How Does Marketing Automation Help?
You understand the purpose of market automation is to minimize the mundane and administrative tasks for marketers so that they can focus on fulfilling customer wants and needs. But, you also have to appreciate how the fundamental characteristics of marketing automation help businesses achieve their company-wide strategic goals. Knowing what to expect can go a long way in ensuring that marketers use the system productively and take advantage of all it has to offer.
There’s no shortage of marketing automation tools for marketers to consider. And, by and large, they all offer similar features such as personalization, lead management, analytics, etc. Pardot and HubSpot are just a few examples of marketing automation platforms.
So, the determining factor for your marketing automation software of choice may come down to personal preference or how well the provider applies the principles that their tool is designed to support. Nonetheless, let’s review how the utilities of marketing automation help companies.
Overall Efficiency
If you invest in a marketing automation tool, it’s not unreasonable for you to expect to see an immediate improvement within your operations. When technology automatically handles menial tasks that would otherwise require a human to manage, you can expect to see quick results and virtually no errors.
One of the most common marketing functions you might want to automate is social media management. For example, you could use an automation tool to post a tweet every time your company starts a live stream. For businesses that frequently manage a large volume of social media posts across multiple platforms, a tool like this would be extremely beneficial.
There are a number of basic marketing tasks that could easily be preprogrammed. You can even automate complex workflows if you have the skills and resources.
Broad Scalability
As your organization grows, its needs will, too. So, all of your resources will have to adapt to the increasing size of your business.
Fortunately, any capable marketing automation software will be able to scale alongside the business. So it can accommodate organizations at any point in its lifecycle and adjust as operations expand and/or teams restructure.
It’s unlikely that an organization will outgrow its market automation software. More often than not, limiting factors have to do with the other resources and services that you use. So rest assured that your software will be able to adequately handle the dynamics of your email volume, social media promotions, data capacity, etc.
Precise Reporting
Because all of the functions are automatic, the reporting about the marketing activities is very reliable. As a result, you’ll have access to insightful data that will help you understand your audience.
Suppose you ran an automated social media campaign. You can review detailed performance metrics to evaluate the type of posts that your followers found most engaging so that you can continue to deliver content that interests them.
In addition to messaging, you can also optimize your publishing schedule. For example, it would be best to publicize your content when your audience is likely to read and respond. Your marketing automation tool will be able to analyze your posts by day and hour so that you can schedule them accordingly.
And there are a variety of other marketing elements that you can assess to optimize your promotional strategies.
Conversion Rate Maximization
No matter how many leads you have, this number won’t mean much unless you strive to convert them to loyal customers. It can be challenging to manage a large number of leads — even for large, resourceful companies.
You can use marketing automation software to track your leads and develop an understanding of their browsing and buying activity. The more you observe about your users’ behavior, the more effectively you’ll be able to target them.
By extension, this will allow you to maximize your conversion rate. You increase conversions by effectively communicating the details about your products, services, and offers in a timely manner.
Time Management
Your marketing team usually has other obligations to handle aside from actually implementing marketing campaigns. One of their core responsibilities is conducting research. Since automation allows them to minimize the amount of time they spend managing a campaign, they can allocate more time toward developing customer personas and assessing market trends. This work can positively affect conversion rates as well.
Ideally, marketers will also have time for their own professional development. Staying current on industry news, attending relevant training workshops, and participating in conferences and events enhances performance individually and collectively. The benefits ripple throughout the organization sooner or later.
Return On Investment
You probably don’t have a limitless marketing budget, so it’s in your best interest to get the most out of every dollar. After all, your cost efficiency plays a significant role in maximizing your return on investment.
Saving money is just as important as saving time. Keep in mind, there are two sides to revenue — income and expenses. It’s prudent to pay attention to both sides of the equation when trying to maximize revenue. As revenue specialists, we find that increasing sales and reducing costs is far more effective than focusing on one or the other.
Marketing automation helps in this effort because it’s inherently designed to apply the least amount of resources to optimize sales opportunities.
Sales Alignment
If you think marketing automation supports only marketing functions, you’re mistaken. You can help out your sales team by automatically maintaining a steady flow of prospects. Moreover, you can warm the leads for them through a targeted stream of marketing communications that will help qualify the contacts based on interests, urgency, and other useful criteria. And if you’re an over-achiever, you can include valuable interaction data when you send the leads to your sales team so that they can personalize the conversation right from the start.
Oftentimes, sales and marketing teams are perceived as being at odds with each other. However, that doesn’t have to be the reality. When each group understands the needs and capabilities of the other, they can work together to achieve common goals.
Marketing Automation Help
If the idea of automating your marketing tasks excites you, but the thought of actually doing it intimidates you, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Revenue Operations experts are here to help!
Our team of experienced and certified consultants who specialize in marketing, sales, and customer experience strategies works with companies and teams to maximize revenue. We apply our deep knowledge of operations management, technology, and data analytics to improve business performance and drive growth.
As a Salesforce Partner, we’re very familiar with Pardot, Salesforce’s marketing automation solution. But, as trusted advisors, we pride ourselves on taking a fresh approach to each of our projects. As a result, we ultimately leverage the appropriate technologies that adequately satisfy short-term and long-term business objectives.
If you need marketing automation help and are ready to take your business to the next level, schedule a free discovery meeting with one of our experts.