It is a fast-moving world. Technology makes it even more rapid.
Things happen in the blink of an eye and life as we know it changes from day-to-day. Keeping up with these swift changes is crucial, especially for businesses that have an online presence.
Being successful online means, you have found a way to stay on top of quite a vast array of processes, including running and managing a business, following traffic and leads, leading campaigns for client conversions.
On top of all that, be two steps ahead of the competition. How is that possible? Three words: digital marketing automation.
Background
Digital marketing automation was something that every online business desperately needed. In the past, digital marketers went the extra mile to reach their target audience and engage them via radio, television, and newspapers.
Today, it is all about the Internet. Because it is global and prompts instant access, the Internet revolutionized the way the customer base expanded.
As a result, marketing automation emerged as a concept as soon as technology provided such services began to be developed. This technology is usually referred to as “customer relationship management – CRM.”
The online CRM systems were the main concept that was being developed during the 1980s, and what followed was customer servicing, sales management, and support. However, small and medium companies couldn’t enjoy the benefits. Only huge corporations could afford these services due to the high rates.
Marketing automation, as we know it, didn’t start being developed until the middle of the 2000s, becoming full of resources for every business on the planet. Today, it is an industry that is estimated to be worth $1.62 billion compared to the “modest” $225 million that it was before.
How is marketing automation defined?
The technology or platforms used by marketing departments and organizations to manage and automate sending emails, posting on social media, running websites, and other repetitive tasks falls under the name of marketing automation.
The goal of using marketing automation platforms is to streamline sales and marketing departments by transforming the manual processes that constantly repeat into a fully automated solution.
Without these platforms, today, it is unimaginable to lead a marketing campaign and categorize leads with the aim of converting them.
All in all, marketing automation represents the only opportunity for marketers to design a plan, coordinate it between team members, manage it, and measure all results that keep coming.
The benefits of marketing automation are:
1. Top-notch marketing efficiency
Let’s start with the most obvious one. Even though it is the core benefit of going full marketing automation and is self-explanatory – it is a benefit that must be mentioned.
By implementing the marketing automation in your CRM system, you automate the time-consuming, manual tasks like sending emails to prospects and potential buyers, engaging leads, and offering them the content and information they need so they convert.
By doing this, you streamline the process, and all you have to do is follow the processes, observe the results and adjust the campaigns to meet the needs of the company in the way of achieving its business goals.
2. More revenue
After you automate the cross-sells, up-sells, and customer follow-ups, expect an increase in the number of clients and their loyalty.
As people like it when the company provides them much more than just an excellent service at the check-out, marketing automation has proven to be the perfect missing thing for the whole customer journey mapping. All of this leads to more conversions and more revenue.
3. Less staffing costs
How does it sound that one person managing a marketing automation platform for the company can do the job of a 50-person marketing and sales team? Amazing, isn’t it? Well, it is the truth.
By creating lead nurturing campaigns, email, and social media marketing campaigns, the process is fully automated, and all it takes is one skilled person who will manage it.
To illustrate it more visually, one person will be able to send thousands of personalized emails every single day. This means that you won’t be needing a big team of marketers and sales representatives, which will be excellent for your staffing budget.
4. Thinking outside the box
Will you be able to think creatively when you have to deal with hundreds of emails and other marketing activities each day, manually? Of course, you won’t.
Productivity and creativity will be minimized entirely as all the time you have on your hands will be used mechanically to finish the tasks. However, when you transfer to full marketing automation, you will free a lot of time to focus on more creative tasks.
You can do the same thing for your employees as well. Everyone will have more time on their hands and use it to expand productivity or bring up new ideas that will further develop and grow the business.
5. Approach potential clients across multiple channels
Another great benefit of marketing automation is that you can target potential clients on more than one channel. How cool is that?
Also, each of the channels will still have a personalized approach. This means that you can choose what and when to send emails, postcards, text messages, tweets, and even phone calls down the customer journey map.
This multi-channel targeting facilitates every marketer’s work and, at the same time, multiplies the chances of converting the qualifying leads.
6. Schedule marketing activities
All your marketing activities are automated, but they can also be scheduled well ahead of time. You can create the whole plan of social media posting and email sending in one single day for the entire upcoming week.
Going even deeper into this feature, you will able to target different segments of your potential audience (for example, contact a broader audience compared to strictly chosen profiles of clients) and personalize the message according to their needs and interests.
7. Use existing blog content for engaging leads
If you are running a blog as a part of your website, you will be happy to know that marketing automation programs have special features that can educate the potential leads and customers by feeding them with recommended content they must-see.
And, you guess right, this recommended content can be your existing blog content. In this way, you get to generate returning visitors and promote your content to use their value ultimately.
8. Build loyalty
Last but not least, you can build loyalty with your marketing automation activities. For example, you can reward your returning customers by letting them set up a referral program, and by using affiliate marketing, they can make money while promoting you.
Moreover, you can use other incentives as well for the not-so-online-active clients, like exclusive deals and offers in services or products in return for their loyalty.
To sum up
The world was ready for marketing automation. It came; it won over the hearts of every marketer who tried it and left a legacy for use.
It is truly unimaginable to think about how huge companies can maintain marketing processes without automation. These automated activities save time and energy, reduce costs, and bring in a lot of money on the table.
It is even more exciting to see what’s in store for the marketing automation future and how these processes can become even more independent.
We know for now that more personalized engagement in the shape of voice and individual contact is being worked on and brand interaction that gives answers to clients’ questions even before they ask them.
Hannah Derby is a digital marketer who is enthusiastic about trying out the newest trends and innovations in the digital marketing industry and helping businesses advance. She is also interested in how these innovations impact the economy and business growth so she often blogs about current trends, especially in the business plan consultant field, and provides insights to her readers, which many times have proven helpful and useful.
