Marketing Automation Checklist for Beginners

How to Automate Your Marketing Function

Marketing automation is the use of software to automate repetitive marketing tasks. It helps businesses streamline their workflows, make their sales turnaround times shorter, reach their target audience faster, personalize customer touchpoints, and get better returns on investment (ROI).

Better yet, if you want to scale up your marketing function, you don’t need to proportionally increase your workforce; you can simply switch to marketing workflow automation.

What Does Marketing Automation Involve?

Essentially, marketing automation is a suite of tools that handle several functions.

For example, email marketing automation softwares can write catchy subject lines, personalize the content of your emails, and even choose the right email template. You can also conduct A/B testing and test different versions of your emails to see which ones perform best and optimize your emails for maximum impact. Plus, you can set up automated drip campaigns to nurture leads based on their specific actions and behaviors.

In advertising, automation simplifies campaign management through features like automated targeting, personalization, and real-time analytics. You can also automate lead scoring, which helps you figure out which leads are most likely to convert, based on predefined criteria.

When it comes to social media, automation can schedule your posts, create personalized content, and even pick up the right hashtags. As for content marketing, these tools can lend a hand with polishing your copy, scheduling when your posts go live, and sharing them across different platforms.

Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Proceed With a Marketing Automation Project

Workflow automation is, in any case, a huge undertaking. And if you jump in without knowing your goals, resources, and needs, you might end up wasting your time, money, and of course, energy.

So, before you take the plunge, ask yourself some hard questions to ensure you're setting yourself up for a win. This introspection will help you choose the right tools, strategies, and implementation plan.

1. What type of business are you?

This is the foundational question.

Your industry, business model, and target audience will all matter to determine your marketing automation needs.

A B2B company with a long sales cycle will have different requirements than a B2C eCommerce business. A small local business will have different needs than a large multinational corporation.

For instance, a B2B company might give precedence to lead nurturing and account-based marketing features, whereas a B2C eCommerce business might concentrate more on automating product recommendations and abandoned cart emails. On the other hand, a non-profit organization might want to automate donor management and email marketing for fundraising campaigns.

Keep your specific business context in mind when evaluating marketing automation solutions.

2. What do you hope to achieve with marketing automation?

What specific problems are you trying to solve, or what opportunities are you hoping to capitalize on?

Are you looking to generate more leads, improve conversion rates, nurture existing customers, or free up your team's time?

Perhaps you want to personalize your customer interactions at scale or gain deeper insights into your marketing performance.

For instance, if your primary goal is lead generation, you might focus on automating lead capture forms, email nurturing sequences, and lead scoring.

If your goal is to improve customer retention, you might look to automate onboarding emails, personalized product recommendations, and customer feedback surveys.

Whatever’s the case, when you clearly define your desired outcomes, it becomes all the more easier for you to measure the success of your automation strategy and tweak it along the way.

3. What results do you expect from marketing automation?

Beyond your initial goals, what specific, measurable results do you wish to see after implementing marketing automation?

Are you hoping to increase website traffic, improve lead quality, shorten the sales cycle, or boost customer lifetime value?

Don't just say you want to "improve marketing"—be specific. Quantify your goals whenever possible.

For example, you might expect to see a 15% increase in website traffic within three months of implementing automated social media promotion. Or you might anticipate a 10% improvement in lead quality after implementing automated lead scoring.

Not only will this help you track your progress, it will also be useful in measuring the ROI of your investment and demonstrating the value of marketing automation to all stakeholders involved. Be sure to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your expected results and track them regularly.

4. Describe your team structure.

Ask yourself: Who will be responsible for managing the automation platform?

Do you have dedicated marketing automation specialists, or will existing team members take on these responsibilities?

If your team lacks the necessary expertise, you might need to invest in training or hire additional staff.

Think also about how marketing automation will impact different teams within your organization, such as sales, customer service, and IT.

Clear roles and responsibilities will prevent confusion and ensure smooth collaboration. For example, if your sales team relies heavily on lead scoring, they need to be involved in defining the lead scoring criteria and understand how to use the information provided by the automation platform.

Create an RACI matrix (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) and outline the roles and responsibilities of each team member involved in the project.

5. What's your budget?

Marketing automation solutions come in a wide range of prices, from free or low-cost tools to enterprise-level platforms.

Your budget will play an important role in determining which solutions are within reach. Calculate not only the upfront costs of the software but also ongoing expenses like implementation fees, training costs, and maintenance. Don't forget to factor in the cost of any additional resources you might need, such as consultants or freelancers.

It's wise to create a detailed budget that mentions all anticipated expenses. Bear in mind that the cheapest option isn't always the best. List your key features in the order of priority and be prepared to make trade-offs if necessary.

Speaking of key features, the final question to contemplate is....

6. What are a few must-have marketing automation features?

Other than the basic social media management automation, here are some essential features of a marketing automation software:

1. Omni Channel Campaign Management

This is a no-brainer, if you do not want your marketing campaigns across multiple channels (email, social media, web, etc.) to become a disaster.

Perhaps you run a local bakery promoting a new line of gluten-free cupcakes. You need to create visually appealing content for Instagram, craft engaging email newsletters, update your website with the new offerings, and potentially even run targeted ads.

Doing all this manually is time-consuming and prone to errors. Your marketing automation platform must streamline this process by enabling you and your team to create, schedule, and deploy campaigns across multiple channels from a single dashboard. Furthermore, it should also provide built-in analytics, for you to track campaign performance in real-time and make data-driven adjustments to optimize your ROI.

For instance, a software company launching a new product must be able to track which email subject lines have the highest open rates, which social media posts generate the most engagement, and which landing pages convert the most visitors.

This data will help them understand the efficacy of their marketing plan and suggest changes supported by data rather than solely following their instincts. Therefore, advanced analytics is a must feature to have in your automation solution.

2. Customer Segmentation for Lead Generation and Nurturing

Not all customers are created equal. Make sure your software automates lead capture forms, creates personalized lead magnets (e.g., ebooks, white papers), and runs targeted ad campaigns.

Marketing automation should also allow you to segment your customer base based on various factors, such as demographics, purchase history, and website behavior, and create highly targeted campaigns that resonate with specific customer segments.

For example, a fitness center using Hubspot can segment its members based on their fitness goals (e.g., weight loss, muscle gain) and send them personalized workout plans and nutritional advice to nurture them. A real estate agent can use Klaviyo to capture leads from online property listings, segment them based on their interests (e.g., buyers, sellers, etc.), and send them targeted messages featuring relevant properties or market updates.

3. Dynamic Landing Pages

Landing pages are important for converting visitors into leads. The good news is that most marketing automation platforms have no-code, drag-and-drop landing page builders. So, marketers can use them to create visually appealing and high-converting landing pages in just a few minutes.

These platforms also have dynamic content personalization features to tailor the landing page experience to individual visitors based on their past behavior or preferences.

4. Email Marketing Automation

Email marketing is still a powerful tool for customer engagement in 2025. Marketing automation takes email marketing to the next level by automating various email-related tasks.

Instead of manually sending out welcome emails, newsletters, or promotional offers, marketers can set up automated email sequences that are triggered by specific events. For example, a fashion retailer could automate emails reminding customers about items they've left in their online shopping cart and encourage them to complete their purchase.

5. Internal Workflow Automation

Marketing automation does not mean you automate customer-facing activities only. You should also standardize internal marketing processes to save time. For example, you can automate the process of assigning leads to sales representatives, sending out internal notifications about campaign performance, or generating marketing reports.

Your 5-Step Marketing Automation Checklist

So, you’ve said “yes” to the marketing automation project. But where do you even begin?

This 5-step checklist will guide you through the process, so you don’t feel overwhelmed at all.

1. Define your goals.

Like we mentioned earlier, before diving into automation, it's important to state your objectives clearly. What are you hoping to achieve? Are you aiming to generate more leads, nurture existing customers, boost engagement, or streamline your marketing processes?

If you’re a mompreneur launching a new line of organic baby food, you should aim to build brand awareness and capture leads. If you’re an established aviation management company, you should automate customer communications and personalized service reminders.

2. Know your audience.

Develop detailed buyer personas that capture their demographics, behaviors, pain points, and motivations. Once done, tailor your automated messages accordingly and create targeted campaigns that resonate with your audience.

For example, an international travel and tourism company might segment their audience based on travel preferences (e.g., adventure seekers, family vacationers, luxury travelers) and offer personalized travel recommendations and promotions.

3. Select the right platform.

Write down your budget, technical expertise, and specific needs. Then decide whether or not you require advanced features like lead scoring, dynamic content personalization, or integration with your CRM.

To give you some perspective, a home improvement business may need a platform that integrates with their CRM to track leads and automate follow-up communications. But a solopreneur with a limited budget may opt for a more basic platform with just the essential email marketing and social media scheduling features.

4. Build your workflows.

Workflows are the backbone of marketing automation. They define the automated actions triggered by specific events.

For example, if you run a house painting business, you can create a workflow that sends automated email follow-ups to leads who download a guide on choosing the right paint color for small living spaces. All the subsequent emails should provide them with further information and encourage them to schedule a consultation.

For new subscribers joining your email list, you can trigger a welcome email series introducing your brand and offering a discount on their first successful paint job.

5. Launch, monitor, and optimize.

Once you've completed the previous steps, it's time to launch your automated campaigns. Closely monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates to track your progress and identify areas for improvement.

Regularly evaluate your campaigns and workflows. Analyze data to identify what's working and what's not. Use this data to optimize your automation strategy.