Why Do You Need Marketing Automation?

If you ask a business owner or a marketing manager, how their business hours usually go, they will tell you about one meeting after another (all to make sure that the team is on track to achieve quarterly goals). In addition, you still need to double-check how the campaign on social networks is going and so on and so forth.

It’s hard to find a balance and at the same time be sure that all your marketing actions are directed to the right audience at the right time while delivering the right message. That is why a lot of companies are turning to marketing automation.

What do we mean saying “Marketing Automation”?

This term refers to software whose purpose is to carry out marketing activities (publishing posts in social media, sending emails, etc.). Manual labor, in this case, is not required. Such software, when properly applied, grows the number of potential buyers with the help of personalized content, turning them into loyal customers.

Let’s consider 5 explanations for why marketing automation is critical for marketers and business owners.

It saves time

Obvious, but here are some noteworthy facts:

Automation of posts and advertising in social networks allows you to save more than 6 hours per week.The response rate to letters (Reply Rate) is increased by 250% with the automation of mailings aimed at establishing initial contact and follow-up.Automated tools save you up to 80% of the time required to make appointments with clients.

You no longer need to enter every morning the program and schedule your posts on social networks or send email one by one. Thanks to automation, you can plan everything in advance and be free for other activities.

In addition, integration with various automation tools in products avoids switching from platform to platform and simply save you time.

It helps to get more from the CRM systems

First, let us draw your attention to the fact that CRM-systems and automation programs are not the same things.

The customer relationship management system, or CRM (Customer Relationship Management), is more contact oriented and is mainly used by the sales department. Such programs allow you to save contact information (names, addresses, phone numbers, sometimes — features of customer behavior or details of the last conversation).

Software for marketing automation is intended, in fact, for marketing. In addition to saving important contact information, it shows where users are located in the funnel, what resources they downloaded, which pages they interacted with, and most importantly, they allow them to automatically perform tasks assigned based on these interactions.

Both CRM and automation software are good on their own, but in combination, they become even more beneficial. Using an automation tool with an integrated CRM system, you can see contacts from sales managers and preferred advertising activity — all in one place. This gives you a much deeper picture of the relationship of the individual consumer with your brand, allowing you to choose the best ways to establish contact.

For example, marketing automation integrated with CRM can be used to send targeted emails directly to contacts in your system. Without this integration, you would have to manually download all contacts from the CRM database, losing time and money and risking to take an erroneous user action. So, if someone inaccurately enters an email address, an individual will not receive a letter and the sale will not take place.

It provides data that draws an “aggregate picture”

You need direct access to the most important KPIs. But if you use 2–3 different tools, then you will have to switch from one platform to another, and this will complicate and lengthen the process of linking the indexes and rates to the marketing campaign.

When using a single tool specifically designed to track the impact of advertising on sales, you get enough chances to upgrade your strategy. Unsatisfactory results will not come as a surprise to you.

It systematizes

Automation tools allow your online-audience to have the same, consistent experience, planned on the basis of their actions.

For example, when a user subscribes to your blog, you can set up an algorithm that automatically sends a welcoming letter in which articles will be offered and, possibly, a follow-up-offer given. You can also automatically send your followers articles once they are posted.

Automation allows you to create personalized content

Personalized content increases the Transaction Rate by 6 times, and yet 70% of companies neglect it!

Think about it, what would you like to receive — a newsletter, where the message comes in general, standard words or a letter as if it were specially created for you? Email with your name, which says: “We think you are interested in X, Y, and Z because you have loaded offer N1”. Most likely, you pay attention to the second option.