Marketing Automation is here to stay.
While you’re still wondering what it is capable of, several businesses have increased their ROI up to 10 times using marketing automation. In 2021, this trend is only going to go high.
In this article, we will address the what, how, and why of marketing automation so that you can include it in your Digital Marketing strategy as well.
What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing Automation is a process that utilizes various tools & software to automate marketing campaigns. It also emphasizes on learning customer behavior over time.
A few tasks that can be undertaken by automation include:
- Replying to customer queries
- Publishing & scheduling content
- Lead generation & nurturing
- Data entry
- Lead research
- Customer messaging & follow-ups
How does Marketing Automation Work?
Let’s say you’re a B2B marketer, and you run many events. If you were to map that whole campaign process out onto a whiteboard, this is how it would look like:
You start with your target audience — let’s say senior IT professionals in California have opted to receive communication from you. Next, you want to send out an email invite to your list to which one of three things can happen:
Wave 1: If they accept the invite
Then you send them a welcome email. Your sales team will place a follow-up call, followed by an SMS reminder the day before the event.
Wave 2: If they decline
You send them a “See you next time” email and then move out of the campaign.
Wave 3: If they don’t respond
You run display ads on social media platforms for seven days & if it works, you move them into Wave 1. If it doesn’t work, you move them into wave 2.
What you have now is a multi-wave, multi-channel experience. Traditionally, you would have to manually execute this whole process using Spreadsheets, Outlook reminders, and other applications.
With marketing automation, you can do all this on a single platform, known as Content Resource Management (CRM). These CRM platforms are widely used by online marketing specialists across the globe. It lets you design the whole workflow. You set the decision logic, load up your contacts, and the process runs automatically (thus, the name).
Why Use Marketing Automation?
A marketing automation software streamlines your time taking marketing tasks, and ensures better efficiency of your efforts. By reducing the manual work, it makes your life easy like Adplorer.
Still confused? The below points will give you a clear idea of why you should use marketing automation in 2021.
CRM functionality
As discussed above, a CRM platform allows marketers to consolidate and manage their contacts from social media, email, excel spreadsheets, and more. It also allows marketers to create target segments and manage info like last contacted. This enables marketers to keep track of where prospects are in the funnel.
Reporting
This feature allows marketers to calculate the ROI of marketing activities. Great marketing automation tools can tell you if prospects have engaged with your social media posts, how your landing pages are performing, and the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.
Reduced sales cycle
A buyer usually sees a product ad 8-10 times on various online platforms before purchasing it. Marketing automation allows you to set lead scoring that notifies you when a prospect has reached a certain level of interest so their information can be passed to the sales team.
Wrapping Up
2021 will see extensive use of marketing automation software. If you’re looking to spruce up your marketing strategy, consider employing marketing automation in your Digital Marketing strategy.
