Marketing automation is the process of using specialized software to automate marketing actions. Many modern marketing departments rely on automation to streamline repetitive tasks like sending emails, texting customers and even publishing social media content.
Automation technology makes repetitive tasks passive and allows companies to prioritize more important jobs. 77% of the CMOs at top-performing companies use marketing automation to boost their revenue.
Why use marketing automation?
Using marketing automation tools, companies can target a larger range of customers through automated messages sent across a range of channels. Many organizations rely on marketing automation strategies to save their employees valuable time, improve workflows and enhance customer experience.
Marketing automation tools also assist with lead scoring, generation and nurturing, as well as measuring the ROI of campaigns. Benefits of these automated tools include:
- Enhanced customer experience: Setting up alerts and automating elements of customer care means that users don’t have to wait as long for support.
- Increased scope and scale of campaigns: Companies can run campaigns on various social media channels at once without requiring additional manpower.
- Enhanced ROI on staff costs: Employees spend more time on critical business tasks rather than repetitive work.
- Maintain brand consistency: Automated tools can maintain consistency around brand assets, email send times and content scheduling even when employees have a busy workload.
- Better campaign measurements: Marketing automation tools often come with inbuilt ways to test the efficacy of your strategies.
What does marketing automation do?
Marketing automation solutions provide companies with sets of tools that streamline the repetitive and time-consuming responsibilities of the marketing team. From providing an platform for digital campaign creation to automating lead qualification, marketing automation tools are devoted to simplifying an increasingly complex world.
Marketing automation ensures that companies can create digital marketing strategies without having to manually deal with every message, email, and post they publish. Automation allows businesses to better support and serve their target audience, without placing excessive pressure on the marketing budget.
Best practices for marketing automation
There are limitations to what a company can accomplish with marketing automation. For instance, businesses cannot have meaningful conversations with their community through automated messages. To ensure that your marketing automation plan works, make sure that you:
- Produce quality content: Ensure that the material published by your automated campaigns is high-in-quality, relevant to your target audience and timely.
- Avoid automating everything: Don’t attempt to automate every interaction you have with your target audience, or your brand will lose its human touch.
- Measure as you go: Track the performance of your automated campaigns carefully and be prepared to pivot if you notice a drop in engagement.