Marketing automation is one of the biggest buzzwords in marketing today. But what exactly is it?
Marketing automation is a solution — software, tools or technology — that automates marketing activities or tasks. In other words, it’s a way for you to automate tasks that you would normally be doing manually.
What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation makes it easier to send personalized, 1:1 targeted messages. In other words, marketing automation makes communication stronger. When you automate your marketing, you can focus more heavily on the quality of your campaigns and messaging. Marketing automation gives your team the ability to add more personal touches to your campaign – by collecting data on a prospect’s interests and goals, you can custom-tailor future offers so that they are more relevant.
Imagine how many emails you get every day from companies you’ve never heard of or aren’t interested in. Given that marketers have only 3 seconds to capture someone’s attention before they move on, the majority of these emails are probably deleted without a second thought.
But if you were to get an email about a product or service that you’re interested in, you’re much more likely to open it and take action based on what that company has to say.
Marketing automation allows businesses to target their audience with precision and segment their contacts into meaningful lists based on common traits or behaviors, drastically increasing the effectiveness of email campaigns and allowing marketers to nurture leads through automated emails until they are sales-ready. Different kinds of automation include using tools for scheduled performance, an automated mail service, etc.
What Exactly Does Marketing Automation Do?
Marketing automation helps you stay connected with your audience (and find more people just like them), so you can eliminate repetitive tasks and focus on other parts of your business. Target people based on behavior, preferences, and previous sales—and use this intel to do things like welcome new subscribers, reach out to people who abandon their online shopping carts, and win back lapsed customers—automatically.
You can also use marketing automation to unleash the power of segmentation to target messages and offers to people who are most likely to buy. That’s a powerful thing when you consider that according to the Aberdeen Group, companies that deploy marketing automation see 53% higher conversion rates from initial response-to-MQL and a revenue growth rate that is 3.1% higher than non-users.
Plus, it enables marketers to manage all of their digital channels in one place (including email, social media, website, CRM, and more) so they have a 360-degree view of each customer.
Active Campaign Marketing Automation Features
Active Campaign marketing automation solution allows you to create automated campaigns based on your customer’s actions. You can automate a wide range of tasks such as sending emails based on user behavior – “send an email when a customer clicks on a specific link” or “send an email when a customer fills out a form”.
Active Campaign is built with small businesses and entrepreneurs in mind. Here are some of the features the platform offers:
- Email marketing automation – Send targeted emails based on a user’s actions or lack of action.
- Sales automation – See when your leads are sales-ready and close deals faster.
- CRM – Keep track of contacts, their activity, as well as upcoming and past meetings.
- Dynamic content – Personalize each campaign based on your subscriber’s behavior or preferences.
- A/B testing – Test different subject lines and layouts to see what works best for your audience.
Benefits of Active Campaign Marketing Automation
Any marketer worth their salt understands the value of marketing automation. It’s a powerful method of improving engagement and increasing sales while saving time and energy.
Without marketing automation, the average marketer spends between six to seven hours per week on email management alone. And that doesn’t even include the time it takes to create, distribute, and monitor campaigns.
Marketing automation can also be used to streamline processes such as order management, customer service, and social media engagement. When implemented correctly, marketing automation can:
- Increase revenue – find out how different companies have used marketing automation to increase their revenue by over 30%.
- Save time – if you’re spending hours on repetitive tasks such as data entry or emailing customers about their orders, marketing automation can save you time by automating these processes.
- Automate lead capture – using forms and landing pages, you can automate the capture of leads that are interested in your business.
- Integrate with CRM systems – bring all the information you collect together with your existing CRM system, so you have a 360-degree view of your contacts’ interactions with your business.
How Can Marketing Automation Help Streamline Your Business Process
Marketing teams often get frustrated when they have to complete routine tasks, as it takes them away from more important projects. If a team member gets sick or has to take some time off, this can hold up the workflow even further. With marketing automation software, you can streamline processes such as:
Email marketing campaigns
Marketing automation software includes tools for email marketing, which can help you create automated lead-nurturing campaigns and segment your lists to personalize emails. You can also generate reports on performance to make sure your email campaigns are achieving objectives.
Lead nurturing
Marketing automation software helps you identify hot leads and nurture them through the sales process. Lead nurturing improves results by 23%. Automating your marketing enables you to send relevant information and offers to help leads move through your sales funnel until they are ready to buy.
Lead management.
Marketing automation software makes it easier to manage leads by keeping track of prospects’ status as they move through the sales cycle, assigning them to salespeople, and tracking their progress. By identifying areas of your sales funnel that need improvement, you can reduce the amount of time spent on unproductive tasks like cold calling.
Inbound marketing
Inbound marketing strategies focus on attracting the right visitors to your site, especially those who are most qualified to buy from you. A big part of this is using keywords in your blog posts, landing pages and other content so that people can find you when they search online for a product or service like yours. The more relevant your content is to what people are searching for, the higher it will rank in search engine results.
Social media posting and monitoring
With a social media posting tool, you can quickly schedule automated posts to various social media channels. And with a social media monitoring tool, you can track how your customers interact with you on social networks so you can improve your approach for the future.
You don’t have to worry about putting all of these tasks on hold while other projects are being completed. An active campaign marketing automation software will do the work for you so that everything is finished in a timely manner.
