What Is Marketing Automation And How Is It Being Used?

Imagine that you have a business. Even more, you have a full-fledged team to manage all the tasks. But, is it possible to reply manually to thousands of queries and emails in a single day?

Practically speaking, no. You can’t put all your team on such mere tasks. After all, there are several other administrative tasks to take care of. A straightforward answer to managing all this is marketing automation.

Social media and other digital platforms are the hotspots for business growth currently. In fact, staying active on these platforms is itself a tedious job. Again, how can one manage all these networks?

What if we say marketing automation?

As simple as this term is, it involves a broad prospect of business management and branding. There are billions of users globally. This calls for high business productivity. As per the statistics, over 85% of well-running businesses are implementing automation. While there is still a chunk of them who opt for traditional marketing methods.

Let us help you get a clear picture of what marketing automation is and why use it.

What is Marketing Automation

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Marketing automation is quite a buzzword among marketers. While some successfully implement the strategies others get stuck miserably. But, as per the majority results, marketing automation is worth the investment. Implementation of automation campaigns is not as easy as it seems, and neither does it all happen automatically.

Marketing automation is defined as the automation of repetitive tasks along with lead nurturing. The software and tools used play a key role in maximizing the productivity of the team and adding value to the business.

Outbound and Inbound Marketing

No wonder, marketers love to make up fancy words. Rather, it is a part of their job role. But, these terms are no jargon. They explain the cultural shift in how marketing works across multi-channel platforms.

Put down in simple terms, outbound marketing is when the business tries to attract an audience. This involves more display marketing. Over the past years, its popularity is decreasing. You cannot automate this format of marketing.

Inbound marketing is a new concept. It involves audience attraction with engaging content. Alongside this, it is also termed content marketing. It nudges the customers throughout the buyer’s journey pushing them down the marketing funnel. It can be automated as well.

When talking about both types of marketing, inbound marketing is a more fashionable choice. More than 70% of the companies are currently focusing on and opting for inbound marketing practices. Moreover, it is more affordable as compared to other marketing strategies.

Components of marketing automation

Before the execution of any strategies, it is essential to plan it all. One needs to give due time to effectively strategize and collaborate with the processes. However, in the case of marketing automation, all of this must happen before the actual process is put into action.

Once the automation campaign starts, all the processes must take place on their own. This will lift the burden of lead nurturing or rigorous tasks. It will further help the sales team to focus on the core and administrative tasks. So, for the upfront planning, let us help you understand the key components.

The collaboration of marketing and sales

Before kicking off automation, it is essential to consider the perspective of both sales and marketing. This will help in the clear identification of the roles of the team. While the marketing team sets the goals for leads. On the other hand, the sales team will help in the identification of an ideal lead. Following this, both the teams should work together to set the goals they need to achieve, for successful conversions and sales.

Content strategy

All your planning will go in vain if the content isn’t up to the mark.  It is important to provide content to the leads and customers at every step of the buyer’s funnel. Right from awareness to conversions, ensure that the customer sticks by. Delivering valuable content is what makes the users stick by. Make sure that you plan out the content strategy well. This involves emails, social media posts, and all other content. After all, no matter how much you spend, if the customers don’t find value, the efforts are of no use.

Lead scoring

Every lead matters. If you are gaining leads organically, know that each of them has certain expectations from your brand. Work on the process of lead scoring. The higher the scores, the better is their qualification. You can accumulate the scores for your leads based on several factors. Some of these include:

• Existing information in CRM
• Campaign engagement
• Others

Amplification of campaigns

How do you amplify your campaigns? Campaign amplification is key in reaching the target audience towards the landing page. You can do this with the help of inbound marketing.

Workflow development

Before the implementation of marketing automation, one must know the workflow. Try eliminating any potential distractions in the email campaigns. You can do this by adding just one CTA instead of opting for multiple ones. Navigate the users to the end action you want them to take. The automation workflows can be complex at times, so ensure that you test them prior to avoid any issues.

Optimization of an ongoing campaign

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After finishing all the upfront tasks and making the campaign live, it can run automatically. However, this does not mean that you pay no attention to it. It is essential to constantly check how well the campaign is working. Whether it is in pace with your business goals. Alongside, always consider that it is an ongoing process and not a one-time effort. Continuously revamp and optimize marketing automation according to the requirements.

While these 6 key components won’t work wonders, they surely help you figure a way out for successful marketing automation. Do you want your business to succeed? Opt for marketing automation.

But, ensure that your team works along with it. Because marketing automation uplifts the team and gives it a boost. You cannot completely rely on it for all processes to run smoothly and efficiently.

Features to consider for a marketing automation platform

After knowing what marketing automation is and its key components, one must figure out the most suitable platform for their business. But, how? What are the features one should consider? Do you need a platform that offers wide capabilities? Or are you just starting out? Let us help you figure the key features that all marketing automation platforms must have. This will help you understand what to consider for your business.

1. Ease of use:

While automation itself seems complex to many, you don’t want the platform to entangle it more. While looking for one, consider the interface and design of the marketing automation platform. It should offer easy navigation with user compatibility.

2. Know the limitations:

Not all platforms offer everything that you require for your business. Understand your business goals well. Then, figure out what the platform has in store for you. This will help you gain an idea of how well the actions align with the expectations.

3. Analytics:

It isn’t practically feasible to take note of every campaign and action that takes place. So, automation takes care of all of it. Ensure that the marketing automation platforms can track your metrics well. Additionally, you might also need dashboards and other tools for deeper insights.

4. Pricing:

When talking about automation, it surely offers the highest returns. Understand what you are looking for. Then, accordingly, you can opt for a business plan and pricing strategies. If you are just starting out, why not opt for a free plan? Then, you can further scale it up if the software is reliable.

5. Integrations:

Integrations play a key role in the management of data. They provide additional support to play with the existing platform. This involves the extension of applications, collaboration, and team management among other tasks.

Best marketing automation platforms

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Once you are well aware of the criteria, let us provide you with a list of the best marketing automation platforms to choose from.

a) PeppyBiz:

It is an all-in-one platform that helps you deliver relevant content. You can see your marketing automation strategy come to life. The various features we offer include:

• Connection of channels with omnichannel platforms
• Easy setup with effective results
• Visualization of the customer journey
• Tracking the action of customers
• Sending personalized emails to the leads
• Conversion of website traffic to sales
• Automatic product recommendations on websites
• Nurturing the leads
• Fostering engagement to close more sales

b) HubSpot marketing automation:

It is yet again a very popular automation platform. It offers the most powerful features in terms of functionality. They provide you with a full-fledged growth suite along with the integration of HubSpot CRM. Further, they also provide you with a visual board for crafting workflows and their management. While it is a comprehensive tool, it surely has all the features that your business needs.

c) Ominsend:

As its name suggests, it is an automation platform for omnichannel marketing. It mainly serves all the purposes of e-commerce platforms. They offer you pre-designed templates to get started with marketing right away. It also offers the freedom to add several channels on the same platform. These include email, SMS, push notifications, messengers, and several others. Alongside, they offer their users free and paid plans as per the requirements.

Conclusion:

To conclude, marketing automation doesn’t sum up here. Rather, it is an overview of what marketing automation is. What platforms work best for what type of business and others? There are ample marketing automation strategies that every business can implement. All one needs to do is understand their business well and work the way out. After all, there is no defined path for the successful implementation of marketing automation.

Author Bio:

Sara Williams

Sara is a Content Writer at PeppyBiz. She is not only a creative writer but also paints a beautiful canvas. She makes sure that you are left with no doubt about keeping up with marketing and sales.