Marketing automation has become an essential tool for today’s digital marketers. But, you aren’t alone if you’re still unsure of the term’ What is Marketing Automation s exact meaning or how marketing automation software can streamline your strategy. So, let’s dive straight into the question at hand: What is marketing automation and how does it work?
Once reserved for those with enterprise-level marketing budgets, more and more businesses are now recognizing the value of marketing automation. And luckily, with the emergence of new solutions made for smaller teams (and budgets), it has also become much more accessible.
Automation empowers marketers in all types of industries and organizations to drive marketing ROI while improving their customer experience.
If you haven’t already, now is the perfect time to start building better customer relationships and saving time with marketing automation.
What is marketing automation?
Marketing automation is the use of software that enables marketers to automate marketing tasks. This might include multichannel digital marketing campaigns or managing contacts in their database.
Marketing automation comes in many different forms, depending on the aims and activities of your marketing team. You can learn more about the specifics of automated campaigns for target audiences in our article on B2C marketing automation.
Marketing automation vs. CRM
If you’re already familiar with the concept norway mobile phone numbers database of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) you may ask yourself exactly how this differs from marketing automation.
While it is true that an effective CRM strategy works hand in hand with marketing automation, they are not one and the same. As the name suggests, marketing automation centers around… marketing — particularly improving the process of capturing and nurturing leads. CRM is more sales focused and helps sales teams to convert leads and manage the customer lifecycle.
What are the benefits of marketing automation?
Marketing automation software has grown in popularity in recent years. In fact, over 90% of marketers consider it “very important” to the overall success of their digital marketing.
So, how exactly can automation tools help marketers improve their results?
Marketing automation has two key benefits:
Saving time and money by reducing keys to building your company’s corporate identity manual and repetitive tasks, and letting the software do the work for you.
Improving customer experience through personalized journeys targeted toward the needs of each customer.
This increased efficiency allows you to focus on what’s important — your marketing strategy. As a result you can devote more time to developing and scaling your activities. Insights from your platform can also show where your efforts are most fruitful, leading to better ROI.
On top of this, helps create a more effective customer journey that not only increases conversions but also strengthens the longer-term relationship and improves retention. Through more targeted marketing, you can ensure customers receive the right message at the right time to boost conversions and connect with them on a personal level.
What can be used for?
For many, the first example that comes to mind is email — sending automated emails triggered by defined conditions.
But aside from email campaigns, you can also use software for activities on other marketing channels. These include:
SMS & WhatsApp messages — for example ecommerce sites may send automated order confirmations via SMS/WhatsApp. Or when organizing an event, businesses can keep event attendees in the loop with automated updates.
Social media — some platforms enable you to schedule and publish content across different channels, or send automated responses to messages you receive.
Landing pages — if your landing page includes a signup form, you can use to add new leads to your contact lists and follow up with them.
Aside from multi-channel campaigns and content, you can also automate various marketing processes, such as:
Segmentation and contact management
can simplify the process of managing your lists and segmenting contacts based on different criteria. For example, a contact might be added to your “qualified leads” list if they visit your pricing page.
Example of using to manage contact lists after a subscriber signs up
You can also automatically update contact information depending on customer behavior. For example, clicking a certain link in your emails could trigger a subscriber to be associated with a particular interest.
Lead scoring
is a powerful tool in lead qualification — that is, determining whether a prospect is likely to be worth your valuable time and energy. By creating a lead scoring model, you can assign points to leads when they perform actions that suggest they are on the right track for conversion.
Example of a lead scoring workflow, based on engagement with an welcome email
Now you know enough to get your bearings, let’s take a closer look under the hood of .
How does marketing automation work?
If you’re just getting started, you’ll want to spend some time looking into the different automation tools available.
Marketing automation software
With its increasing popularity, there is now a wider choice of marketing automation solutions. Each platform differs in its focus and offers varying functionalities. For example, some are geared towards ecommerce whereas others are a better fit for small businesses or B2B marketing purposes.
While a lot will depend on your budget, there are certain key features to look out for in marketing automation software:
Multichannel marketing campaigns for bahrain leads different customer journeys
Visitor tracking to know who is looking at your website and how they are using it
Reporting and analytics for evaluating performance
Segmentation to separate your lists based on different criteria like contacts’ behavior or interests
Lead management for different stages of the customer journey, from lead generation and capture to nurturing
A/B testing of different customer journeys and content to automatically select the best performing option
Ready to take the plunge? Check out this roundup of the best email automation tools.</p>
Implementing a
marketing automation strategy
/>As you have seen, marketing automation offers a wealth of opportunities for your business. But how exactly can you get started with it?
The steps below will take you through the process of using automation software from start to finish.