How to Keep Your Marketing Going for Summer Using Automation

Keeping up with your marketing over the summer months can be a challenge. It can seem like everyone's on vacation with their toes in the sand while you're trying to make a meaningful connection. And it's not just your audience that's soaking up rays - your team is probably out more than normal too. 

When your team is out having fun, marketing can still get done. Here's how to use automation to keep marketing moving all summer long.

Automation vs. Scheduling

A quick note before we get into the (yummy grilled) meat of the post: this post is focused on automation, not scheduling! Although these two marketing tactics are very similar and are sometimes used interchangeably, they are very different.

Scheduling is creating content or tasks in advance that are executed later, on specific dates. Scheduling your content - such as blogs, emails, and social media posts - is a great way to ensure a consistent content schedule during summer vacations. For example, you might write three blogs in June and schedule them throughout the entire summer, rather than writing a blog each month. (Just be careful your posts are evergreen and not too timely so they don't get stale.)

Automation uses tools to ensure that specific, routine tasks are executed without a human needing to metaphorically "push a button" each time. This includes things like updating data properties, sending specific emails in a sequence or creating task reminders. I'll go into more detail below on how you can use automation during the summer months. 

You'll want to use both scheduling and automation this summer for peak effectiveness. 

Nurture Leads with Automated Communications

When a lead takes an action like filling out a form, viewing a specific page or requesting a demo, you want to make sure you check back consistently. You'll still want a team member to follow up with them manually, but you can utilize automation to ensure that leads are not ignored and are nurtured toward the next step in your sales process. 

Use automation to send emails based on specific actions. Examples include:

• Abandoned cart emails - In eCommerce stores, when a user adds items to their cart but doesn't purchase, they receive an automated email prompting them to complete their purchase. This is a great opportunity to include a coupon or discount code.
• Related-content emails - When a user does something on your site, such as visiting a service page or completing a download - use automation to send them a follow-up email with related, relevant content. 
• Next-action emails - Depending on your marketing and sales process, you may have a desired next step for users to take based on a previous action. For example, when a real estate company wants users to set up a profile after joining an online portal, they automatically send instructions when a new user joins the portal.

These are just some ways to nurture leads through automation. For more ideas, check out 5 Essential HubSpot Workflows to Copy & 5 More Essential HubSpot Workflows to Copy.

Repurpose and Distribute Content

Work smarter, not harder by repurposing the content you already have through automation. Take high-value and high-performing downloads, blogs and videos and splice them up into assets that can be used across different channels, like ads, social posts, SMS and more.

To automate this process, HubSpot users can employ the Content Remix tool available in HubSpot's Content Hub. If you're not sure if your account has access to this tool, contact our HubSpot team - we can check your access for free and with no obligation to work with us.

Related Content: What is HubSpot's New Content Hub?

Automate Marketing-to-Sales Handoff

One key way to ensure that marketing doesn't slide off over the summer is to make sure you have automation set up for lead scoring, handoffs, and data capture. This can include:

• Automating lead scoring - Automatically score leads as marketing-qualified or sales-qualified based on set criteria - for example, company industry or user activity.
• Set activities based on lead status - As leads engage with your content, use automation to set handoff tasks. High-value actions might trigger a sales handoff. For example, a software company might set automation based on a user signing up for a demo. After the user signs up, automated task reminders go out to the sales team to connect with the user on LinkedIn and email to schedule a meeting.
• Automate quoting - Use automation tools to collect signatures and payments automatically so that deals can continue through the sales process even if a team member is on vacation. HubSpot users can use the built-in quoting tool to set up automation and connect with tools from other Hubs.
• Set up reminders - It's easy for tasks to slip through the cracks when your team is on vacation. Use automation to help remind them of lead and deal statuses, upcoming meetings and/or to-dos. This helps refresh team members in a genuinely helpful way so they can stay on top of leads and deals. 

Another way to automate handoffs is by using the HubSpot Sales Prospecting Workplace, available for Sales Hub Professional and Enterprise. This workspace highlights routine activities that can be easily converted into automated tasks.

Keep Communication Going 

Even with summer in full swing, you want to maintain consistent communication with your existing audience. Automation lets you keep communication consistent, but not invasive.

For example - use automation to remind your audience about upcoming events through emails or SMS marketing. You can also use automation for upcoming appointment reminders, to send discount codes to unengaged users and other routine communication. 

Tapping into the power of automation is a great way to hack your productivity and ensure marketing doesn't slow down when key team members are out of the office. To unlock automation, you need to be using the right tools. Are you making the most out of your marketing with an intelligent marketing tool?

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