Make the Most of Your Marketing Budget with AI and Automation

AI and automation have come a long way from just generating email copy. They can now redefine your small business marketing strategy, making every penny of your budget count. 

Imagine being able to send the right message, at the right time, through the right channel, without the hassle of manually crafting each interaction. With AI and automation, you can create efficient, effective, and highly personalised customer journeys. 

Here’s how you can use AI and automation to go beyond content generation and maximise your marketing efforts.

Bringing Sales, Service, and Marketing Together

To make the most of your marketing efforts and ensure no lead slips through the cracks, it’s essential that customer insights and tracking data are shared seamlessly between sales, service, and marketing teams. This is where marketing automation comes into play, syncing sales and marketing data effortlessly. 

As a marketer, knowing your customer inside out is crucial. All the valuable data you need is already in your customer relationship management (CRM) system. Marketing and sales teams can craft relevant and engaging campaigns that prioritise the customer’s needs by tapping into this information through an integrated system like Einstein 1 Marketing. 

Breaking down barriers between departments starts with removing silos in your data. Take pay.com.au, for example. This leading B2B payment and rewards platform saw a 10x increase in new customer verifications after implementing Data Cloud, which gave their teams relevant customer insights at every touchpoint.

“We reduced the time to verify customers from days to hours. This was a major win because no matter how many leads we have coming through, if we drop the ball on getting people up and running on the platform, they’ll lose interest and go somewhere else or not engage in this space altogether,” says David Walsh, Head of Digital, CX, and Marketing at pay.com.au.

Hitting the Right Communication Frequency

No matter how good your product or service is, nobody likes to be bombarded with emails and messages without regard for their communication preferences. This is where AI steps in to automate the timing of communications. Einstein 1 Marketing can ensure that emails are sent at the optimal moment when a customer is most likely to engage. And it doesn’t stop there – subsequent communications are tailored automatically, shifting across channels like email, SMS, or WhatsApp based on how leads respond to your initial outreach.

Finding the right channels and timing for each customer makes your communications feel more personal and less intrusive. It increases the likelihood that your messages will be well-received and reduces the risk of ending up in the spam folder.

That’s why pay.com.au plans to use AI to fine-tune the timing of its communications and optimise subject lines. By analysing customer behaviour using AI, pay.com.au ensures that its customers receive relevant information when they’re most receptive, making the communication feel more like a helpful nudge rather than an annoying interruption. This will help increase customer engagement and, ultimately, lifetime value. 

Making Every Marketing Dollar Count

Knowing if your marketing spend is leading to sales and figuring out where to direct your budget is a constant challenge for every business. AI can make this process a lot easier. With multi-touch attribution, AI tracks which marketing strategies and channels drive the most conversions and revenue. 

It doesn’t just stop there – it also offers automated recommendations on where to reallocate or increase your spending, providing a clear rationale so you understand the “why” behind every suggestion. This way, you can allocate your budget more effectively and take the guesswork out of growing your business.

An AI-powered CRM for sales simplifies the process of surfacing and analysing data. When employees at pay.com.au walk into the office, they are greeted by a large screen displaying a dashboard with the week’s performance metrics. This fosters a culture of data-driven decision-making, making it easier for the team to see what’s working and what needs adjustment.

Scaling Personalisation

True marketing personalisation goes far beyond just adding a ‘first name’ to your emails. It’s about deeply understanding your customers and tailoring your content to their specific needs and interests. AI can analyse customer data and dynamically adapt content to match individual profiles. It suggests products or services based on their interests and past interactions, making your marketing feel more personal and relevant.

By integrating data and AI into the flow of work, pay.com.au can efficiently provide personalised experiences to each customer. If a customer has recently redeemed points for a business class flight, it’s likely they’ll need accommodation next. Knowing this, pay.com.au uses Marketing Cloud to automatically trigger an email promoting relevant hotel options. 

65% of consumers say they’ll stay loyal to companies that offer a more personalised experience. Still, only 26% of marketers feel confident that their business has the right strategy to deliver this personal touch. This is where Einstein 1 Marketing can bridge the gap, helping you meet the growing demand for personalisation without overwhelming your team.

With AI and automation, you can make smarter decisions with your marketing budget, increase the effectiveness of your marketing strategy, and ultimately, grow your business faster.