You may be asking yourself, “what is marketing automation?” Marketing Automation is a set of software and services that allow companies to automate repetitive tasks they would otherwise do manually. The goal of marketing automation is to streamline your company’s lead generation by triggering different types of email campaigns at the right time. This article will discuss five different types of marketing automations and how marketers can use them in their day-to-day operations.
What is Market Automation?
Marketing automation is the process of automating your basic marketing operations which you otherwise do manually. Here marketers use a set of software & services which allow them to automate repetitive tasks which they otherwise do manually. The objective of market automation is to streamline your company’s lead generation process by utilizing all of these software services.
What are some Basic Types of Marketing Automations?
The different types of market automation which companies normally use to optimize their lead nurturing campaigns include:
1. Email Campaigns
2. Social Media Posts
3. Lead Nurturing Flows
4. Backend Business Processes (e.g., CRM)
5. Reporting & Tracking”
Let’s discuss all of these services in detail to give you an insight into marketing automation.
Automated Email Campaigns
You may have heard about email automation, but what does it really mean? In short, the idea is that when certain criteria match your business objectives set out in a lead nurturing flow, an automated email campaign gets triggered. For instance if someone signed up for your webinar and their contact information was successfully captured during registration then you can trigger an email campaign to pass them some value-added content, answer their questions about the webinar or offer a discount code.
To use automated email campaigns in your marketing automation plan you would need to set up lead nurturing flows and then identify triggers which will activate these campaigns by matching certain criteria such as when someone downloads a white paper, takes a quiz, or signs up for an event.
Automated Social Media Posts
Another type of automation is social media marketing automation. This type of automation is used to post content on social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn without the need for a human touch. The idea behind this marketing automation tactic is that by setting up your posts in advance and scheduling them strategically you are able to generate more leads than if you were only posting manually according to what’s trending at the moment.
Automated Lead Nurturing Flows
The third type of marketing automation is the lead nurturing flow which helps sales teams find and nurture potential buyers, identify opportunities more quickly, and close deals faster through email campaigns that are triggered based on certain criteria. A good example to illustrate this would be when you set up a lead nurturing flow for your webinar. Ideally, you want to set up an email campaign which would be triggered when someone registers but also before the event takes place by sending them a reminder or encouraging them to bring others on board as well. You can always add an animated video or an animated logo design to help engage your audience for the better.
Automated Backend Business Processes
The last type of marketing automation we will be discussing in this article is the automated backend business process. This can include CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software which helps marketers to identify potential buyers, track leads and manage customer relationships with great ease. It’s also possible for companies to automate their lead intake process by using a form filling solution such as Formstack, which automatically captures data in real-time and populates valuable contact information into your CRM.
Reporting and Tracking
In order to make the most of your marketing automation you need a way to measure its effectiveness. This is why it’s important for marketers to track all results and then analyze them in comparison with other tactics such as email campaigns or social media posts, so that they can see which one has been more effective at generating leads. It is a massively great tool which helps you in learning different ways of optimizing campaigns and bringing the most out of your digital efforts.
What are the benefits of introducing Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation has multiple benefits. These may range from Solopreneurs to large scale corporate organizations. To list down a few based on expertise:
Solopreneurs
1. Marketing automation can help them to save time by enabling the marketing department to focus on more valuable tasks without depending on a team of people.
Corporations and Enterprise Level Companies
1. Automate repetitive tasks such as lead nurturing, social media and email campaigns which would otherwise need dozens or hundreds of hours to complete.
2. Marketing automation can save them from spending money on employees to generate leads that sometimes do not work out and are a waste of time, resources and finances.
3. Automation for marketing departments helps companies better serve their customers since they have more time for customer care which in turn results in increased loyalty.
Conclusion
Marketing automation has become quite the fad in the digital industry and has helped many organizations minimize time spent in performing important tasks. Above, I have discussed a few marketing By incorporating any of these marketing automation tactics to their lead generation process companies can streamline their business operations tremendously by focusing on the most important tasks rather than wasting time on repetitive ones.
Did you find this article helpful? Let us know what you think about marketing automation and provide us with your valuable feedback.
