Everybody is talking about automation – but not many are doing it and doing it well. That’s because sales and marketing automation is about so much more than just flooding your contact list with email after email.

If you’re looking to take your market by storm by deploying sales and marketing automation, the first thing you need to make sure of is that you are adding value to your prospects and customers. That means, creating quality content and automating it to be delivered at exactly the right moment. By doing so, you will simultaneously position yourself as the authority in your niche or industry and gain the trust of your audience through offering free insights and education. Most importantly, you will stay present during their buyer journey, or even better, nurture them through their journey exactly the way you want them to be.

Achieving this comes down to your strategy and your process. This will be vastly different for each and every business, taking into account your sales process, decision-making timeframe and your sales and marketing capabilities. The one thing that remains constant, however, is the critical nature of getting your marketing automation right from the outset.