Author: Franz Malten Buemann

 

 

Buy now, pay later purchase model is nothing new, but somehow now is booming, and the steady increase of its market share at a CAGR of 13.23% is expected. The consumers demand it, as research shows, and the e-commerce entities are especially obliged. At the same time, it provides the retailers with chances to increase revenue, again, especially e-commerce. What exactly is it, why is it booming, and how can you benefit?

 

Payment method is one of the most important factors in the purchase process. And the latest e-commerce booming made the customers used to choose in this matter. Unlike in the case of stationary shopping, clearly visible options are a part of the interface, necessary to navigate in order to finish the purchase process. Customers have to choose consciously. And they begin to wonder if they could be provided with even more choices. 

 

This can be seen as a drawback because, in the case of stationary shopping, the clients are not exposed to this choice in such an apparent way. The other side however is, that the consumers tend to visit the stationary shop when their purchase decision is more or less made up and the funds somehow secured. In the case of e-commerce, your site is available at any given moment for the users, and they are often just browsing. BNPL model in e-commerce enables you to convert watchers to customers, even if they don’t have the funds secured at the moment. When they show engagement in the product, all it takes is providing them with a flexible payment method.

 

Right now, there are more ways to pay online than ever in the history of e-commerce. Customers may choose trusted Visa or Mastercard, others will go with Apple Pay, PayPal or use one of the many other digital wallets.

 

Lately, more and more of them decide to choose one of the buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) operators. 55.8% of consumers have used BNPL service, up from 37.65% in July of 2020 – an increase of almost 50% in less than one year.

 

The background of BNPL services

 

What BNPL services are, where did they come from

 

“Buy now, pay later is not a new concept, but as with anything, timing is everything,” said Doug Bland, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Global Credit at PayPal. BNPL was around for many years now is known by many names: installment payments, shop now pay later, pay in 4, or deferred billing. 

 

No matter the names, it always boils down to the fact that in this model, the customers can make the purchase, have the product delivered at the doorstep, but the full payment will be significantly delayed. Installment payments are usually paid in 3, 4, 6, or 12 months.

 

This is how it looks from the customer’s side. What is extremely important for e-commerce, is that the brand is paid full upfront by the BNPL operator. So it is a win-win situation for both sides. 

 

The most interesting BNPL platforms

 

Klarna

 

A Swedish bank and one of the most prominent players in the BNPL market, operating in almost 20 countries. Offers two ways to make repayments:

Slice it. Payment is divided into four weekly installments
Pay Later. Full bill delayed by 30 days.

 

For qualified consumers the payments are interest-free.

 

Affirm

 

Aids in financing purchases of all sizes. Usually payments are divided into weeks or months, and are interest-free. More significant purchases may be divided into 6 up to 18 months and are interest-bearing. 

 

The company charges no fees, including late and repayment.

 

Quadpay

 

The platform enables the consumers to divide the payment into 4 installments paid over 6 weeks. 

 

The retailers don’t have to install Quadpay in their checkouts. The company provides users with their own Quadpay Visa card number, so the tool is available anywhere Visa is accepted.

 

Sezzle

 

No fees and no impact for the credit card for the consumers paying in time. The payments can be divided into 4 installments paid over 6 weeks. They are interest-free.

 

Afterpay

 

The platform differs strongly between new users, reliable and unreliable users. They approve the user for every purchase, favoring those who previously used the service and paid on time. Interest-free purchase is divided into 4 installments paid every 2 weeks. Delay results in a 10 USD fee, with a further 7 USD for every week.

 

The reasons why BNPL options are gaining popularity

 

The aforementioned words of Douglas Bland about timing being everything are especially important to explain the phenomenon of the latest BNPL growth. The aftermath of the pandemic changed the consumers’ expectations and preferences. Uncertainty around the employment and finances drives them to spread out the costs of all purchases, not only the large ones, and to seek responsible ways to finance the purchase. They seek flexibility and predictability. What they don’t want is incurring interest and credit card negative rating impact.

 

This option is especially attractive to the younger consumers, used to the subscription model of D2C and product-as-a-service. Monthly fees for streaming services or curated goods are a norm for customers under the age of 30. No wonder, that such consumers form a third of PayPal’s Pay in 4 clients. A study from Netfluential and PayPal showed that 28% of consumers between ages 18-39 would more likely shop again at a merchant that provides them with BNPL possibilities. 32% would make purchases they would’ve otherwise postponed. BNPL clearly means the future.

 

So why don’t the Millenials and Gen Z consumers use their credit cards instead? After all, a recent Forrester study, commissioned by PayPal, found that “48% of those in Generation Z (between the ages of 18-22) report they are comfortable or extremely comfortable using credit. An even greater number of younger millennials (ages 23-29) and older millennials (ages 30-39) report feeling the same way, to the tune of 60% and 69%, respectively”.

 

Young consumers are not reluctant to credit seen as debt or responsibility to actually have money in upcoming months to pay their dues.  It is the possibility of having no interest for a period of time that drives them towards BNPL services. It is also much simpler and exposes the consumer to no risk, as no credit card number is being asked during a purchase process.

 

The benefits of offering BNPL method – why you should apply it to your eCommerce

 

As it turns out from the aforementioned surveys, BNPL is a preferred payment method for the incoming future. And although installment payments come with a fee, sometimes larger than those of Visa or Mastercard, in this case, the pros easily outweigh the cons. The most important pros are:

 

Increasing sales

 

Often the consumers, browsing your site and showing their engagement in the products, are ready to make the purchase. Lack of funds is all that holds them down. If they are certain that they will be able to pay in the next few weeks, with payday over the horizon, they are very likely to switch from watchers to buyers. Especially if your goods are on the expensive side, you will see the conversion rising.

 

Keeping up with the competition 

 

It is estimated that by 2025 BNPL payments transaction volume will increase to 680 billion USD, with a CAGR of 13.23% from 2018. Your competition is probably already implementing this method.

 

Attracting new customers

 

This is the most probable way your sales will increase. Not only will you convert more watchers into customers. You will also attract the customers actively seeking the stores offering the BNPL payment method.  As the aforementioned survey shows, there are many, especially among Millenials and Gen Z consumers.

 

Providing convenient financing solution

 

For many consumers, BNPL is a much more affordable method than a credit card. In addition, it is also safer, as no credit card number or billing address is required. For this reason, the checkout is also much smoother.

 

Decreasing cart abandonment

 

Baymard Institute survey shows that 6% of cart abandonments are caused by the lack of payment options. Considering how many users now pay closer attention to the BNPL method, your cart abandonments should go down if you decide to integrate it into your website.

 

To sum up

 

The new consumers are looking for responsible ways to spend their money, care about their credit ratings and the security of purchase. They demand choice, flexibility, convenience and are perfectly fine with debt. They just don’t want incurring interest. These consumers are valuable now and will be even more in their forties and later. 

 

BNPL effectively answers these needs. As an e-commerce entity, you are especially obliged to provide them with a choice. Incorporating the BNPL method, you will increase not only the advantage over the direct competition. You will also deepen the advantage over the traditional retail, not only enabling the customer to buy from home, and delivering the product at their doorstep but also letting them pay later, without endangering precious credit card rating.

 

You need people who you can email, and you need them quickly. Oh, and if you could get them pretty cheap, that’d be great, too.
That’s the mindset many marketers find themselves in when they’re on the phone with a list-purchasing company: We need new people to email to support our sales team. Acting on that moment of desperation, however, can cause more harm than good.

Yes, thousands of contacts are a credit card swipe away, but your email marketing program — a critical part of a well-rounded inbound marketing strategy — can seriously suffer. Curious why buying email lists is a legitimate email marketer’s kiss of death? Read on.
Plus, we’ll give you a list of squeaky-clean and effective ways to build your email marketing list without simply buying one.
Methods of Acquiring an Email List
Before we get into the pitfalls of buying email addresses, let’s review three ways marketers are currently able to acquire their email lists:
1. Buy an email list.
You work with a list provider to find and purchase a list of names and email addresses based on demographic and/or psychographic information. For example, you might purchase a list of 50,000 names and email addresses of people who live in Minnesota and don’t have children. There are several sustainable ways to use email marketing to grow your business. This isn’t one of them.
2. Rent an email list.
Also working with a list provider, you identify a segment of people to email — but you never actually own the list. As such, you can’t see the email addresses of the people you’re emailing, so you must work with the provider to send out your email.
3. Own an opt-in email list.
Someone voluntarily gives you their email address either online or in-person so you can send them emails. They may pick certain types of email content they wish to receive, like specifically requesting email alerts when new blog posts are published. Opt-in email addresses are the result of earning the interest and trust of your contacts because they think you have something valuable to say.
When it comes to rented or purchased lists, you may come across vendors or marketers who say, “This email list is totally opt-in!” This means the people on the list opted in to email communication from someone at some point in time — the list provider, for example — by filling out a form or checking a box to receive more content from that provider.
What “opt-in” lists don’t mean, however, is that email recipients opted in to receive email communications from your business. This is a critical distinction, and the next section of this post will go into more detail on why this type of “opt-in email list” (should be read with air quotes) is not a good idea for your email marketing program.

1. You’ll violate the rules of consent under GDPR.
Most email marketers around the world are legally required to allow recipients to opt out of emails they no longer want to receive. Contacts must be able to do this directly in the email message. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a European data privacy act that doubles down on the opt-in side of this relationship — and found that purchased email lists are simply not compliant.
GDPR has revamped numerous aspects of a digital marketer’s use of customer data throughout Europe — on a website, in social media, and via email. You don’t even have to work in Europe to fall under the act’s jurisdiction; if your recipients live in Europe, they’re protected by GDPR.
With GDPR now governing all email correspondence across Europe, adding an opt-out option to your email template no longer cuts it. Under this act, you must have explicit consent from your contacts to send them emails. Explicit, in this case, means the checkbox a person must click to opt into an email subscription isn’t pre-checked when they see it on your website. And when you buy your email lists, the people on it haven’t been given this option — making you non-compliant with GDPR before you send your first email.
Want some non-legal reasons to avoid the purchased email list? We’ve got those as well, below.
2. Reputable email marketing services don’t let you send emails to lists you’ve bought.
If you’re using email marketing software or plan to in the future, you’ll find that reputable companies will insist that you use opt-in email lists. You might be saying, “I’ll just use a non-reputable email marketing vendor.”
Alas, ESPs on shared IP addresses that don’t require customers to use opt-in email lists typically suffer poor deliverability. Why? One customer’s ill-gotten email address list can poison the deliverability of the other customers on that shared IP address. You’re going to want to hitch your wagon to the light side of the email marketing force if you want your emails to actually get into inboxes.
3. Good email address lists aren’t for sale.
Unless your company is in the middle of a merger or acquisition, you’re not going to come across a high-quality email list you can purchase. If it’s for sale, it means the email addresses on it have already been deemed non-responsive or unqualified for marketing outreach.
While bought email addresses might’ve at one time had value, they’ve likely been spammed to the ends of the earth — otherwise, they’d still be in the desiring hands of the company selling them. Think about it, would you sell or share the email addresses of those who have voluntarily opted in to receive email from you?
4. People on a purchased or rented list don’t know you.
I referenced this earlier, but it’s worth going into some more detail on this subject. Rented and purchased lists are sometimes scraped from other websites, which, I think we can all agree, is a dirty way to acquire email marketing contacts.
But let’s say the email addresses you’re looking to purchase were not taken from another site but rather earned legitimately. Email list purchase and rental companies might tout that those lists are “opt-in.” Sounds great, right?
Not really. Email addresses that belong to an “opt-in” list have opted to receive emails from, say, the list-purchasing company — not your company. Even if the opt-in process includes language like, “Opt-in to receive information from us, or offers from other companies we think you might enjoy,” the fact is the recipient doesn’t recall having a prior relationship with you, specifically. This makes it highly likely for the recipients to mark you as “spam” when you arrive in their inboxes. Hey, if they don’t recognize you or remember opting into communications from you … can you blame them?
​​After all, the most prevalent type of spam is advertising-related email — accounting for approximately 36% of all spam messages.
This takes us to our next point.
5. You’ll harm your email deliverability and IP reputation.
Did you know there are organizations dedicated to combating email spam? Thank goodness, right? They set up a little thing called a honeypot, which is a planted email address that, when harvested and emailed, identifies the sender as a spammer. Similarly, things called spam traps can be created to identify spammy activity; they’re set up when an email address yields a hard bounce because it’s old or no longer valid, but still receives consistent traffic. Fishy, eh?
As a result, the email address turns into a spam trap that stops returning the hard bounce notice, and instead accepts the message and reports the sender as a spammer.
If you purchase a list, you have no way of confirming how often those email addresses have been emailed, whether the email addresses on that list have been scrubbed for hard bounces to prevent identifying you as a spammer, or from where those email addresses originated.
Are you really willing to risk not only your email deliverability, but also the reputation of your IP address and your company? Even if you find the light after purchasing or renting email lists and decide to only email those who have opted in with your company, it’ll take you months (or maybe years) to get your Sender Score up and rebuild the reputation of your IP.
6. You can come across as annoying.
How do you like it when you get an email in your inbox from a company you’ve never heard of? I bet that’s not the kind of company you want to buy from or work for.
If someone didn’t ask to hear from you, it doesn’t mean they won’t want to hear from you later. It’s your job to prove to them — through helpful content and valuable offers — that they should stay up to date with your company via email. If you force your email content on anyone too early, even if you know in your bones they’re a great fit for your products or services, you risk preemptively losing their trust and their future business.
7. Your email service provider can penalize you.
Buying email lists doesn’t just damage your deliverability and brand reputation — it can also put your email account at risk. Email clients like Gmail, Yahoo!, and Outlook don’t want to be associated with accounts that recipients repeatedly flag as spam. Email service providers like AWeber go as far as immediately closing your account if it suspects you’re sending unwanted content.
If these consequences are too daunting, we came up with some alternatives to paid email lists that’ll gain your customers’ interests.
Paid Email List Alternatives
1. Shift your outbound marketing strategy to inbound.
Buying email lists is another form of outbound marketing — it’s the method that pushes messaging out to potential customers. Not only is it costly, but it doesn’t guarantee a higher ROI as a result.
When you shift your strategy to inbound marketing, you’re repositioning your business to build brand awareness and customer relationships through content creation and social media tactics.
2. Conduct lead generation campaigns.
Lead generation is the process of attracting prospects to your business and nurturing their interests with the goal of making them into customers. This can be achieved through effective marketing campaigns with enticing call-to-actions.
Some examples of lead gen campaigns include:

Sharing blog posts with informational content
Promoting product offerings across social media channels
Offering product trials or coupons that lead to your landing page

Your business can get creative with campaigns to better engage your audience, especially with our next point in mind.
3. Show thought leadership through your content.
With the content your business shares to an audience, you have the ability to display thought leadership. This tactic is used in content marketing to build trust and gain credibility in your field.
To become a thought leader, your business needs to display brand helpfulness through informative content like tutorials, listicles, and other posts that help your target audience learn something new.
If you want to use both email marketing while implementing these alternatives, read on to see how to do it right.
How to Grow an Opt-In Email List for Free
Now that you’ve learned a few ways to acquire email lists, let’s explore how you can acquire them through the third method stated earlier in this article — the opt-in method.
Generating your own list of email contacts who have opted in to receive content from you doesn’t just comply with legal regulations and protect your brand reputation. It also presents you with opportunities to grow this list through genuine relationships with new customers. We’ve already written about clever ways to go about doing this, which you can check out here. But, below are the basic best practices that have a very big bang for their buck when it comes to consistently growing an email list.
1. Create gated assets so there’s a reason for people to give you their email address.
Webinars, ebooks, templates, etc. — these are all good long-form, premium content assets that people may find valuable enough to give over their email address. The more gated assets you have to put behind landing pages, the better — a wider variety of content will make it easier for you to attract a wider swath of people.
2. Create useful tools.
If ebooks aren’t your jam, create tools instead. I don’t recommend a one-or-the-other approach, but if you have more development talent than writing talent, this may be a more attractive option for you. These tools can be valuable enough to some of your website visitors that they’ll trade you their email address for a free demo of the product you built. Then, for your first email, ask them what they thought of the tool. It’s the perfect icebreaker.
For example, we created Website Grader — which is free to use, but prompts you to input an email address. We also took a similar approach to a more recent tool, the Blog Topic Generator.
3. Promote those gated assets on your marketing channels.
Now that you have some gated assets that can capture email addresses, spend a considerable amount of time making sure the world knows about them. You have plenty of channels at your disposal — social media, PPC, and email are common ones to turn to. But, none will provide lasting returns quite like your blog. Consider this scenario:
You promote your new gated assets by blogging about subject matters related to the content assets you’ve created. Put CTAs that lead to the asset’s landing page on every one of those blog posts.
Now let’s say your blog posts get about 100 views per month, and your visitor-to-lead conversion rate on the blog is about two percent. That means you’d get two leads from a single blog post each month.
Then, let’s say you write 30 blog posts a month. That means you’d get 60 leads in a month — two from each blog post. Now keep doing that for a year. The work you did to blog that first month will continue to drive leads throughout the year. That means you’re actually getting 4,680 opt-in contacts a month by the end of 12 months because of the compounding effects of blogging — not just 720 opt-in contacts (60 leads*12 months).

4. Run creative email marketing campaigns.
Most people don’t think of email as a lead- or contact-generating channel. But because people forward helpful emails to colleagues or friends, it can expand your database if you simply make forwarding or sharing email content easy for recipients. Include calls-to-action in your emails that make sharing an obvious choice for recipients, particularly with your most useful assets.
If you already have a pretty large database, you also likely have some contacts that have gone quite stale. If so, I recommend running a re-engagement campaign that can help you both scrub your list and prevent the kind of spam and IP issues I addressed earlier, as well as reawaken old contacts that might have forgotten about you, but would actually be great fits for sales.
5. Include sharing buttons in your emails.
Consider adding share buttons to your email so your email recipients can forward the emails they liked most to friends and colleagues they think would like it, too.
Have a few different buttons on your email template: separate social media buttons that produce pre-written social posts linking to a webpage version of your email, and an “Email to a Friend” button that transfers the email into a compose window so your contacts can instantly forward the message. Just make sure your email has an opt-in button so each new viewer can subscribe to more emails from you if they like what they see.
Attract Customers without Breaking the Bank
There’s already plenty of noise your business has to break through to get to your customers — so don’t let your paid email marketing efforts end in their spam box. Instead, we hope you use this article to devise a strategy to attract prospects with impressive content, assets, and tools that nurture them from leads to customer advocates.
This article was originally published in July 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Like many of the people who currently work in the industry, digital marketing was born in the 1990s. Since then, the industry has evolved at breakneck speed, sprouting many more types of marketing.
From search engine marketing to account-based marketing, every brand can use a combination of these tactics to attract its target audience and bring in more revenue.
Read on to learn about the top types of marketing around today.

Types of Marketing
1. Traditional Marketing
Traditional marketing refers to brand promotion on offline channels that were around before the rise of the internet. Think billboards, flyers, and radio spots.
Because information wasn’t as easily accessible and readily available, the majority of traditional marketing relied on outbound tactics such as print, television ads, and billboards.
2. Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing refers to intrusive promotion, such as cold calling, email blasts to purchased lists, and print ads.
This marketing method is called “outbound” because it involves pushing a message out to consumers to raise awareness on your products or services — regardless of consumer interest.
3. Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is focused on attracting customers rather than interrupting them. The majority of inbound marketing tactics fall under digital marketing, as consumers are empowered to do research online as they progress through their own buyer’s journey.
Inbound is built on three pillars: Attract, engage, and delight. Your initial goal is to create valuable content and experiences that resonate with your audience and attract them to your business.
The next is to engage them through conversational tools like email marketing and chat bots, and of course continued value. Finally, you delight them by continuing to act as an empathetic advisor and expert.
4. Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is the opposite of traditional marketing, leveraging technology that didn’t exist traditionally to reach audiences in new ways. This type of marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that live online.
Businesses leverage digital channels, such as search engines, social media, email, and websites to connect with current and prospective customers.

5. Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing, or SEM, includes all strategies used to ensure your business is visible on search engine results pages (SERPs). With SEM, you can get your business in the number one spot when a user searches a particular keyword.
The two types of SEM are search engine optimization (SEO) for organic search results and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for sponsored search engine results.
To get started with SEO, you must familiarize yourself with search engine ranking factors and produce content for search engines to index.
Pay-per-click SEM involves bidding on keywords to get your ads placed, through platforms like Google Ads. There are also ads management tools to make creating and managing PPC campaigns a breeze.

6. Content Marketing
Content marketing is a key instrument in inbound and digital marketing because it’s one of the best ways to attract your target audiences.
It involves creating, publishing, and distributing content to your target audience through free and gated channels, such as social media platforms, blogs, videos, ebooks, and webinars.
With content marketing, the goal is to help your audience along their buyer’s journey. First, identify common FAQs and concerns your buyers have before they are ready to make a purchase.
Then, create an editorial calendar to help you create and manage your content. It also helps to have a content management system (CMS) to make publishing easy.

7. Social Media Marketing
With platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, brands can promote their business and engage with audiences on a more personal basis.
However, with social media, two things are key to success: relevant content and consistency.
No one logs on to social media looking for something to purchase, it’s important to balance promotion with entertainment. Compelling images and captions that encourage your audience to like, share and comment will bring your brand that much closer to gaining a customer.
Now onto consistency – it’s what keeps your followers coming back. How can they get invested in your brand if they rarely see it on their timeline? To make publishing content across platforms easy, there are a number of social media tools that automate the process.

8. Video Marketing
According to a 2021 Wyzowl study, 87% of marketers say using video in their marketing strategy has a positive ROI. Whether it’s for your website, YouTube channel, email list, and/or social media following, video can boost brand awareness, generate conversions, and close deals.
Some video marketing apps even allow you to analyze, nurture, and score leads based on their activity.

9. Voice Marketing
Voice marketing is leveraging smart speakers like Amazon Alexa and Google Home to add value to your audience and answer questions about their topics of interest.
Beyond optimizing your website for voice search by incorporating the right keywords, you can also get inventive by developing a Google Home action or Alexa skill.
For instance, Uber created an Alexa skill that allowed users to request a ride with a simple voice request. TED developed a feature that allowed Alexa users to play TED Talk based on topic, tone or speaker.
10. Email Marketing
Email marketing connects brands to leads, prospects and customers via email. Email campaigns can be used to increase brand awareness, generate traffic to other channels, promote products or services, or nurture leads toward a purchase.
Email regulations like the GDPR and the CAN-SPAM Act require brands to comply with responsible commercial email practices, which boil down to three principles:

Only email people who are expecting to hear from you. I.e. they’ve opted in.
Make it easy for subscribers to opt out.
Be transparent about who you are when you do make contact.

With that in mind, the first thing you’ll need to do is strategize how you’ll build your email list — the database of contacts you can send emails to. The most common method is through lead capture forms on your website.
Then, you’ll need email marketing software and a CRM to send, track, and monitor the effectiveness of your emails. To push your email strategy further and maximize productivity, you may also want to look into email automation software that sends emails based on triggering criteria.
To learn the ins and outs of email marketing, take the free email marketing course from HubSpot Academy.

11. Conversational Marketing
Conversational marketing is the ability to have 1:1 conversations with your audience across multiple channels – meeting customers how, when, and where they want. It is more than just live chat, it extends to phone calls, texts, Facebook Messenger, email, Slack, and other channels. When you’re getting started, you’ll first identify which channels your audience is on. The challenge, though, is being able to manage multiple channels without slow response times, internal miscommunication, or productivity loss. That’s why it’s important to use
conversational marketing tools

, such as a unified inbox, to streamline your efforts.
12. Buzz Marketing
Buzz marketing is a viral marketing strategy that leverages refreshingly creative content, interactive events, and community influencers to generate word-of-mouth marketing and anticipation for the product or service a brand is about to launch.
Buzz marketing works best when you reach out to influencers early and have a plan in place to generate buzz surrounding your brand. To track your efforts, invest in social listening software to keep a pulse on how your audience is responding.
13. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is designed to tap into an existing community of engaged followers on social media. Influencers are considered experts in their niches and have built loyalty and trust from an audience you might be trying to reach.
To get started with influencer marketing, you must first build your influencer marketing strategy and define what type of influencer you’re targeting. Then, you’ll want to create criteria for your influencer to ensure they align with your strategy and budget. Factors to consider include their niche, the size of their audience, and their current metrics.
From there, you can find influencers and reach out to them by:

Manually reaching out on social media.
Using an influencer marketing platform.
Hiring an agency to do the research and outreach for you.

14. Acquisition Marketing
With any marketing strategy, your goal is to attract and retain customers. However, each type of marketing focuses on a specific stage of the buyer’s journey. Acquisition marketing focuses on the attract and convert phases to turn strangers into sales-qualified leads.
What differentiates it from other marketing types is that it extends beyond the marketing team, often involving collaboration with customer service and success teams. Why? Because satisfied customers are the biggest promoters.
Acquisition marketing can involve a number of tactics to turn a website into a lead generation engine, including offering freemium products, launching education hubs, tightening the copywriting on the site, conversion rate optimization, and lead optimization.
It may even include a lead optimization and nurturing strategy to facilitate the hand-off between marketing and sales.
15. Contextual Marketing
Contextual marketing is targeting online users with different ads on websites and social media networks based on their online browsing behavior. The number one way to make contextual marketing efforts powerful is through personalization.
A CRM combined with powerful marketing tools, such as smart CTAs can make a website seem more like a “choose your own adventure” story, allowing the user to find the right information and take the right actions more effectively.
Contextual marketing takes strategy and planning, so start off on the right foot by accessing HubSpot’s free contextual marketing course.
16. Personalized Marketing
Personalized marketing aims to create a tailored marketing experience for every user who comes across your brand.
This can be as simple as adding a user’s name in the subject line of an email or sending product recommendations based on past purchases. Software products like Versium Reach make it easy for marketers to target their B2B or B2C customers with powerful audience insights.
While it might seem a tad bit creepy, most consumers are OK with it if it makes for a better shopping experience. A 2019 Smarter HQ study reported that 79% of consumers felt brands knew too much about them. Yet, 90% of them were still willing to share information about their behavior and preferences for a cheaper, easier, and more enjoyable purchasing journey.
17. Brand Marketing
Brand marketing is shaping your brand’s public perception and forging an emotional connection with your target audience through storytelling, creativity, humor, and inspiration.
The goal here is to be thought-provoking and generate discussion so that your brand is remembered and associated with positive sentiment.
To begin brand marketing, you need to deeply understand your buyer persona and what resonates with them. You must also consider your position in the market and what makes you unique from your competitors. This can help shape your values and what you stand for, giving you fodder for storytelling campaigns.

18. Stealth Marketing
Stealth marketing occurs when brands promote their products or service to consumers who don’t realize they’re being marketed to. For instance, when you’re watching a television show, and see a branded product integrated into the shot. 
Before influencers were subject to ad disclosure regulations, they often used stealth marketing to advertise sponsored products. 
For this marketing style to work, brands have to find opportunities that align with their brand identity and values.
19. Guerrilla Marketing
Guerrilla marketing is placing bold, clever brand activations in high-traffic physical locations to spread brand awareness.
Examples of guerilla marketing include altering outdoor urban environments, promoting during a live event without permission from sponsors or organizers, public stunts, and treasure hunts.
It can be a cost-effective way to garner widespread attention. However, it also has the potential to go left if its misunderstood by the audience or interrupted by weather conditions, law enforcement or other factors beyond the brand’s control.
20. Native Marketing
Native marketing occurs when brands customize their ads to fit the feel, look, and function of the platform on which they’ll be published.
Often, brands collaborate with publishers to create and distribute sponsored content to their audience. The goal is, by leveraging the brand’s editorial expertise and creating non-disruptive ads, it will increase conversion rates or create some brand awareness.
For instance, a recipe blogger could have a guest post from McBride Sisters Collection titled “The Best Wine-Infused Desserts For the Holiday Season.”
To benefit from native marketing, you’ll need to either reach out to media publications yourself or go through a native advert network that helps find and facilitate ad placement.
21. Affiliate Marketing
When a business rewards another brand – called an affiliate or affiliate partner – with a commission for each purchase made by a customer through the affiliate’s promotion tactics, that’s affiliate marketing.
It’s popular among influencers but can also be used by brands to promote products or services that align with their own.
If you already have marketing assets that are performing well, such as a website that generates leads or an engaged social media network, affiliate marketing is a great way to further leverage those assets. Choose a product or brand that closely aligns with what you sell – but does not compete with you – and promote it to your audience.
On the flip side, it’s a cost-effective method of spreading brand awareness and a good alternative to influencer marketing. You can leverage affiliate marketing to generate more revenue. And the best part is that every business can design its own rules when launching an affiliate program.
22. Partner Marketing
Partner marketing, also known as co-marketing, is a marketing collaboration between brands where they partner up on a marketing campaign and share the results. It’s a great lead generation tool that allows brands to tap into an audience they may not have reached yet.
For it to work, brands must align on their goals, have products or services that complementary and have similar user personas.

23. Product Marketing
Product marketing is much more than what it sounds like. It’s not just taking product pictures and launching campaigns. It’s driving demand for a product and its adoption through positioning, messaging, and market research.
Product marketers sit at the intersection between product, sales, marketing, and customer success teams. They work with all teams for sales enablement and aligned marketing strategies.
24. Account-based Marketing
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a hyper-focused marketing strategy where teams treat an individual prospect or customer like their very own market. Marketing teams create content, host events, and launch entire campaigns dedicated to the people associated with that account, rather than the industry as a whole.
This strategy allows brands to design personalized campaigns for their ideal clients and dedicate their time and resources to prospects exhibiting high-intent behaviors.
Here’s how you can start:

Identify key accounts.
Create messaging based on issues that matter to them most
Learn how to put that messaging in action with HubSpot’s introductory ABM lesson.

Find ABM software that can enable your efforts.

25. Customer Marketing
In contrast to acquisition marketing where the focus is on acquiring new customers, customer marketing is focusing on retaining your existing customers. The end goal is to delight your customers with your product or service as well as excellent customer service to turn them into brand advocates.
The cost of acquisition is much higher than the cost to retain or upsell existing customers, so brands can benefit from investing in this type of marketing.
However, it does rely on constant improvement of the customer experience, i.e. the impression you leave with a customer after you’ve provided service.
Simple ways to do this include eliminating friction in the customer service process, providing self-service resources, like online knowledge bases, and using customer service software to manage and automate interactions.
26. Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Whose opinion do you trust more: Your friend’s or a brand’s? The answer is obvious.
That’s why word-of-mouth marketing is so powerful. While you can’t force it to happen, you can position your brand in a way that makes it easier to do so, like:

Creating shareable, viral-worthy content.
Offering referral and loyalty programs.
Requesting reviews after providing a product or service.

27. Relationship Marketing
Relationship marketing is a type of customer marketing that focuses on cultivating deeper, more meaningful relationships with customers to ensure long-term brand loyalty.
It’s not focused on short-term wins or sales transactions but rather on creating brand evangelists who will promote the brand.
The key to doing this is by focusing on delighting your customers who are already satisfied with your brand. Start by using customer feedback software to run a Net Promoter Score (NPS) campaign to help you find out who those customers are.
Then, come up with ways to turn those happy customers into raving fans. From there, you can request that they leave a testimonial, participate in a case study, or help you achieve your goals another way.
28. User-generated Marketing
User-generated marketing is when businesses leverage their audience to participate in creating marketing material.
It can be anything from a social media hashtag challenge that asks users to come up with a jingle, or asking users to share their pictures or videos using your product or service.
Why do brands use it? It’s cost-effective, builds connection with your audience, and increases brand awareness.
29. Campus Marketing
Some brands target college students, and who better to market to them than their peers?
Campus marketing is the process of promoting products or services to students on campus. It often involves brand ambassadors who bring awareness to the business.
You’ll often see campus marketers promoting products at event booths, hosting their own events, and handing out giveaways.
30. Proximity Marketing
Proximity marketing is a local and highly targeted marketing strategy that uses users’ location to show them relevant product or service promotions.
For instance, if you’re walking by an ice cream shop, you may receive a notification of a special discount for a flavor at that shop. There are a few ways to use proximity marketing:

Bluetooth beacons
Wi-Fi
QR codes
NFC
Geofencing

Brands can also use it to organize treasure hunts, retarget users who don’t make a purchase, or simply learn more about user behavior.
31. Event Marketing
You’ve got an event coming up to launch a new product. Now, how do you get your target audience to show up? That’s event marketing.
It requires brands to plan a promotion strategy, develop creative assets to create anticipation, and determine the right channels to spread awareness.
An event – whether it’s a workshop, seminar, trade show, conference, or pop-up shop – helps brands connect directly with their target audience and build lasting relationships.

32. Experiential Marketing
Experiential marketing encompasses in-person and virtual events, experiences, and interactions that forge lasting emotional connections between a brand and its target audience.
It takes event marketing just one step further with the goal of making the experience magical for attendees and providing something they can take with them after the event is over — other than just information, of course. According to independent HubSpot research, 61% of marketers surveyed said experiential marketing is one of the most effective strategies for their company.
At HubSpot, we do our best to make our INBOUND conference an immersive experience that extends beyond breakout sessions by including networking opportunities, parties and happy hours, food truck lunches, and other immersive experiences. Instead of a conference, INBOUND becomes a celebration.
33. Interactive Marketing
Interactive marketing is a trigger-based marketing strategy that creates a dialogue between a brand and its audience. The brand adapts its approach based on the user’s behavior.
For instance, let’s say you’re on a bookstore website and searching for a memoir. The next time you log on, you may see recommendations for more memoirs from other authors. This strategy meets consumers where they’re at and adjusts to meet their needs.
34. Global Marketing
Global marketing is the process of scaling your marketing efforts to appeal to global audiences. However, it does require lots of market research to determine where a product or service may best resonate and how to market it to reach business goals.
Take, for instance, a food company based in Germany. If the team decides to expand to the United States, there may be changes in menu items, packaging, pricing and advertising to better reflect the audience.
35. Multicultural Marketing
Multicultural marketing is devising and executing a marketing campaign that targets people of different ethnicities and cultures within a brand’s overarching audience.
It involves in-depth research to understand those communities needs and values, and figuring out the right messaging to resonate with that group.
36. Informative Marketing
Informative marketing refers to the type of message that focuses more on the facts and less on emotions.
This marketing tactic highlights how your product’s features and benefits solve your customers’ problems and compares to your competitors.
37. Neuromarketing
Neuromarketing leverages neuroscience to gain insights into consumer decisions and predict behaviors.
Neuromarketing studies can involve tracking eye movements, analyzing brain scans, and tracking physiological functions in response to marketing stimuli.
38. Persuasive Marketing
Unlike informative marketing, persuasive marketing taps into users’ emotions. It aims to make an audience feel something, associate those emotions with a brand, and trigger desired actions.
There are many techniques, including the scarcity principle or adding .99 to a price, that can aid in persuading consumers to purchase a product or service.
However, it only works if you understand your buyer persona and know what will resonate with your target audience.
39. Cause Marketing
With cause marketing, brands tie themselves to social issues while promoting their goods. For instance, your favorite brand may advertise that a purchase from their brand will result in a donation to a certain charity.
It can also go beyond a campaign. Some brands’ entire identity aligns with a particular issue. For instance, luxury jewelry brand Civil donates 20% of its profits to underrepresented founders and entrepreneurs.
Whether it’s temporary or long term, you must answer three questions before starting with cause marketing:

What causes does my brand care most about?
How can we leverage our position to support those causes?
How can we tell my prospects and customers about our efforts and encourage them to get involved?

40. Controversial Marketing
Controversial marketing uses controversial topics to drive attention to marketing campaigns. It doesn’t aim to polarize audiences, but rather grab their attention and spark discussions.
There are pros and cons to this approach. On one hand, it has the potential to go viral and generate some buzz around your brand. However, there’s a risk that you turn off potential customers and negatively impact your brand’s image.
41. Field Marketing
Field marketing, a.k.a field selling, is a traditional form of marketing that involves going out to promote your products or services directly to your target audience. You can do this by distributing product samples, offering product demos, or leafleting in a community.
Best Type of Marketing
There’s no right or wrong way to do marketing — as long as it connects with your desired audience and provides a return on investment. Most companies use a combination of these strategies to generate leads and acquire customers.
Ultimately, you’ll want to choose what makes the most sense for your business based on your product, audience, and resources. 

C

To state the obvious, researching, finding, and buying digital ad space is a time-consuming process. In fact, an article by the Wall Street Journal compares it to “pulling out weeds online.”
But what if there was a middleman who could connect advertisers to websites that are seeking advertisers (and vice-versa)? Enter the ad network.

Let’s learn more about ad networks, how they work, and the best networks for digital marketers.
The chief function of ad networks is to collect unsold ad inventory from online publishers and match them with advertisers looking for ad spots. This makes it seamless for both sides to interact and, ultimately, come to a deal.
The benefit of using an ad network depends on which side you fall. For publishers, it helps to secure buyers for unsold ad space, although the revenue is typically less than what they could earn from direct sales. For advertisers, it helps to find inventory that fits their audience and budget.
It’s important we make a distinction between ad networks and ad servers. While both operate as advertising technology, they serve two distinct purposes.
An ad server is used by both ad networks and advertisers to run, track, and manage advertising campaigns. An ad network is also an advertising technology, but it’s used exclusively to broker buys between publishers and advertisers.
Different Types of Ad Networks
If you need to find an ad network that fits your particular audience or industry, odds are you’ll have no problems finding one. There’s an overwhelming amount of ad networks for different topics, audiences, and formats.
Here are four main types:

Vertical networks: Ad networks that are topic-specific, such as fashion, automotive, or business.

Premium networks: Ad networks that offer inventory from popular publishers.

Inventory-specific networks: Ad networks that provide a specific type of ad inventory, such as video or mobile.

Targeted networks: Ad networks that offer specific targeting capabilities that are built into the ad server.

So how much does using an ad network cost? Like most online advertising, it depends.
Some ad packages have a fixed rate, while other options may charge you on a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand impression (CPM) basis. Other times, an ad network will bring inventory to auction and use real-time bidding (RTB) technology to match ad impressions with the highest bidder.
How do ad networks work?
Ad networks are a powerful tool for both advertisers and publishers. But exactly how do they work? Here’s a traditional model of an ad network — but keep in mind that because of evolving technology, these steps are ever-changing.

To start, ad networks aggregate a large number of publishers with available inventory.
Meanwhile, the advertiser creates a campaign using the ad network’s campaign panel. When creating the campaign, the advertiser fills out details about the budget, target audience, and more.
On the publisher side, they install the ad network tags on their website.
When a match occurs between an advertiser’s campaign and a publisher’s supply, the ad details are sent to the publisher. The ad network earns money by taking a cut of the ad revenue, or by marking up inventory before selling it.
Once the ad is live, the advertiser can track and manage its performance in the ad network’s campaign panel.

Ready to give ad networks a try? Here’s a list of the 9 best ad networks for both advertisers and publishers.
Best Ad Networks
1. Google Adsense

When it comes to ad networks, Google Adsense is one of the oldest — and largest — networks. And with its great reputation and sophisticated technology, it’s not going away anytime soon.
Google Adsense can publish ads in various formats and provide super detailed targeting options, like behavioral targeting. But be warned, Google AdSense holds its advertisers to a high standard of quality, so prepare to follow the rules.
2. Media.net

Media.net is one of the most distinguished ad networks on the web, making it a popular alternative to Google Adsense. Some of its most well-known publishers include CNN, Forbes, and Esquire.
Bing and Yahoo power Media.net, exposing publishers to a large pool of both national and local advertisers. On the flip side, advertisers can leverage the ad network to create contextual ads across multiple inventories, including search, native, display, and mobile.
3. PopAds

PopAds is one of the leading ad networks specializing in pop-under ads. As a refresher, pop-under ads appear under an active window for desktop and mobile users.
PopAds offer instant approval and competitive CPM rates. And, unlike other ad networks, there’s no minimum traffic requirement.
4. PropellerAds

Another heavy hitter in the ad network sphere is PropellerAds. PropellerAds offer a variety of ad formats, including display, native, pop-under ads, and push notifications.
PropellerAds unite publishers and advertisers through its Self-Service platform.
With the platform, you can create campaigns and see real-time reporting for your ads, making it easy to track and manage campaigns.
5. BidVertiser

BidVertiser is an attractive option for publishers — just take a look at its monetization model. In addition to earning money each time an ad is clicked, a publisher also earns a little extra when the click leads to a conversion, such as a sale for the advertiser.
BidVertiser also has a bidding system to ensure publishers secure the highest revenue for each ad impression.
6. Adcash

Adcash offers a number of ad formats and tools to help publishers monetize their traffic better. What’s better, their technology can bypass those pesky ad blockers. With a clean interface and straightforward reporting tools, it’s one of the most user-friendly ad networks on the market.
7. AdThrive

AdThrive is an ad network specializing in publishers in the lifestyle industry, including travel, food, and fashion. So, if you fall into one of these niches (or not, you can still join), you may thrive on this platform.
AdThrive follows a “creator-first mindset,” and part of the deal is guaranteeing payouts for publishers — meaning, even if AdThrive doesn’t get paid by an advertiser, they will still pay you.
8. Amazon Affiliates

Amazon Affiliates is one of the leading affiliate ad networks on the web. As an affiliate, you can use link-building tools to direct readers to certain products. Here’s how it works: If a visitor clicks on a native shopping ad and makes a purchase, you earn a commission.
It’s also important to note that Amazon Associates has strict rules and policies, more than other ad networks.
9. Propel Media

Propel Media specializes in display and push ads. It’s also one of the best ad networks for reaching a high-intent audience. Using intent-based technology, it can analyze customer intent and match it with highly relevant content in real time.
The right ad network can help advertisers reach their target audience and increase conversions. And for publishers, it’s an effective way to secure buyers and fill ad inventory. However, there’s an overwhelming amount of ad networks available, so carefully weigh your options.

 

A proper automation can save your business a lot of marketing dollars. Marketing Workflows are one of the neatest and most effective ways to implement automation in your marketing processes. For those of you who want to get inspired or simply are not workflow-fluent yet, we made 20 ready-to-use templates based on eCommerce top performers’ processes. 

 

More and more processes get automated: from sales funnel to digital advertising. 

 

Advertising automation can save businesses $130,000 a year in costs. (business.com)
By 2022, 80% of all advertising processes will be automated, according to Adobe.
Global spending on marketing automation tools is predicted to exceed $25 billion by 2023 — a 14% annual growth rate. (Forrester)
Lost productivity and poorly managed leads cost companies over $1 trillion annually, some of which could be saved with database automation software. (CMO Council)

 

Many businesses understand the benefits of marketing automation, but not everyone has the knowledge to implement it right off the bat.

 

Oftentimes, it’s helpful to take a sneak peek at the effective automations implemented by the most successful players on the market. You can get inspired or create your own process based on a specific template. Using our experience in working with global eCommerce brands, we decided to give you ready-to-take tools to make your business more profitable from day one.

 

An eCommerce treat: 20 ready-to-take Workflow templates 

 

Based on our years of experience working with top eCommerce performers, we have prepared 20 ready-made Workflow templates that you can easily adapt to your needs. All of them can be found in our Workflow Library (Automation Processes → Workflows → +Add new Workflow).

 

Workflow templates: Win-Back Campaign

 

Category: eCommerce

 

For whom: Customers who have already bought products from your store, so you can encourage them to buy again in the future.

 

The mechanism: Depending on the merchandise you offer, the time between purchases can vary. Use a win-back campaign that automatically reminds the customer of your store and offers added value to give them another reason to come back and buy again.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Increase Customer Lifetime Value for each customer in your database. Encourage customers to come back to your store and purchase new products via personalized emails.

 

 

How it works: After a successful transaction, Workflow waits a certain amount of time and checks if the customer has made another purchase. If yes, Workflow is finished. If the system doesn’t register a new purchase, it sends a recommendation email to the contact to encourage them to make a purchase. At the same time, the system sends an alert to the user and appropriately tags the contact to use the acquired information in other automation processes.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Inspire your existing customers to make another purchase by sending them personalized recommendation messages reaching them through various channels.

 

 

How it works: The first step is to check if an external event occurred (e.g., purchase). If the result is positive, the workflow ends. Otherwise, the system sends an email with the viewed products to encourage the customer to buy.

 

In the second step, the external event is checked again. If the purchase still did not happen, the system selects another way of communication with the customer. If the customer has been assigned an appropriate tag indicating an effective communication channel, the next incentive will be sent to them via this very channel.

 

Then, the system will check once more whether the customer was persuaded to buy. The customer’s behavior can be easily tagged for use in later campaigns.

 

Workflow templates: Abandoned Cart Recovery

 

Category: eCommerce

 

For whom: Customers who add items to their cart but do not complete the transaction.

 

The mechanism: Only a small percentage of the shopping carts created (24.4%) result in purchases. The remaining 75.6% are abandoned and forgotten. The good news is that you can significantly reduce the cart abandonment rate in your store. Sending a reminder email about products left in the cart is a solid tactic. Such an email makes customers reconsider their purchase. This easily translates into completing at least some of the previously abandoned shopping carts.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Recover interrupted conversions. Remind customers about the products they left in a cart by sending an email with the selected products.

 

 

How it works: When a cart event is detected, Workflow checks to see if a follow-up event has occurred, after a certain amount of time. If the system registers a purchase event, Workflow finishes.

 

If not, the contact will be sent an email with the products from the abandoned cart to encourage them to buy. The contact will also be assigned appropriate tags to be used in subsequent campaigns.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Reach customers who abandoned their carts in various channels and remind them about the products they wanted to buy. Keep customers in loop by adding them to sales funnels and send incentives for them to complete the transaction.

 

 

How it works: Workflow launches for the contact that generated the cart event. After a certain amount of time it checks if there was a follow-up purchase. Once a purchase is recorded, Workflow will add the contact to the appropriate stage in the funnel, assign a tag, and give an appropriate scoring.

 

If there is no purchase, the system will send an email with the products from the cart to encourage the customer to buy. At the same time, the contact will be assigned a tag.

 

After the specified time, the cycle of verification and sending messages will be repeated until a purchase is made. However, the communication channels selected by the system will change. This increases the chance of reaching the customer.

 

Workflow templates: Repurchase Reminder

 

Category: eCommerce

 

For whom: For customers who buy products that wear out or have limited-time access.

 

The mechanism: If you offer products that can be bought multiple times—e.g., because of a limited number of uses (cosmetics, pharmaceuticals) or because of a limited access time (a premium content subscription)—you can use that knowledge to effectively resell the product and, at the same time, make clients’ lives easier and improve their customer experience. Knowing the expected time of product usage or access expiration, send a reminder about repeat purchase or subscription renewal. Do it while the customer still has the product so they don’t have to restock in a hurry.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Send customers an email if they forget to buy general goods and other products that wear out or have a limited expiration date.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts after the contact purchases particular products. After a certain amount of time, in which the customer will probably use up the purchased products, Workflow checks if they bought them again. If yes, Workflow will end.

 

If not, the system sends an email to the contact reminding them about the products and encouraging them to buy. It also tags the contact. After this action, Workflow will end.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Remind customers to repurchase general goods and products that wear out or have a limited expiration date. Send them a personalized email, and if that doesn’t work, go mobile and send a follow-up SMS reminder.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts after contact purchases particular products. After a certain amount of time, in which the customer will probably use up the purchased products, Workflow checks if they bought them again. If yes, Workflow will end.

 

If not, the system sends an email to the contact reminding them about the products and encouraging them to buy. It also tags the contact. Then the system checks if this action resulted in a purchase. If not, it makes another attempt to contact a customer but, this time, changes the communication channel to SMS.

 

Workflow templates: Post-Purchase Upsell

 

Category: eCommerce

 

For whom: For customers who have recently made a purchase.

 

The mechanism: There are many ways to increase the value of a purchase. One of the tactics is upselling. It is about offering customers more expensive products than they have used before. If your customer has made a purchase, you can recommend other products in the near future that are of higher quality or grade, and therefore higher in price. This increases the profit of the transaction.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Increase the value of a transaction. If your customer has made a purchase, in the near future, you can send them an email to recommend other products that are of higher quality or grade, and therefore higher in price.

 

 

How it works: Workflow reacts to the appearance of a purchase event. After the event occurs, it sends a specially prepared message to the contact with additional products they may be interested in. The contact is tagged, and the process ends.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Upsell higher-value products to customers who have made a purchase. Reach out to them via email, SMS, and a display campaign.

 

 

How it works: Workflow reacts to the appearance of a purchase event. After an appropriate time, the system sends a specially crafted message to the contact with additional products that may be of interest to them. The system checks if a customer has made a purchase. If yes, Workflow finishes.

 

Otherwise, the contact is added to the appropriate Custom Audience group and is included in the advertising campaign, where appropriate ads are targeted to them.

 

Workflow checks if this action resulted in a purchase. If not, it attempts to communicate with the customer again using another communication channel—SMS. If this doesn’t work, the system sends an alert and finishes Workflow.

 

Workflow templates: Subscription Renewal

 

Category: Engagement

 

For whom: For customers who purchase access to products or services as a subscription.

 

The mechanism: Sending a reminder about an expiring subscription is a great convenience for the customer. It’s on you—they don’t need to worry about when to renew their access. This improves customer relationships, positively impacts customer experience, and prevents churn rates from increasing.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Send your customers an email reminder about an expiring subscription to improve customer relationships, positively impact their experience, and prevent churn rates from increasing.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts after product purchase. After a time corresponding to the length of the subscription—e.g., 15 days—the system checks if there was a repeat purchase. If not, it sends a reminder email and an alert to notify the recipient about the subscription purchase. Finally, the contact receives a tag and the Workflow ends.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Remind customers to renew their subscriptions. Reach them through a variety of channels: email, mobile, and display.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts when an external purchase event is detected. After it occurs, the system waits an appropriate amount of time and checks if the contact has made another purchase / subscription renewal on their own.

 

If there was no purchase, the system sends a specific message and adds the contact to the Custom Audience group for better ad targeting. After implementing these actions, Workflow checks again whether the contact has purchased the product.

 

If not, the system proceeds with the next communication steps with the contact in order to encourage them to buy. This time, as a communication channel, it uses a text message. If this doesn’t work, Workflow sends an alert before it finishes.

 

Workflow templates: Onboarding New Contacts

 

Category: Welcome Campaign

 

For whom: For customers who have just registered on the site.

 

The mechanism: When a new person registers on the website they are just getting to know the company and its merchandise. A simple guide will help them navigate this new territory. With properly set automation, when a new lead registers on the site, you send them general information about the company as well as a description of your products and services. Onboarding flow is not only a sales tool. It also works to familiarize a new customer with your company and the products you offer.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Lead new customers by the hand and show them your system through a series of educational emails. Test different paths to know what time intervals between emails work best.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts when the contact receives the selected tag. After waiting for a specified time, Workflow launches into the A/B/X test phase and starts one of the two onboarding paths. This allows you to test which path will bring better results. Each path consists of a series of scheduled messages sent at specific time intervals. These intervals vary depending on the selected path. When all messages are sent, the system assigns an appropriate tag to the contact and finishes Workflow.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Introduce new customers to your system with a series of educational emails and effectively drive them down the funnel. Respond directly to your customers’ behaviors and their clicks on the messages you send.

 

 

How it works: This Workflow can be triggered by two types of events: assigning an appropriate tag and adding a contact to the system. If a contact starts the Workflow by having a tag added, the next step is to add another tag then add the contact to the appropriate stage in the funnel. After this sequence, Workflow waits the indicated time, after which it sends the contact an onboarding start message. After the set time, the system checks if the contact opened the message. If not, the contact is given a tag, and the Workflow sequence ends. If the message was opened, the contact is given another tag and proceeds to the next stage of the funnel. The whole sequence repeats until the onboarding is complete.

 

If a contact gets into Workflow after being added to the system, they are first sent a message in which they have to click the appropriate link to start the onboarding sequence.

 

Workflow templates: Lead Nurturing

 

Category: Engagement

 

For whom: For customers interested in the product.

 

The mechanism: Only a small percentage of customers are willing to make a purchase at the first contact. It takes several dozen brand interactions with a customer for them to become ready to buy. Lead nurturing is about sending brief information about the product and company to familiarize the customer with a brand and accelerate the purchase decision. In this scenario, after showing interest in a particular product, the customer will receive emails with information about that product—its description, features, main benefits of purchase, and so on. These emails will be sent intermittently, providing content that is useful to the customer, sustaining their interest, and leading to a purchase.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Send new contacts a series of educational emails so they learn about your brand and the products you offer.

 

 

How it works: Workflow is started when the contact is assigned a tag. Then the system waits for an appropriate amount of time and sends the first lead-nurturing message. After waiting the specified period, Workflow sends another message. The sequence is repeated until the end of the cycle. Finally, the contact is tagged and Workflow finishes.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Educate new contacts about your brand and products with a series of short emails. Monitor continuously whether the messages are engaging the recipient and whether they are completing the planned micro-conversions.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts when a contact is added to the system. At this point, the automation rule checks whether the contact is assigned to some stage of the campaign. Depending on the stage in Workflow and the campaign, appropriate messages are sent to the contact. After sending an email, the system checks if contact opened the message. If yes, the sequence proceeds, and the contact receives another message. If not, the system makes another attempt to reach the contact with the selected message. When the lead-nurturing cycle reaches the email with recently viewed products, Workflow checks if it triggered a purchase. If yes, the contact is sent to the appropriate stage of the campaign. If not, the system continues trying to encourage the recipient to buy the products by sending another message with the recently viewed products.

 

Workflow templates: Remarketing Campaign

 

Category: Engagement

 

For whom: For contacts who have visited your website.

 

The mechanism: High traffic and low conversions—this is one of the biggest pain points of eCommerce. Some customers visit your website, browse it, but leave without converting. Fortunately, when customers visit your site, they leave virtual footprints behind. You can use these footprints to convince them to return to your store and make a purchase. Reach out to customers who have left the site and prompt them to browse your content again to increase the likelihood of a purchase. To do this, you can, for example, send a tailored message or display a bespoke banner on virtually any web page. These messages will redirect people back to your site.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Reach out to customers who have left the site with a recommendation email and make them browse your content again to increase the likelihood of a purchase.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts when a contact visits a specific URL. The algorithm checks if a purchase was made. If yes, Workflow finishes. If, for some reason, the contact did not decide to buy, the system sends them a personalized message with relevant products. At the end, Workflow adds a tag to the contact.

 

Advanced 

 

Goal: Send multi-channel recommendations to contacts who have visited the website and browsed products. Use Web Push notifications, emails, and display campaigns

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts when contact visits a specified URL. The system checks if they made a purchase. If yes, Workflow finishes. If not, the system tries different ways to reach the customer. The first step is to send a Web Push notification and add the contact to the appropriate custom audience group for better ad targeting. After waiting a certain amount of time, the system checks if this action brought the expected effect (purchase). If it does not happen, there is another attempt to reach the contact. The system sends an email with the recently viewed products and displays an appropriate banner ad on the website. The cycle of waiting and checking for the event to occur repeats itself. Based on the tags, the system selects communication channels. The next step (if there is still no purchase) is to move the contact to another custom audience group to show them a different set of ads. After a reasonable amount of time, the system sends another message and again checks for the occurrence of a purchase event. If the contact goes through the whole cycle and still hasn’t made a purchase, the system tags him with the appropriate tag and finishes the Workflow.

 

Workflow templates: Post-Purchase Cross-Sell

 

Category: eCommerce

 

For whom: For customers who have purchased a product from your online store

 

The mechanism: Selling to existing customers is easier than selling to brand new people. Cross-selling is a technique of offering customers products that are complementary to what they have just bought. It can take many forms—from a simple recommendation email to a complex sequence of cross-channel communications triggered by specific customer behaviors.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Get the customer interested in additional products by sending them an email with a well-chosen, personalized recommendation.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts when contact makes a purchase. In response to the event, the system sends the contact an email with products they may be interested in. It automatically tags the contact and adds them to the appropriate custom audience group for better ad targeting. Then Workflow finishes.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Offer the customer products that complement their purchase. Show them a tailored, personalized recommendation in a channel that matches their preferences.

 

 

How it works: Workflow starts when contact makes a purchase. In response to the event, the system adds them to the appropriate custom audience group for better ad targeting and displays a personalized banner. After waiting for a suitable time, the system sends an email to the contact. Then the system checks if the contact has made a purchase. If not, based on the tags, the system selects the optimal communication channel to try again to reach the customer. After waiting the specified time, the system checks if the contact has made a purchase. If not, it triggers another automation rule and sends the last message to the contact. Then Workflow finishes.

 

Workflow templates: Customer Satisfaction Survey | NPS

 

Category: Engagement

 

For whom: For current customers.

 

The mechanism: Feedback helps you grow and improve the way you serve your customers. It gives you a chance to transform them from ordinary customers into brand ambassadors. One feedback tool is the NPS survey. The biggest advantage of the NPS survey is its simplicity. One question gives more than one answer. It also allows you to divide your contact base into Promoters and Detractors. With SALESmanago, you can send automatic queries to users who have just made a purchase. For their convenience, you can customize the language of communication according to their preferences.

 

Basic

 

Goal: Improve customer relationships through NPS surveys. Send an email that encourages your customers to share their feedback right after a purchase.

 

 

How it works: Workflow is triggered by the external event purchase. In the first step, the system runs through a condition that checks the contact’s cards and their details. Depending on the value of the relevant detail, Workflow sends the appropriate email to the contact and then finishes.

 

Advanced

 

Goal: Ask customers for feedback through NPS surveys. Remind them to complete the survey in different channels to increase your chances of success.

 

 

How it works: Workflow is triggered by an external purchase event. In response to this event, the contact is sent a message with a survey. The system checks whether the contact completes the survey. If so, the contact will be assigned the appropriate scoring and will be moved to the indicated stage in the funnel. If they don’t fill out the questionnaire, the contact will be moved to the next Workflow stage. Using tags, the system selects an optimal communication channel and again tries to reach the contact with the survey. If after the next attempt the system still doesn’t note completion of the survey, it will make another contact attempt. This is preceded by an appropriate banner display and adding contact to custom audience for better ad targeting. If, after the last attempt, the contact completes the survey, the system assigns an appropriate scoring to them and adds them to the correct stage in the funnel. Otherwise, the account manager receives an alert.

 

Workflow Library: Wrap-up

 

As Pablo Picasso once said, “good artists borrow, great artists steal.” Feel free to use ready made templates and tools that will kickstart your marketing. After all, can you afford not getting satisfying ROI from your Customer Data Platform? If you are hungry for more, contact your success manager in SALESmanago, who will help you create your own, bespoke Workflow templates.

 

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