It's tough to keep up with the latest marketing trends and changes. You need to be where your customers are, but there's just not enough time in the day.
Marketing automation is a great way to bridge that gap. It allows you to, among many things, track customer behavior and preferences to create more personalized experiences. This improves engagement and conversions!
Basically, anything that you can do manually can be automated with software. Keep reading to learn how.
Automate your marketing tasks and save time
If you're unsure how marketing automation can help your business or have yet to explore if it is a good marketing approach, consider the following ways it can benefit your business:
- Improves marketing results by identifying specific marketing tactics that have been successful in the past.
- Saves time through automated marketing tasks 24/7 in a highly customizable way, such as creating targeted email campaigns, reviewing website analytics, data management, creating rules, and sequencing messages.
- Aligns marketing efforts with business objectives and helps you create a marketing strategy that marketing teams can easily understand.
- Organizes new data entry (within tags, lists, and automation) and reduces time spent on data entry and manual processes via email marketing software.
- Increases revenue and engagement with automated marketing that sends timely and relevant messages because it delivers specific content for the lead's level of interest/knowledge regarding the product.
- Delivers more personal, timely, and relevant content to leads and customers.
- Gets insights into subscribers' behavior so you can send them even more targeted messages.
How does it work?
There are numerous types of marketing automation software on the market; however, marketing automation is more than just marketing software.Marketing automation software platforms allow marketing teams to:
- Create targeted campaigns and measure marketing ROI by tracking actions taken after a marketing campaign has been sent out. This includes traditional marketing tactics such as direct mail, email marketing, or social media posts, and marketing tactics such as marketing videos and marketing automation software marketing campaigns.
- Build marketing lists and gain valuable insights through marketing intelligence or analytics.
- Manage prospects and leads with an easy-to-use prospect management tool that allows marketers to filter leads by marketing preference, company size, location, and more, allowing for better lead nurturing.
- Identify marketing trends, track marketing campaign performance, and benchmark marketing activities with marketing automation software that provides marketing insights.
- Collect, manage and analyze big data (marketing analytics) using marketing automation software that integrates with Google Analytics and other popular business intelligence tools.
- Optimize marketing activities with automatic suggestions for new emails, social media posts, landing pages, and more based on data analysis of top-performing content with the latest marketing software.
- Personalize email marketing messages with dynamic content that includes customer data from CRM, detailed purchase history, and more.
- Streamline social media management with tools designated to identify top influencers, schedule posts for specific times of the day, monitor keywords and hashtags, share photos directly to popular social networks and monitor brand sentiment through social listening software.
- With CRM tools, marketers can consolidate all their contacts, call scripts, emails, and social posts in one place without having to re-enter information.
So, why is marketing automation more than just marketing software?
There are many marketing automation tools today, each designated to meet specific business goals and objectives. Since there is no one-size-fits-all solution, organizations must carefully review their needs before choosing a tool that suits their culture, processes, and resources.
Marketing automation tools fall into three categories: lead management tools, campaign management tools, and customer relationship management (CRM) tools.
The technology behind Marketing Automation can be very complex, but when broken down into its simplest components, we can see how it becomes more than just marketing software.
Funnel your way to success
There are a few key components to a successful marketing campaign: a great product, targeted traffic, and effective marketing automation.
A great product is essential for any business. Without a high-quality product, you won't be able to keep your customers' attention or generate repeat business. However, having a great product isn't enough on its own. You also need to generate traffic to your site to convert those visitors into buyers. And finally, you need to use effective marketing automation tools to follow up with your customers and keep them engaged at every stage.
But a good starting point for figuring out the sales funnel and larger market formula is to look at what stage of the buying process your product or service falls into.
For example, if your product is something people need to buy right away, such as a food item or medication, your sales funnel will likely be shorter with smaller overall market size. However, if your product is something that people can take their time deciding on – such as a car or a home – then your sales funnel will be longer with a much larger overall market size.
First, you need to understand your market. Who are your ideal customers? What needs do they have that aren't currently being met?
Once you know that, you can create a sales funnel that will attract them and convert them into customers.
The basic steps of a sales funnel are:
- Not problem aware (60%)At this point, you need to attract potential customers with content or offers that appeal to them.
- Problem aware (20%)Yes! You are getting them to the point where they're ready to buy.
- Gathering Information (17%)Still, their final decision will be made after they gather more information.
- Buying now (3%)And finally, they are more than ready to close the sale!
You can automate your marketing tasks and drive more leads and sales through your website with the right tools in place.
Marketing automation makes it easy to create targeted email campaigns, send automated social media posts, and publish valuable content that attracts customers!
It helps you close more sales throughout the lifecycle from lead to purchase, regardless of device or channel, and if you combine this with value-based marketing, a strategy that focuses on creating value for customers rather than on competing on price, you will create a connection with your customers and establish trust. This way, it becomes easier to build relationships with your customers and convince them to buy from you.
And when customers trust you, they're more likely to come back again and recommend you to others!
If you're not automating, you're behind the times
If you're not using marketing automation, it's time to start!
Marketing automation can help solve many old issues that still plague marketing departments today.
The world's top companies are doing it, and there's no reason you can't be one of them. At its core, marketing automation is about creating loyalty and driving revenue through relevant messages.
And that's something your business can benefit from.
Ready to get started? Let us know how we can help.
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