Marketing automation
Marketing automation is a multifunctional technology that manages marketing activities with minimized human input. It can handle all sorts of tasks, from mass distributing emails to performing user data analytics in real-time, and streamlines the marketing management process for businesses.
How does marketing automation work?
The essence of marketing automation lies in its ability to significantly condense time-consuming marketing tasks and in turn, allow marketers to spend time on more meaningful and strategic responsibilities.
Apart from completing repetitive and mundane tasks, advanced automation software also has the ability to collect and utilize user data from multiple touchpoints, including emails, website visits, app usage, and social media interactions, to deliver a comprehensive overview of each user’s preferences and behaviors. These datasets can then be utilized by marketers for a number of important tasks including lead generation, user targeting and segmentation, and strategy optimization, which are all crucial indicators for enhancing future marketing plans.
Types of marketing automation
Marketing automation can be used for various different channels and purposes. Below are some of the most commonly used automation tools.
Email marketing automation
Email marketing automation tools allow businesses to craft and send targeted messages to large-scale groups. Marketers can draft multiple versions of emails for different scenarios and input them into the automation. Afterwards, the automation tool tracks user behavior to send the most suitable message to each user, typically to nudge them back into engaging with the app. For example, if a user was online shopping on an eCommerce app and left a few items in their shopping cart, the automation tool can detect this behavior and automatically send a nudging email reminding the user to complete their shopping process. Email marketing automation is extremely helpful for executing effortless and personalized marketing strategies to encourage user activity.
Customer relationship management (CRM) automation
CRM systems are one of the most valuable automation tools that increase accuracy and efficiency in marketing. CRM automation saves time by performing repetitive but important marketing tasks like lead nurturing, customer segmentation, and identifying new prospects. It also collects and studies all sorts of user interactions and basic user information like purchase history, demographics, and email addresses, which are essential indicators for improving future customer service. This data is easily accessible for marketers and enables them to make timely and relevant decisions that improve the overall user experience. For instance, CRM automation systems can keep track of a user’s subscription cycle for an app and conduct automated check-ins with users whose subscription is about to expire. The automation could be in-app messages or emails asking for feedback on their experience and reminding them to renew the purchase.
Lead management automation
This automation type involves capturing leads through various channels, such as landing pages, forms, or lead magnets, and nurturing them through automated workflows. It helps keep track of the lead’s activity and notifies marketers when to take action to nurture the lead. Lead management automation systems are useful for guiding prospects through the sales funnel to increase their chances of converting. For instance, if a workout app wants to track leads by identifying users that signed up for their free trial, marketers can use lead management automation to collect data on these particular users. It can then send out automated notifications on the user’s device to nurture the lead into an active user.
Benefits of marketing automation
Marketing automation is essentially an indispensable tool in the world of marketing that is capable of overseeing all sides of the management process. Automation tools are extremely rich in features, and these features work cohesively to compile and organize endless sets of data. In turn, leveraging this sophisticated technology offers marketers several benefits, which are listed below.
Time and resource savings
By automating repetitive marketing tasks, marketers can save a considerable amount of time and resources. Automation tools can take over the manual and time-consuming busy work such as sending emails, managing social media posts, and tracking customer interactions, which frees up marketers to focus on strategic activities.
Improved accuracy and efficiency
Not only can marketers schedule tasks to be completed ahead of time, but automation significantly increases the quality and accuracy of data analytics during the execution process. Inputting numbers in a machine software to sort and analyze data reduces the likelihood of errors and ensures consistency in messaging and data organization. With this data, marketers can get a clear and concise view of a campaign’s performance and easily point out what worked and what did not. Hence, they are readily available to optimize strategies and plan with more accuracy.
Personalization, segmenting, and targeting
It would be impossible for marketers to manually segment their users and send customized messages to each of them. Luckily, user data segmentation and identification is one of the key features of marketing automation, and marketers are able to leverage this information to personalize a user’s journey. The workflow system in automations can keep track of the status of marketing campaigns and automatically trigger targeted content or messages to be sent out to keep each user engaged.