Talk talk talk. Talking without listening: Pointless. Obnoxious. Harmful.

Pointless because you drive people away, obnoxious because you make your organization something people don’t just passively ignore but actively dislike; and obviously this is extremely harmful to your future success. This is not marketing automation. This is not marketing done right. This is applying old techniques to new technology. Your marketing automation is much more than a one-way blasting of information. You should not organize your marketing campaign to be constantly shouting at your audience. You must do more with your marketing automation software.

Marketing automation when done correctly can be a tool to engage and interact with your potential customers. You can encourage, support, and respond to their needs based on their action or even inaction. “But how?” you ask. Here are three quick suggestions to make sure you do marketing automation right.

1. Send Future Emails Based on Previous Interest

One of the most common mistakes when organizations start to use marketing automation is the ability to send unlimited emails automatically to potential customers. This is a bit like handing the keys to a high-end sports car to a first-time driver. The sheer power and awesomeness of this shiny new toy is too much to handle and things can quickly get out of control. Sending repeated emails based on too sensitive of triggers is the main and most obvious way that marketing automation gets abused. This is talking without listening epitomized. This behavior is obnoxious and potentially harmful. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t use marketing automation effectively and even for email delivery.

Properly sent and timely emails based on well-defined triggers are critical parts of a good marketing campaign. Just be sure to listen and build your campaigns based on user interaction. Did they open the previous email you sent? Did the click a link you shared in the email? Use these triggers as ways to determine interest for future emails. Be smart in your marketing.

2. Be Consistent Without Being Obnoxious

The second problem that can frequently arise with new marketing automation users is the over usage of lead touch points. This means contacting your leads to frequently. Don’t inundate your new leads with too much information too quickly. Remember that you want to implement a drip campaign not a flood campaign. If you bury your new leads in a torrential amount of welcome emails, request for feedback, product suggestions and more you will drown your potential customer. Don’t be obnoxious.

Instead be timely and be consistent. Set a marketing plan that properly touches your leads and shares information at appropriate times. This might mean a monthly newsletter with relevant information, or maybe this means a bi-weekly email with completely different content each time. This is consistent, friendly interactions instead of obnoxious and overbearing information dumps. This step also requires that you listen to your potential leads. (See Suggestion 1 above)

3. Don’t Hover

The last suggestion for building a successful marketing automation campaign involves trust. You need to trust your campaign workflows, you need to trust your personas you’ve built, you need to trust the process. If you don’t trust in what you’ve built and organized you will find yourself hovering over every potential lead and new site visitor. You’ll find yourself obsessing on what they are doing, and jumping in to provide more information and push a decision. This is the used-car-salesman approach to marketing and it’s ugly. No one likes to be hard sold like this; your marketing automation prevents you from doing this…if you trust what you’ve created. Listen to what comes back.

Marketing automation when done right will bring your best leads to the surface when they are ready to be contacted. They will be nurtured by your marketing funnel; adding points, giving weight, improving their readiness, until the time comes when they are turned over to you for direct engagement. Your marketing should handle everything else so you don’t need to hover.

These three suggestions will help you cut through the marketing automation madness and help you build a powerful marketing campaign strategy that will keep you from sabotaging your own progress. Be smart, Be consistent, Be trusting. And watch your marketing automation do what you intend for it to do.

Mautic is an open source marketing automation platform built for you. Mautic will help you organize your marketing campaigns, build successful marketing strategies, and nurture your leads effectively. Mautic helps you listen to your customers.