These days when everything changes very quickly and lack of time is our biggest challenge, marketing automation or automated marketing is a solution. It provides us with the necessary efficiency to create strategies to boost the business.
In this article, we’ll tell you everything you need to know to get started with marketing automation – benefits, instructions on how to choose the right set of tools, and the best marketing software for businesses of various sizes.
What is marketing automation or marketing automation?
Marketing automation is the usage of tools to perform marketing actions in an automated way. Thanks to this, a company can execute processes that would naturally be difficult and achieve more efficiency and results and greater control and monitoring over them.
This concept started as an email marketing tool but has since developed into software capable of automating repetitive tasks, reducing human errors, managing complex tasks such as measurement, and optimizing marketing efforts.
How can marketing automation help you achieve commercial opportunities?
The goal of marketing automation is usually to achieve business goals with a minimum of time and optimized costs. In marketing automation, there can be a lot of objectives: informational, conversational, and more.
The possibilities of marketing automation are practically endless since they are linked to technological development, although we can highlight these seven main qualities:
Lead capture:
to collect the leads. For example, through a landing page, users will be offered to enter their data (email, phone number, other options) to participate in a subscription or receive a free downloadable ebook in return.
Lead scoring and management:
the use of data (demographics, behavior, etc.) to separate potential clients from those who only passed through the website. Managing this scoring allows the marketing and sales department to discover which users are ready to buy and which you need to “work” with more.
Lead nurturing:
this type of automation allows you to track engagement and offer the right content at the right time, to achieve the conversion of those leads.
Campaign management:
SEO, social listening, paid ads… Through automated marketing campaigns, you can focus on strategy and use a CRM platform to store all customer information and monitor their activity.
Content management:
Here you can perform the management of network publications, emails for campaigns, etc.
CRM Integration:
integration with the CRM allows you to continue the process of getting a possible lead: from the moment the offer appears on social media until you can pass this possible conversion to the hands of the sales department.
Analytics and reporting:
Marketing automation offers the opportunity to collect lots of data. Based on automatic reports, you can create or adapt the marketing strategy for the whole business.
Tips for implementing marketing automation
Please, keep in mind that behind any digital marketing automation success lies a detailed and well-calculated strategy and professional ideas of the marketer. There is no magic trick that will offer you the desired results, but we can offer you some tips that will surely help you choose the proper marketing automation tools:
Review and analyze your situation:
Before introducing automation into your marketing strategy, make sure to review your current situation. If you do not hold this prior analysis, it is possible to waste resources or not exactly meet the needs of your leads.
Content + automation:
the combination of inbound marketing + automation must always go together. It is a great opportunity to improve communication and refine the content you deliver.
Personalize messages:
Use the automation software to make it seem like all your communications were written in a personalized way. Generic messages are unattractive and will likely not get the desired result.
Segment:
offer your users the content that is valuable for them. It is necessary to create a logical chain of content that allows the lead to be brought closer to the moment of the sale.
Capture and retain customers:
getting new customers should be as important as maintaining those you already have. Recurring purchases by your existing customers can account for up to 60% of your sales.
Set smart goals:
use SMART goals and set realistic short, medium, and long-term goals. This way you can commit and motivate the marketing team to achieve them.
Analyze and change:
as your marketing automation actions are applied, you need to use easy-to-interpret indicators to check if you are on the right track. You will need to review them constantly to make any necessary changes.
The best marketing automation software
Some of the best marketing automation programs available today are:
Software for large companies:
It has many very useful tools for marketing professionals and its purpose is to facilitate the automation of marketing and sales. Its workflow solution is designed to drive growth and spend less time on repetitive tasks. It offers multiple tasks and integration of sales, marketing, and support software in the tool’s own CRM.
Pricing: from $3300 per month
Another leader of the market. Its customization options and professional support have given great popularity to this software.
It has a lot of features among which the main ones are: lead management and scoring, BI-directional CRM synching, email marketing, consumer marketing, site personalization, web activity tracking, customer base marketing, and more.
Pricing: from $3195 per month
This service can send marketing advertisements to mobile devices, email, video, and search results pages. The Eloqua team promises to boost conversions, sales, and customer base.
Pricing: from $2000 per month
This marketing automation service is one of the most popular tools in the automation sector. Salesforce was created especially for B2B companies, which helps marketers generate more leads, close more sales, and maximize return on investment.
Pricing: from $1250 per month
Software for SMEs:
This service also offers plans for small businesses. It includes many functions but for fewer clients.
Pricing: from $20 per month
Mailchimp is one of the best marketing automation tools widely known for its email marketing capabilities. But now they provide other marketing automation features.
Pricing: from $19.99 per month
It is a cloud-based sales and marketing software that offers customer relationship management (CRM), marketing automation, and e-commerce features in one suite.
Pricing: from $159 per month
One of the most recent open-source services but consolidated in the business world. It provides a high level of marketing integration with audience intelligence that allows you to make personalized emails, create landing pages, create workflows for customer experiences, and feature to track your marketing activities.
Pricing: from $350 per month
Affordable marketing automation tool created for small and medium-sized companies. Autopilot’s built-in integrations to marketing, messaging, lead intelligence, and CRM features help marketers send messages regularly using email, SMS, and physical mail.
Pricing: from $47 per month
Allows you to launch SMS and emailing campaigns; with telephone support, unlimited contact storage, and up to 300 emails per day in its free version. It has Premium versions to increase the volume of shipments and its functions.
Pricing: from $25 per month
Thanks to its affordable price, it is one of the favorite automation platforms for SMEs. It uses artificial intelligence algorithms to improve data collection and provides more accurate campaign execution.
Pricing: from $29 per month
Examples of marketing automation
Now that you are practically experts in marketing automation, take a look at some examples of how we can use them:
Welcome emails
Thanks to automation you will be able to welcome each new user without fail and maximize brand awareness. Send a welcome email, enhance that first impression, and start establishing a loyal relationship.
Transactional emails
When clients make an online purchase they want to know if their order has been placed correctly or when the service will be available. Imagine having to manually send confirmation and delivery details to all customers after every purchase.
Or send manual emails every time a user wants to change a password from his account. Therefore, you need automation in sending emails and updates of the type:
- Payment confirmation
- Order accepted
- Shipping details
- Shipping confirmation
Remarketing
Not so many companies could be sure that they don’t have competitors. None of them have an audience that is 100% loyal to the brand. In this sense, it is possible to strengthen retention rates by automating your remarketing programs to reconnect with former clients.
Customized content
Your customers expect you to be a leader in the market and want your brand to generate quality content. This is a good lead-generation method. This content is unique and more personalized, and to get it, all users must provide their names and email addresses or other information. Once they provide it, it will be sent to them automatically.
Feedback and surveys
A popular method to learn more about customers’ wants and needs is through questionnaires. These work because they result in personalized recommendations that are truly relevant to the audience and allow you to improve as a brand.
Automate social networks
For many companies, social networks are first on the list of dispensable tasks. However, they offer many benefits in the long term, since we must know where our customers are. With the automation of social networks, we can manage them in less time and regularly publish quality content, boost company engagement, and improve our reputation.
Earn loyalty
Marketing is not only about acquiring new customers but also about creating loyalty. Keeping your clients loyal takes time. They want attention and they deserve it. Personalized messages can improve engagement and earn a good reputation for you. They are busy and don’t have time to stay up to date with all our new products and services. That’s why sending relevant up-to-date emails is an effective marketing tactic.
Final Words
Marketing automation will save your team time and help you improve your customer communication. With marketing automation tools, you’ll be able to better target customers and pick up their interest, getting you to your sales goals faster.
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