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As time goes by, the tools and possibilities to create effective marketing strategies become more complete and accessible. Among them, one of the most mentioned in recent years is marketing automation. You may have heard or read about them during your research of strategies to capture new customers, increase sales and have a quality lead database, but... What does it really consist of?
Marketing automation refers to the use of software that aims to perform all advertising tasks automatically. In other words, it handles activities such as sending emails, publishing on social networks and other actions on the website, to ease the workload of those involved and speed up performance.
This strategy is not a new idea, it has been applied by large international companies for years, but thanks to technological advances, it is available to companies of all sizes today. According to a study by Abeerden Group, 70% of B2B companies are implementing it or are in the process of doing so, thanks to its effectiveness in terms of attracting and converting new customers.
Benefits of Marketing Automation
According to HubSpot, among the most important benefits of marketing automation are
1. Segmentation of the target audience automatically in your database, to optimize the personalization of the messages.
2. Efficient time management, thanks to activity scheduling.
3. Obtaining qualified leads, through an immediate contact after receiving the information from the interested parties.
4. Efficient management of resources and your budget, since you will be able to cover a greater amount of tasks with less time and personnel.
5. Real-time conversion, thanks to the programming of workflows that show you the behavior of each user.
6. Monitoring of actions to know the performance of each campaign, publication or message.
7. Increase the visibility of your brand, as you can cover a greater number of channels to reach a wider audience.
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Expectations vs. Reality
While many of the advantages of automating your marketing activities pay off immediately, it is also important to know that we are talking about technology and innovation, not magic. Some companies expect marketing automation to generate sales with the same return on investment (ROI) percentages as companies like Amazon every month and without much effort.
When the software is used properly and with strategies according to your audience, excellent results can be achieved, but this is not always the case.
The development, maintenance and updating of a marketing automation strategy must be constant, and carefully designed and applied so that it achieves the expected results. Like any automatic machine, if we want it to work efficiently in the long term, we must attend to it, protect it, change the parts that are damaged and add the fuel it needs.
And it's worth it! Using this method to nurture leads is 451% more efficient than performing this activity manually.
Because it's a buzzword, some marketing managers may simply purchase software and use it to send email, when the real key is to study the market, know your audience's interests, and create quality content that can attract, convert, and delight your users.
The email databases for email marketing strategies decline by 22.5% each year, which is why constant monitoring of the strategy is required to keep it updated and to allow lead generation to be maintained. The little understanding of the marketing automation ecosystem can produce a strong clash between expectations and reality.
How to achieve an extraordinary marketing automation strategy?
What you should avoid:
Many companies, wanting to boost their sales, launch an automation strategy without having a good content design. This leads them to overwhelm their customers through spam in their inboxes, spreading irrelevant or repetitive content that results in the cancellation of their subscription and loss of interest in the brand.
This tactic achieves very bad results and considerably decreases the ROI. According to Adestra, incomplete information integration, technology deficit and lack of experience are the biggest barriers to success in marketing automation.
What you should do:
44% of companies that implement marketing automation see a return on investment in 6 months, and 76% of them get it after the first year.
But to achieve this, it is crucial to do a market analysis and listen to what your audience's interests are on an ongoing basis, as their expectations today may vary without notice. For example, no brand without a health or hygiene context would remind people of the importance of washing their hands in November 2019, as the existence of COVID-19 was not known. These strategies have had to be modified to adapt to the content that users consider relevant and useful today.
It is also essential to study user behaviour on the different channels and determine what is working and what is not, and how best to achieve optimal results.
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If you want to develop a successful marketing automation strategy, it is important to have a constant audience study, software that adapts to your company's objectives, a content strategy in accordance with your audience's expectations and frequent monitoring of results.
But don't worry, we can give you the advice you need - contact ustoday and start enjoying the benefits of automation!