When you’re running a business, spending time on your marketing plan is vital to ensuring there is a steady stream of new leads, and paying customers. Without marketing, it will be almost impossible to keep the doors open. Sadly, marketing can take away time you’d rather spend looking after your customers. Thanks to the global rise of coronavirus, the future of work has never dove so deep into a remote workforce than it has now. Major brands like Facebook, Twitter and Amazon are encouraging their staff to work from home. This proves that we now live in a renaissance of automation tools that are sophisticated enough to handle many digital marketing tasks; humans don’t need to be physically present to keep processes running.
What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation is a term used to describe any software, such as a Customer Relations Manager (CRM), that allows business owners to plan, coordinate, manage, and measure the performance of all channels in a digital marketing plan.
The software can streamline lead generation, lead nurturing, customer lifecycle marketing, cross-selling, up-selling, as well as improve customer retention. Another critical component of marketing automation software is the analytics engine, which allows you to test and measure your campaigns so you can optimize them and improve your results.
This makes remote working even easier. Team meetings can be coordinated online, feedback provided via live updates, and reports shared completely via video conferences. Modern organizations use tools like Trello, monday.com, Kanbanize, and more to create a systematic workflow within their teams. With practically everything now available digitally, the growth of automated marketing tools are clearly on the rise.
The 5 Benefits of Marketing Automation
Companies can expect a long stream of benefits when they incorporate marketing automation into their business operations. Sales reps will be more productive, the pipeline will be more active, and conversion rates will increase. Here are a few more ways your business will benefit from marketing automation:
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Time Savings
A lot of an organization’s marketing effort is expended on menial redundant tasks, which can be taken over by competent automation software. Sending an automated email to thousands of prospects, sending follow up emails to respondents, special offers, related purchases, and responding to visitors on your social media pages or website pages can now take minutes instead of hours.
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Automation also removes the need to manually monitor leads as they move through a sales funnel. Automatic responses can be programmed to trigger when prospects perform specific actions, such as clicking a link in an email. Once they reach a certain level, the sales team can be notified that it’s time to step in and close the sale using a more personal approach.
More Efficient Marketing Spend
Data is the lifeblood of a digital marketing campaign. Without data, it’s impossible to know which of your efforts are reaping the rewards, and which are falling flat. By using automation software, you can easily see where you need to increase or reduce your spending so you can capitalize on the areas of your campaign meeting with some success.
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Platforms such as Google Analytics and Matomo can offer services that allow individuals or organizations to get detailed reports on customer traffic, journeys and transactions. On the content marketing front, services like Chartbeat help creators understand which content readers best interact with. For brands on social media, Iconosquare measures Instagram analytics and serves as a scheduling platform.
Increased Exposure
Automation software provides a straightforward solution for scaling up your efforts as it gives a single staff member the ability to communicate with many more customers than they would otherwise. Previously, the only way to reach more prospects and leads was to invest more time in your marketing plan or bring on new staff members.
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Now, remote work allows you to work from anywhere you like without having to worry about commuting or getting yourself to a crowded workplace. Marketing tools have automated features that help boost your brand’s presence to selected demographics and geo-locations. The remote work life is definitely escalating with coronavirus fears. Do it all from the comfort of your own home, in your pajamas, or in your favorite cafe.
Improve Customer Relations
With automation, you no longer have to manually connect with a customer every time. Instead, a welcome email can be sent following their signup to your mailing list. The software can then follow that up with a special discount offer or a survey about their preferences. Growth marketing software like Klaviyo, Drip, and Omnisend work to build tailored marketing experiences that drive specific user engagement brands need.
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As the software continues to interact with your customers, you can further separate them into different categories. This way, they only receive messages related to their preferences, and you reduce the risk of them leaving your sales funnel because they are receiving too many messages that don’t interest them.
Create More Repeat Business
Most companies rely on repeat business to keep the profits rolling in, and the best way to ensure previous customers return is to reach out to them at regular intervals. It’s a task that fits in well with automation. Nurturing customers with regular communications will strengthen your brand in your customers’ minds and breed familiarity. Customers who know and trust a brand are much more likely to return than try out an untested competitor.
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Remote work and marketing automation are the latest buzzwords in the digital marketing sphere. However, they’ve been around long enough to prove they can work wonders in improving your marketing team’s workflow and creative processes, free up time, and improve your ROI on every marketing dollar spent.