Crafting a Composable Marketing Automation Strategy with Sitecore Send

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, a well-crafted marketing automation strategy is crucial for converting potential leads into customers. In this blog post, I will share how you can leverage Sitecore Send (formerly Moosend), Sitecore Personalize and Sitecore XM Cloud to nurture your audience effectively. 

This is the 3rd in a series of blog posts on building a composable marketing automation. You can catch on the first two blog posts here -

1. Composable Marketing Automation Strategy: Personas and Journey Maps
2. Building a Composable Marketing Automation Strategy with a Digital analytics measurement model

Let’s dive into the journey of Annie, our Informed Advocate, and explore how we guide her through her journey, from Awareness to Purchase.

Awareness: The Initial Encounter

Annie arrives at our website through an organic Google search. She's looking for solutions to a specific problem, and our SEO-optimised content brings her to our digital doorstep. At this stage, she’s experiencing our brand for the first time. Our goal here is to immediately engage her with relevant content that captures her interest and quickly starts to address her questions.

To this end, our website has been designed to feature:

• A simple, intuitive layout and design.
• An easy to navigate menu.
• Clear and consistent product pages that feature common interaction patterns and standard functionality, such as shortlisting, customer reviews, information downloads and ‘Get quote’ calls to action.

At this stage, Annie is an anonymous website visitor, so there are no relevant marketing automation tactics we can employ just yet, until she starts to engage further with our website…

Discovery: Building a Connection

While browsing our site, Annie submits a general inquiry form, signalling her interest in our company, and kick starting the lead nurture and conversion process.

We have connected this enquiry web contact form to Sitecore Send. When Annie submits this form, she is automatically subscribed to a mailing list and sent a follow-up ‘Thank you’ email, as part of a Sitecore Sent Automation.  

The content of the email includes helpful resources related to her inquiry, and is designed to generate link clicks so that we can profile Annie in more detail. The email links to each of our product pages, covering each of her potential areas for further research and consideration. 

Annie clicks one of the product links in our email to the COVA HomeGuard product, and we use another Automation to update her profile to correspond to her product of interest.

Research & Consideration: Deepening Engagement

Annie’s journey continues as the Automation above shows. After her profile is updated, she will receive an automated follow-up email from us specifically about the COVA product she showed interest in. This email includes detailed information, customer testimonials, and a clear call-to-action (CTA) to download a product information sheet. 

Once Annie downloads the sheet, we can update her profile again to reflect this key action taken. With this information, we can ensure that the next nurture prompt we present is the next best action relevant to her current stage of the journey.

Decision Making: Nudging Towards Conversion

With each interaction, Annie’s lead score increases, highlighting her growing interest and readiness to purchase. We can also use personalised on-site experiences to prompt her towards actions like submitting a request for a quote. As she engages with these CTAs, our automation platform tracks her actions and updates her profile accordingly.

For Annie, she clicks the link in the email to the Product Information Sheet. Given she is part of our COVA HomeGuard campaign, we have tagged all links in this email with the campaign name ‘Homeguard’. We are using Sitecore XM Cloud as our CMS, so we can easily build an Audience using ‘out of the box’ condition templates to tailor Annie’s website experience based on the campaign value.

However, we also have Sitecore Personalize connected to our website. So in this case, we are going to use a simple Alert Bar experience to prompt Annie to ‘Request a Quote’ for HomeGuard insurance. We have included a reference to the time it takes, and the benefit she receives (‘peace of mind’) to prompt action.

Our ‘Request Quote’ form is also connected to Sitecore Send. In this case, quote requests will be added to a new email list.

Purchase: Sealing the Deal

After submitting a request for a quote, we will use another Automation to send Annie a follow-up email with a special 10% discount offer valid for a same day purchase. This urgency plays a crucial role in nudging her towards making a purchase. 

Once Annie clicks through to purchase the HomeGuard, we will trigger a custom event in Sitecore Send. This event registers that she has started the purchase process. However, if Annie does not complete the purchase within 2 days, our automation kicks in again to send her a reminder email. In the email message, we can use additional incentives and prompts to encourage prompt purchase action.

Post-Purchase: Ensuring Continued Engagement

Upon completing her purchase, Annie’s journey doesn’t end. We can send her a post-purchase email automation, triggered by our custom tracking on the purchase action, that contains a comprehensive onboarding and next steps checklist. This will ensure she feels confident and satisfied with her purchase. This email can also highlight additional products and offers, keeping her engaged and open to future purchases.

Key Takeaways

Building a composable marketing automation strategy with Sitecore Send involves:

1. Personalised Engagement: Tailor communication based on stage of the journey, user behaviour and interests.
2. Incremental Nudges: Use timely and relevant CTAs to guide the user through the purchase journey.
3. Profile Updates: Continuously update the user’s profile to reflect their interactions and preferences.
4. Lead Scoring: Assign scores to track user readiness and propensity to purchase.
5. Follow-Up Offers: Provide incentives to complete purchases and stay engaged post-purchase.

By meticulously crafting each step of Annie’s journey, we not only enhance her experience but also improve our chances of converting her into a loyal customer. Sitecore Send’s robust automation capabilities make this process seamless and efficient, ensuring that we can nurture our leads effectively at every stage of their journey.