Marketing automation should cover social, display, search, lead-gen, email, and lead scoring.
Automation Flywheel
A flywheel is a system that builds momentum over time. In business, it means putting effort into something once and having it continue to produce results with less and less input.
Unlike a one-time campaign that stops when you stop working on it, a flywheel keeps spinning. You just need to give it a push now and then.
If you search “marketing flywheel” on Google, you’ll get a link to Hubspot’s flywheel system. My flywheel model differs from theirs, which focuses on go-to-market motion. Mine is about resource allocation.
Let’s take a newsletter as an example.
Imagine you’re a company that sells cameras. You have two core audiences: photographers and videographers. You want to keep both groups engaged through email. But photographers want to read about photography, and video creators want content about video production.
What you shouldn’t do is create two ongoing newsletters and send each group a new issue at your standard [send frequency](Email Marketing#B2B Send Frequency). That approach leads to endless content production and diminishing returns. Sending two new emails per week with fresh content could be a full-time job.
Instead, build an automation where new subscribers start with your first issue, not the next one.
News publishers operate on a continuous cycle. There’s no start or end. But brands can, and should, think differently. You don’t want someone to subscribe and get an email from six months ago that no longer reflects your business. That said, if your emails lose value after six months, you’re likely sending the wrong kind of content.
Emails should be solution-focused, not product-focused. The problems your audience faces today are likely the same ones others like them faced six months ago.
Back to our camera company example: start with the photographer audience. Rather than spinning the weekly content wheel forever, create a six-month series. That’s 26 emails. Write 26 pieces of content. Create 26 relevant CTAs. Then set up an automation that sends each new subscriber one email per week, starting from the beginning.
This will take a couple of months to build. After that, maintenance is minimal.
Once that series is running, repeat the process for videographers.
In four months, you’ll have an evergreen email system serving two distinct audiences, with only light optimization required going forward.
That’s your flywheel in motion.