Revolutionize Meeting Scheduling with THIS Automation

Welcome to our series on email marketing automation campaigns! Our goal is to help you understand the top 4 automations business owners should have set-up in their email marketing and CRM platform.

If you missed the beginning of our series, start here:

Elevate and Automate Your Contact Form
Don’t Underestimate Your Newsletter Opt-In

Today’s topic: fully automating your scheduling process!

In this article, we’ll cover:

The joy (and pain) of scheduling meetings
Our ‘Gatekeeper’ automated scheduling campaign
How an automated scheduling campaign works
Helpful tips to increase success

There Must be an Easier Way to Schedule Meetings

As any business owner knows, scheduling and managing appointments can be a necessary evil. All that back and forth to find the “perfect” time, only to have it fall through? Ugh.

Late arrivals. No shows. Miscommunications. Calendars that don’t sync – and all the other joys of scheduling. Fortunately, there is an easier way.

The Automated Gatekeeper – Email Marketing & Scheduling Campaign

Our most recommended automation software programs often revolve around scheduling and email marketing. This campaign integrates the two. We call it our ‘gatekeeper.’

The biggest benefit of automated scheduling programs? Increasing efficiency! They:

Take the back and forth out of appointment scheduling
Reduce the margin of error in double booking
Eliminate the hassle of having to figure out time zones

The biggest benefit of automated email communications? Increasing efficiency, consistency, and effectiveness! They:

Consistently respond in a timely manner
Have already been planned with an effective end goal in mind
Provide details and analytics on contact behavior
And even pre-qualify leads!

As you’ve probably learned though, opening your calendar to just anyone has its risks. Your time is valuable and the last thing you want is to have meaningless appointments taking up your valuable space and time.

The brilliance of our scheduling gatekeeper is that you get to keep your calendar automation software while also pre-authorizing who gets access to it.

The Gatekeeper Scheduling Campaign Explained

Here’s what you need:

Inquiry Form
Scheduling Access & Intake
Marketing Permission
Segmentation
Follow-up
Goal

Here’s how it works:

An inquiry form is created that collects the name, email, list segmentation data, a qualifying question, and marketing permission.
That form is then embedded on a page on your website.
When a website visitor completes the form, that data is also transferred to your email marketing and CRM software.
Automations in your marketing software immediately re-direct the visitor to a confirmation page and sends them a confirmation email.
You’re notified of a new scheduling inquiry. Note that this does not yet mean you have an appointment.

Next…

Your automation software then uses the qualifying question data from the inquiry form to determine if this contact is a good candidate for access to your calendar.
If the contact does meet the criteria, they are sent a follow-up message with links and next steps to schedule an appointment.
However, if the contact does not meet the criteria, then they are sent a kind response that typically includes some valuable next steps.

For those approved for scheduling access, they can be sent reminders if they do not schedule right away. We recommend that you establish a scheduling goal for your follow-up so once that goal is reached, the automation is triggered to stop sending further reminder messages.

Just like the other automation examples we’ve previously covered, your software will also segment the new contact according to the data collected. This then enables you to send customized email messages and add them to your newsletter list.

Keap, the #1 All-In-One Automation Platform

Did you know? Keap – the world’s premier CRM & automation software – takes the hassle out of scheduling with Keap Appointments. It’s included for all Keap users at no extra cost, so maybe it’s worth giving it a try!

Marketecs is a Keap Certified Partner, which means our experts will help answer any questions you may have, and even get you a discount if you decide to invest in this powerhouse software.