your target marketing persona(s). Then, brainstorm the strategies you think will engage those personas.

Here’s a quick checklist of things to ask yourself:

• What is the goal of the campaign and/or what action are you asking members to take?
• How are you defining success for this campaign?
• Who should get the campaign/what member segment(s)?
• Will subscribers be added at once or over time?
• How long should the campaign run?
• Is there a hard deadline for completion? If so, what is the date?
• How many emails should be in the campaign? Define the timing between each email.
• Is there a follow up opportunity (abandoned action, resend to nonopeners, etc)? If yes, define and create the appropriate follow up content.
• Should a sign-up form or landing page be part of the flow? If so, what is the URL?
• List name of email messages built for campaign.
• How will you measure the results?

Not integrating with your database.

Probably the biggest marketing automation problem is not using member data. Data is the fuel for marketing automation – the more integrated your technology, the more fuel you have available. Your marketing automation software needs to be integrated with your database (AMS, CRM) at the very least. Even better, when you connect your marketing software with other platforms like your online community, job board, LMS, and more, you have even more data to work with.

Without robust integrations, you won’t be able to create personalized experiences based on your knowledge of member interest, demographics, and behavior. Thus, you won’t be getting the full value from your investment.

Continuing to batch and blast.

The true value of marketing automation isn’t exactly in the “automation.” Sure, you could use your marketing automation platform to just pre-schedule the same old batch emails. But you’re going to get better results if you use automation to personalize the member experience. Explore and use the full array of features your marketing automation platform offers.

Gather behavioral data with web tracking and engagement scoring. Create targeted messaging with dynamic content. Explore ways to segment and personalize based on subscriber needs and interests.

Our tip: Segmented lists (with less than 500 subscribers) perform much better, with higher opens and clicks than giant, unsegmented lists. Check out a list of other email strategies that impact performance in our Association Email Benchmark Report.

Setting it and forgetting it.

Some say one of the benefits of marketing automation is that you can “set it and forget it.” But that can create problems for your marketing automation strategy. Marketing automation does save you time by automating manual tasks, but you still need to be the guiding force for your campaigns.

You should regularly evaluate how your campaigns are performing, checking metrics like opens, clicks, and conversion rates.

Limiting usage to only one department.

Like we said, your marketing automation platform is an investment. One of the quickest ways to increase the return on that investment is to figure out how to use the software across departments, not just on your marketing team. Though the marketing or membership team will likely own the software, look for opportunities to connect with other departments to help streamline their work.

Would your event or education team benefit from automated promotional campaigns? Could you set up a behavioral trigger that notifies members when they’re eligible for a certification and sends a notification email? There are tons of opportunities.

Our tip: Maintain cross-communication with other departments to ensure your campaigns are accurate and cohesive.

Ignoring performance metrics.

Open, click, unsubscribe, and deliverability metrics are important because they help you understand whether your email content is engaging. Avoid the marketing automation mistake of never checking your data.

When your performance metrics are low, they serve as important indicators of things you may need to adjust. And even if your performance indicators are where you want them to be, don’t stop there – test new tactics to see if you can keep improving.

Not optimizing or testing.

Testing your content is how you find what really resonates with your audience. You should run A/B tests on your subject lines, calls-to-action (CTAs), images, email design, “friendly from,” and really anything you think could improve your engagement.

Our tips:

• Personalize the “friendly from.” People prefer to receive emails from real humans instead of NoReply@….
• Optimize your send-time, to make sure your emails go to your subscribers at the time they’re most likely to read them.
• Do you know where your subscribers read your emails? Test how your emails look on different devices and design them responsively, especially if they commonly read them on their phones. (Tools like Email on Acid can help.)

Forgetting to check whether contacts in active workflows overlap.

Getting a double email from an organization once is okay, but if it keeps happening it gets annoying fast. Avoid being that person by double-checking your mailing lists so that contacts aren’t receiving multiple emails.

Our tip: Do a list purge from time to time so that you’re suppressing any unengaged contacts from your email sends. This will improve your metrics and keep those subscribers happy.

Neglecting to optimize email design.

The phrase “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” doesn’t apply to email design. That doesn’t mean your emails need to be winning any design awards. Email design should be optimized for clarity and accessibility. Recipients can’t take the actions you want them to take if they can’t read your message because the font is too small on their phone or they don’t see the link.

When creating your emails, review current email design trends and best practices.

You can also use your marketing automation platform’s inbox test or deliverability test to to understand how your email will render across different email clients before sending.

You’ve Got This! And Higher Logic is Here to Help.

Mastering marketing automation is a journey that requires the right strategy, tools, and ongoing optimization. By recognizing and addressing common automation mistakes, you can build campaigns that are more personalized, engaging, and effective. With the right approach, marketing automation becomes a powerful engine for growth, allowing you to foster stronger relationships with your audience and drive long-term success.

And, if you’re looking for more resources to help improve your marketing strategy, we’ve got you covered…