Marketing Automation: Why It Matters for Your Business
Most business owners understand the importance of email marketing and how growing an email list of engaged subscribers can have a significant impact on their business. After all, email has been shown to have a return of $36 to $45 for every dollar spent, depending on the industry. (Statistica) But do they truly understand what marketing automation is, how it differs from email marketing, and why it is every bit as important, if not more so?
While implementing email marketing practices is a great first step for many businesses, taking it a bit further and creating a strong marketing automation strategy can help stretch small marketing teams, allowing a few people to do the work of many. Using marketing automation software and tactics allows marketers to automate repetitive tasks, manage marketing processes and campaigns automatically across multiple channels, and personalize outreach to their customers at the most opportune time on the most relevant platform.
Regardless of where their customers are most comfortable, using marketing automation allows marketers to reach them with automated messages across email, SMS, social media, and the internet, drastically increasing the efficiency of the team and the ROI for the company.
Why it matters for companies
With more and more people looking to be seen as people, not numbers, a recent Salesforce report shows that 65% of consumers say they will remain loyal to companies that offer a more personalized experience. Furthermore, 53% say they expect companies to anticipate their needs. With this growing trend, it is more important than ever for companies to understand and strategize how best to include marketing automation tactics in their overall marketing efforts.
Additional benefits of implementing marketing automation
When done thoughtfully and strategically, marketing automation truly is the master key businesses can use to unlock a complete 360-degree view of all areas of the company that have historically existed in silos. It helps to create more streamlined and scalable processes, connect data across siloed departments, grow qualified sales leads, personalize outreach to customers, enhance team collaboration, and increase revenue.
Some of the most common ways marketing automation software accomplishes these goals are by:
1. Streamlining engagement
Marketing automation allows marketers to create workflows based on a predetermined trigger. Since they are determined beforehand, they can be set up once and then are always on, working around the clock, ready to send supportive messaging at just the right time.
2. Lead Nurturing
Build cross-channel campaigns (email, SMS, social, retargeting) that guide prospects down the funnel until they’re ready to convert.
3. Qualifying Leads
By utilizing lead scoring, forms, landing pages, QR codes, CRM integration, and dynamic content, your marketing automation platform can become a lead-generating machine.
4. Team collaboration
Marketing can become the true partner that sales has always been looking for by encouraging collaboration with sales to determine what a “qualified lead” looks like for the company—and building systems to deliver more of them.
5. Integrating your MarTech Stack
Not every business needs or can afford an all-in-one marketing automation solution. At the very least, your core automation tool should easily integrate with your other marketing tools (CRM, forms, analytics, content tools) and allow you to create your own fully functional custom MarTech stack that can pass the data needed to create seamless experiences users expect in today’s digital world.
6. Social Media Management
Most companies are juggling multiple social media accounts, and managing them is a full-time job. But not every company has the resources to have one person who only handles social media. It can all get overwhelming, fast. Luckily, many marketing automation tools provide a way to easily manage all social media content creation, approvals, posting, and reporting in one place. This helps keep social accounts more secure and streamlines all processes related to social by keeping them in one, easy-to-manage place.
7. Form creation
A robust form application is non-negotiable. The foundation of personalized marketing is strong data. Making sure your marketing automation platform has an easy way to capture the insights you need is one of the most important parts of all your marketing efforts.
8. SMS Marketing
With open rates of 98% and nearly 90% of people reading texts within 3 mins, SMS marketing is a must-have for some businesses. Marketing Automation connects SMS with your other marketing channels for consistent messaging. (Sender)
Marketing Automation Isn’t Just a Tool
It is an ecosystem that connects entire business operations and, when used strategically, empowers your team to do more with less, while delivering more relevant, timely, and human experiences to your audience.
Stop leaving opportunities on the table.
Marketing automation can turn every touchpoint into a chance to convert. Let’s talk about how to put it to work for your business. Contact us or schedule a consultation today!
