Want to know why “Agile Marketing” is the hottest thing in marketing right now?
Amazon.com.
That’s right. Amazon built a $427 billion business using agile marketing tactics.
The website and mobile application are Amazon’s revenue engines. They are constantly looking for ways to optimize the shopping experience for customers to make it easier to buy.
Rather than leaping into massive rebrands and disruptive navigation changes over the years, Amazon instead chooses to continuously split test smaller user-experience elements on their page to see what converted sales better.
These experiments ranged from copy changes to the placement of a button, the color of the top bar, to the wording on the button, and even a quiet redesign of their “Prime” logo just this year.
What’s important is that Amazon only tests one element at a time, so there is no guesswork about what caused a change in conversions. And, they never disrupted their customer experience with a drastic website redesign.
Amazon split-tested their way into dominating the consumer goods market.
Combine Agile Marketing and Automation to Create a Sales Funnel Machine
Not since peanut butter combined with milk chocolate have we gotten a better combo than agile marketing and marketing automation.
Marketing automation tools together with agile marketing strategies mean that everyone with a sales funnel can continuously – and rapidly – adapt to consumer behavior without the room full of staff engineers or expensive user interface experts at their disposal.
There are four key steps to keep in mind when you combine agile marketing with marketing automation to optimize your sales funnel:
1. Split Test
Just like Amazon, split test all elements of your offer and landing pages – one at a time, so you always know exactly what triggers conversion changes. An example is this headline change that resulted in a whopping 57% uplift in conversion rate on the landing page. The headline was the only change made, so we know what caused the jump in conversions.
2. Email is the King of Sales Funnel ROI
Email is the king of ROI for sales funnels, so it’s important to automate your email communications for audience behavior and demographics.
For example, Birchbox uses Campaign Monitor to follow its welcome email with an email drip series sharing beauty tricks, makeup tips, and special promotions. Real-time reporting allows Birchbox to make adjustments based on which emails get opened and which offers are the most popular. Emails are also personalized by gender and season.
Good marketing automation tools allow you easily split A/B test email subject lines, opening hooks, and calls to action, one element at a time to refine your sales funnel.
3. Real-time Reports and Rapid Adjustments
Marketing automation allows you to pull real-time reports and make rapid, agile marketing adjustments based on how your emails are performing, including opens, clicks, shares, and unsubscribes.
4. Optimize Your Sales Funnel
The biggest payoff to using agile marketing and marketing automation together is the ability to see where your sales funnel is stalling and troubleshoot it.
- If you do not get cart completions, adjust your check-out page and check to make sure it’s easy to check out using a mobile device.
- If you’re not getting conversions on your landing pages, adjust your landing page starting with the offer, then the headline, then social proof.
- If you’re not getting traffic to your landing page, adjust your email copy or advertisement driving traffic to your landing page.
- If your emails are getting opened, but not clicked, check to make sure your emails are rendering correctly on mobile, check your call to action, opening hooks, and copy.
- If your emails aren’t getting opened, adjust your subject line and check to make sure your deliverability is good
Now You Know
Now you know why using agile marketing with marketing automation tools is spreading like wildfire.
You reap the benefits of continuous improvement, little user disruption, and no more guesswork because your sales funnel performance is governed by real-time data.
What’s not to love?
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This article, “What Everyone Ought to Know About Agile Marketing and Automation” was first published on Small Business Trends