Marketing Automation

In the extremely fast-paced online environment, which has become one of the main characteristics of modern digital marketing, operating efficiency is one of the most important factors responsible for success.

It has become common to employ various methods in order to streamline and optimize the marketing workload, and one of those methods is applying marketing automation through automation software.

In this article, we will further explore exactly what marketing automation is, how it is generally used to increase work efficiency, and why it represents an important tool in digital marketing.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation is by no means one specific program which is used for any and all sorts of marketing campaigns.

Marketing automation is the process by which various types of software are used to streamline, automate, and track marketing tasks.

There is a long list of marketing tasks that can be made easier by using this type of software, some of which include: posting on social media, email marketing automation, organizing customer data, tracking leads through the customer journey, lead generation, segmentation, tracking customer retention, return on investment (ROI) measurement, and many more.

Marketo points out that marketing automation is a type of technology that can increase operational efficiency and grow revenue faster.

It is self-evident why so many companies nowadays are starting to invest more resources into optimizing their digital marketing workload and customer data tracking.

How to Define Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation can be defined as the practice of offloading work to software in order to automate a marketing campaign. Sometimes, a web-based marketing automation platform may also be used in order to avoid the process of installing software.

Here are some of the most common components that both marketing automation software and a marketing automation platform will provide.

A Central Marketing Dashboard

A location for all of your marketing information, including specific information on customer interactions and activities. You may segment your audience and send each consumer a personalized message. Consider it a “system of record” for all of your marketing data across different marketing channels. 

An Analytics feature

The analytics section will allow you to dive deeper into the customer data, on top of automatically visualizing your marketing ROI. By studying the analytics of your marketing campaign, you may begin to notice patterns and important details in the customer data, which can help you adapt your marketing strategy.

Why is Marketing Automation Important?

Marketing Automation makes life easier for the marketer, giving them a tool to track data and campaign performance not only for one campaign at a time but for a 5 or 10-campaign large marketing strategy, by leveraging marketing automation software or a marketing automation platform.

In order to gain a better understanding of marketing automation, let’s take a look at some of the most common problems it can solve.

Time constraints

Marketing automation software can be an incredibly powerful tool when in a time crunch. Tracking, calculating, and creating marketing goals by hand would take an enormous amount of time when a tool such as a marketing automation platform is not used.

In the fast-paced digital environment, automation software enables you to do more quality work in less time.

Quality of Leads

A situation may occur where there are plenty of leads but none of them are qualified, that is, the leads are not a good fit for the company. Marketing automation software gives more insight into customer data, which in turn can be used as a way to create a more personalized customer journey, increasing the number of qualified leads.

What Are The Best Marketing Automation Strategies?

A marketing automation strategy will consist generally consist of tracking how certain parameters within the software perform in order to achieve a specific marketing goal.

To put it more simply, creating an automation software or automation platform strategy requires you to identify key metrics for specific goals and track them through the marketing tool that is an automation platform.

Almost all marketing automation strategies are developed by following three simple steps.

1. Make a plan

The first step will be identifying and clearly defining the goal of your marketing campaign, and how the data you are going to track reflects the success of that goal. It may be useful to make a list of multiple goals and select the ones that are the easiest to precisely track.

2. Implement the strategy

The implementation stage will consist of integrating all of the channels which are being used for marketing communications. Afterward, the automation tool will make it easy to categorize the data.

3. Track and optimize

Implementing the marketing strategy is what will provide you with plenty of data, which should be used to draw valuable conclusions on how the marketing campaign is going. But tracking is only one part of the puzzle. Certain parts will likely need to be tweaked to optimize campaign performance.

Additional Tips & Tricks

• Content marketing and email marketing campaigns can benefit greatly from a marketing automation tool since it can provide valuable insights for the sales team on how their social media or Google Ads are performing
•  A marketing agency may use more than one marketing automation solution. Large agencies may make use of more marketing automation tools, giving their marketing team additional insights into their collective marketing effort
• An automated marketing campaign can help a small business save time and money, by eliminating repetitive tasks like posting and replying to comments on social media

Now You Know What Marketing Automation is!

Marketing automation is a highly valuable tool in a marketer’s tool arsenal, as it can provide invaluable insights into customer data and campaign performance, all while saving time and resources for the company.

You learned what marketing automation is, why is it important, and the steps required to make a marketing automation strategy, and you’ve got a few tips & tricks in your pocket. With all this knowledge and information, it’s up to you now to determine if marketing automation is the marketing approach you need to take for your company or organization.