Marketing Automation
Internet and digital technology have completely changed marketing in ways people couldn’t imagine 50 years ago. Nowdays, you can reach millions of people from all corners of the world with a personalized ad in just a few seconds. Also, it all became measurable.
It’s a well known statement that in marketing :“You throw away half of your investments, you just don’t know which half“, but with introduction of digital channels in marketing it’s possible to know exactly where your customers see your ads, how are they reacting to it and all sort of useful information.
One of the biggest advantages modern marketers have is marketing automation.
Marketing automation refers to the software that exists with the goal of automating marketing actions. Many marketing departments have to automate repetitive tasks such as emails, social media, and other website actions. The technology of marketing automation makes these tasks significantly easier.
At it’s best marketing automation is a combination of software and tactics that allows companies to nurture prospects with highly personalized, useful content that helps convert prospects into delighted customers. This type of marketing automation typically generates significant new revenue for companies, and provides an excellent return on the investment required.
However, the term “marketing automation” has become a buzz-word, where marketers seek out marketing automation software under the impression that all of the digital marketing tools necessary for growth, including those needed to generate new leads, roll up under the hood of marketing automation. This misconception leaves many marketers with sophisticated tools to automate the middle of their funnel, but no solution to generating new leads to nurture in the first place.
The consequence is that marketers begin buying lists of email addresses to nurture instead of generating inbound leads. While it seems like a quick fix, it’s not a long-term solution, nor does it create the fertile ground for a healthier, longer relationship with your future customers.
Who uses marketing automation
Both marketing and sales teams use marketing automation. Although this technology brings the two together, marketing and sales teams actually use marketing automation in different ways.
Marketing automation for marketing team
Marketers can use marketing automation to drive pipeline by sourcing the hottest leads, creating customized campaigns (such as email campaigns) to target ideal buyers, and moving leads through the sales cycle to maximize the ROI of marketing programs.
Marketing automation for sales team
Marketing automation is the bridge that connects sales teams with marketers, and gives them access to content they can send to leads with the click of a button. Sales will know which leads to follow up with first and be able to focus their time on what matters most: closing deals.
Applications of Marketing automation software
Generating leads
Lead generation is the process of collecting information about prospects — those who may be interested in buying your company’s products or services — and engaging them with relevant, useful marketing content, such as a step-by-step guide.
Manage leads
Generating leads is just the beginning; managing them is a crucial step to drive interested leads through the marketing funnel until they’re ready to be passed off to sales teams. This step includes audience segmentation, lead qualification, and lead nurturing.
Build and manage email marketing campaigns
In B2B marketing, an effective email program can be the difference between closing more deals and letting hot leads slip through the cracks. You can build dynamic emails, use A/B testing to see which content works best, and set up triggers to automate email delivery at the right time.
Allign sales and marketing teams
Marketing automation can bring sales and marketing teams together to make their efforts more efficient and effective. Sales teams can deliver marketing-approved drip campaigns to leads, for instance, while marketing teams can see how their tactics contribute to increased sales via integration with CRM.
Report on ROI
Key stakeholders, such as CMOs, want to see marketing’s impact on revenue. Marketing automation platforms can help you check on the status of your funnel at a glance, report on campaign performance easily, and more.
What is key to succesful marketing automation tactic?
Though there are many pieces that must be put in place to establish a successful marketing automation strategy, there are two extremely key principles to keep in mind when developing a strategy that scales and evolves with your customers.
1. Recognizing that marketing automation does not do marketing and lead generation for you, but can help scale your successful efforts.
The first step is building a pipeline of good fit leads by generating relevant, optimized content that speaks to your prospect’s needs and challenges. This is where inbound marketing becomes the building blocks of your marketing funnel.
2. Centering your marketing messages around the real, live person at the receiving end of your campaigns.
That means we should treat them like a real person, not a fragmented self across different tools like email, social media, etc. If we can leverage all the marketing tools, channels and behavioral data possible to paint a complete picture of a person, we can nurture them based on their unique challenges and interests, not based solely on the emails they open or click through.
Marketing automation is extremely efficient and useful software that is transforming the businesses that implement it every day.
The obstacle to implementation of marketing automation is it’s hefty price but considering all the benefits it offers it might be worth the risk.
Of course, some businesses/industries need it more than others and it’s not essential to succesful business growth but marketing automation is repeteadly showing it’s tremendous potential.
