Marketing automation is the process of automating and managing your marketing campaigns with technology. It’s a marketing process that arms your marketing team with the tools and data it needs to create highly successful marketing campaigns, track results, and make adjustments.
It’s no surprise that this is a rapidly growing area. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s research, marketing automation users are increasing rapidly at an average rate of 6.4% each year. Although marketing automation can help your team automate some of its marketing efforts end-to-end, marketers have been using it primarily in an ad hoc fashion.
Marketing automation is more than just a simple database. It’s a whole new way of working. To use marketing automation effectively, you need to think about your marketing process and take a holistic approach from prospecting, sales, order fulfillment, and customer service.
How can marketing automation help you?
Let’s look at five reasons to use automation to get better results and build a more effective marketing team.
1. Create a high-performing team
Marketing automation is not just about sending automated emails. It’s about creating a team of people who can rapidly create highly successful marketing campaigns. Marketing teams gain vital information about a campaign’s performance based on customer interaction with their marketing material. This interaction creates a continuous feedback loop that enables the marketing team to create an optimal marketing campaign.
2. Gain customer insight
There are two main types of data in marketing: First, you have data about your customers. You know who they are, and you know what they do. Second, you have information about your products and services. But, there’s a third type of data that you need. You need to know how your customers feel about your products and services. This data is called “customer sentiment.” This type of data is essential because it drives your customers’ behavior. The sentiment data you collect can help identify which products and services are most important to your customers so that you can either tweak your existing campaigns or create new upsell campaigns.
3. Measure results
Marketing automation is about tracking the results of your campaigns and adjusting your marketing as needed. It means that you need to track the performance of your campaigns, identify what works, and make adjustments.
Tracking the results of your campaigns can be difficult, but it’s important to do it. There are several ways that you can track the results of your campaigns. For example, you can use an email campaign management tool to measure the success of your campaigns. You can also use this tool to track responses and make adjustments.
Traditionally, marketers would set a goal, create a campaign, and measure the results of these campaigns. But, with marketing automation, you measure results continuously. You can gauge right from the beginning whether a campaign is producing the right type of leads. You can estimate whether your customers are converting on your website. You can measure how often people are clicking on your emails. Marketing automation lets you know how your customers respond to your marketing campaigns in real-time so that you can tweak your campaign.
4. Increase sales
The traditional marketing approach is to send out a generic message, hope that people respond, and then wait for sales to come in. But, with marketing automation, you can make your campaigns more personal. In other words, you can create tailor-made messages that target a particular segment of your customer and talk to their needs.
This type of personalization can make a massive difference in the response that you get from your customers. It’s a simple fact: The more personal you can make your marketing, the more likely you are to get a response.
5. Reduce costs
Marketing automation is about using technology to reduce the costs of marketing. Traditional marketing is expensive. It costs a lot of money to send a direct mail piece, place an ad, or have a salesperson visit your customers. But, with marketing automation, you can create marketing campaigns that reach the right people at the right time at a fraction of the cost compared to the traditional forms of marketing.
The potential cost savings from marketing automation is enormous. You can cut costs by 25% or more. And, if you can reduce the cost of marketing, you can increase your profits.
How does marketing automation affect customers?
Marketing automation impacts customers in several ways.
1. Improve customer service
One of the benefits of marketing automation is that it allows you to measure the performance of your campaigns. It lets you know how your customers are responding to your marketing.
This data can help you make adjustments and make your customers happy. It can also help you understand which campaigns are working and which ones aren’t working.
2. Improve customer experience
Marketing automation can help you make sure that you create a good customer experience. The insights and feedback you receive from your campaigns can help you tweak the marketing campaigns and make them more effective.
3. Improve customer retention
Marketing automation can help you to improve your customer retention. It’s common for customers to lose interest in your company. However, you can create marketing campaigns that drive reviews from your customers about your products and services. It gives you a unique opportunity to start a dialogue with your customers and resolve their issues.
4. Increase brand loyalty
Marketing automation is about creating an experience for your customers. You have to consider what your customers want and what they expect. When planning your campaigns, it forces you to think about the customer’s journey. It allows you to create campaigns that make your customers feel appreciated and valued.
The bottom line is that marketing automation can help you to improve your customer’s loyalty towards your brand.
How much does it cost to implement marketing automation?
The cost of implementing marketing automation varies depending on the software you choose. However, implementing marketing automation is less than the cost of traditional marketing.
Here are some examples of the cost of implementing marketing automation:
Email Marketing
The cost of implementing a decent email marketing automation is less than $30-50/month.
Sales Marketing
Implementing sales automation is less than $30-50/month.
Website Automation
The cost of implementing website automation is less than $100/month.
Which type of software provides marketing automation features?
There are several different types of marketing automation software. You can choose the type of software that’s best for your business.
1. Customer relationship management (CRM) software
CRM software helps you to manage your customers. It lets you know which of your customers are essential to your business. It allows you to keep track of all of your customers’ information. It can also help you to create a relationship with your customers.
2. Marketing automation software
Marketing automation software is the core of your marketing automation process. It’s a tool that can help you automate and manage your marketing. It can help you create a marketing automation process specific to your business.
Conclusion
Marketing automation is the future of marketing. The more you use it, the more you’ll see the benefits. You’ll have a high-performing team, gain customer insight, measure results, and increase sales. The sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll see the benefits.
