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How Does Marketing Automation Work? A Beginner’s Guide

How Does Marketing Automation Work? A Beginner’s Guide

Relaxing under the warmth of the afternoon sun with a piña colada in your hand because you know that everything’s A-OK. How do you like the sound of that? In the digital sense, that’s not impossible to achieve. Marketing Automation will fast-track your way to success. This concept goes beyond the tools, keywords, optimization, and whatnots.

Marketing Automation offers endless possibilities to all marketers and business owners. Let’s see how it works.

What Is Marketing Automation?

With the current scenario of the Digital World, Marketing Automation is no longer a new concept. Moreover, Marketing Automation is the practical use of software and platforms to automate repetitive tasks.

This process allows a person to streamline, simplify and measure tasks, and workflows. And as an overall objective, Marketing Automation aims to increase operational efficiency while growing business revenue.

Let us become familiar with how experts define this broad, yet promising, concept.

HubSpot

“Marketing automation refers to the software that exists with the goal of automating marketing actions. Many marketing departments have to automate repetitive tasks such as emails, social media, and other website actions. The technology of marketing automation makes these tasks easier.”

Hubspot also points out that marketers should utilize the power of inbound marketing in order to generate quality leads.

Marketo

“Marketing automation is a category of technology that allows companies to improve engagement and increase efficiency to grow revenue faster.”

Marketo also points out that marketing automation is not only about marketing. It serves the sales team, too.

Pardot

“Marketing automation is a software platform that helps you to automate your marketing and sales engagement to generate more leads, close more deals, and better measure marketing success.”

Pardot also points out that leveraging marketing automation, your sales and marketing team can work as one to reach one goal: sales generation.

Marketing Automation Smart Tasks

You can do anything on the World Wide Web; the possibilities are endless. Furthermore, you can automate every transaction when it comes to Digital Marketing. Emailing, Social Media Marketing, advertising an event or scheduling are all activities you can automate. You can also have live chats, monitoring, scoring, and other activities through Marketing Automation.

A well-designed campaign can only be successful with adequately planned Marketing Automation activities. Here are some of the smart tasks you can automate:

  • Analytics and ROI Tracking
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Campaign Segmentation
  • Content Curation and Content Management
  • Email Marketing Automation (sending, receiving, integrating calls, analyze results, etc.)
  • Lead Generation, Analysis, and Management
  • Multivariate Testing
  • Website Visitor Tracking

When marketers or business owners automate the tasks mentioned above, they’ll save time and money. Also, automation puts your efforts in the right place. Consequently, this will allow the business to grow and succeed since there will be more focus on higher priority matters.

Advantages of Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation is beneficial to any organization. That is why it has become one of the staples in Digital Marketing. Look carefully at its advantages and see the difference it can make.

1. Higher Conversion Rates

In a study conducted by eMarketer, marketers in the B2C industry noticed an incredible increase in conversion rates. The conversion reached as high as 50%. So, when a marketer conducts proper lead generation through Marketing Automation, an organization can attract the right target market.

The marketing initiatives are presented to the right customers. Thus, the inquiries are coming from potential buyers. In return, this increases the possibility of closing a sale.

2. Increase Productivity of People

Your employees must come before customers and stakeholders. Without them, no one will run your business for you. Through Marketing Automation, your employees are relieved of simple tasks and can focus on more important ones. Furthermore, it is a chance for you to give back to your people by making their jobs easier.

In a nuclear research stated by Marketo, 95% of companies claimed an increase in staff productivity due to marketing automation.

3. Better Task Workflow

Marketing Automation keeps everything in order. It sorts out transactions, systematizes activities, creates proper scheduling, and collaborates the workplace to achieve a common goal. In fact, more advanced marketing automation tools even allow business owners to perform corporate planning and budgeting. In conclusion, it makes things a lot easier and smoother.

4. Greater Customer Relationships

You think the job is done when you’ve acquired customers? No, not at all. It is just the beginning. Customer retention is just as important as the acquisition. As a marketer, you have to build strong and lasting relationships with customers; according to Forbes, “Marketing Automation Can Help Build Trusted Relationships.”

Marketing Automation allows you to do this. It provides market intelligence along with various marketing automation tools that provide relevant customer data and analysis. Automation makes it easier for you to predict and respond to the ever-changing needs of the target market.

5. Faster Return on Investment

Aside from everything already mentioned, Marketing Automation gives you a faster return on investment. The initial cost of investing in Marketing Automation will quickly pay for itself. According to the study conducted by Forbes Insights and Turn, in a global survey of American Marketing executives, marketers or business owners saw their revenues increase about three times (55% vs. 20%).

How Marketing Automation Works

1. Start With Your Needs

Before you automated your process, you had other ways of doing things. Emails were sent one by one, manually; social media posts were posted daily. You probably even organized focus group discussion about customer insights.

First, when using Marketing Automation, is knowing what you want to achieve – ask yourself, “What do I want to accomplish here?”

Remember, you can automate surveys, data analysis or even blog post scheduling with Marketing Automation. Moreover, you can also handle lead generation, content management, fine-tuning of research and so much more.

2. Know Your Audience

Get to know your target market better. They are the ones already your using your products or services. And, they are the ones who will benefit from automating your marketing.
Secondly, you need to understand your audience. Who are they and where can you find them?

Understanding their behavior is vital in knowing what automation tasks you need to accomplish. It is also essential to know where to find your customers. Therefore, this step will help you identify the appropriate marketing automation tools to use.

It is helpful to understand your target market regarding the following factors:

The 4 factors that will be helpful to understand your target market infographic

  • Demographic Factors – These refer to characteristics such as age, gender, race, education, and career.
  • Geographic Factors – This defines the target market’s location, furthermore, it’s classified into towns, cities, regions, states, countries, and continents.
  • Behavioral Factors – Determine how an individual responds and uses a product. You can break down these factors into mood, brand loyalty, price responsiveness, or reaction to change.
  • Psychographic Factors – Psychographic factors refer to attitudes, lifestyles, personalities, and values.

3. Learn and Choose the Right Tool

The next step involves learning the right tool. What tool are you going to use to achieve your goals? Know the capabilities of each instrument and understand how you can maximize it to your advantage.

Here’s the top 20 most popular Marketing Automation Software from Capterra:Top Marketing Automation Software

After carefully evaluating everything, you can decide which tool to use to achieve your goals.

4. Implement and Improve as You Go Along

The implementation of new strategies like Marketing Automation brings about changes in the workplace. Furthermore, it may cause undue disruptions for a while. However, change is good and brings about new ideas, different ways of handling things, and a lot more.

So, consider these factors during the implementation process:

A SOUND STRATEGY

Proper execution should start by having a relevant and sound strategy; according to Entrepreneur, “Strategy is hard — but it’s worth the effort. Execution is hard, but if the strategy is wrong, at best, it’s not worth the effort.”.

THE IMPLEMENTERS

Implementers are the people who put everything into practice. They include top-level management down to staff level. In addition, the quality of people in charge of the implementation (their attitude, experience or skills) often affects the success of the strategy implementation.

OPEN COMMUNICATION

The power of communication can make everything better. With Marketing Automation, proper communication includes explaining new roles and tasks. Moreover, it should also include a discussion of policies and guidelines as well as an open-mindedness on part of everyone involved.

MANNERS OF IMPLEMENTATION

Implementing something new means undergoing various levels of change, including different ways of achieving strategies.

  • Intervention – Adjustments made by introducing new practices, regulations, etc.
  • Participation – Develop a corresponding approach to the current one.
  • Persuasion – Convincing the participants of the implementation process about the desired results of the strategies.

COMMITMENT

Strategy implementation is a half-baked idea in the absence of commitment. If there is no support nor commitment from participants, then failure is expected to happen. In order to see results from your marketing automation efforts, persistence is a must.

5. Monitor Your Progress

There has to be a check and balance. Measure results and your effectiveness in digital marketing; monitor how you fared based on your preset standards. Also, check your performance against competitors.

Marketing Automation Best Practices

1. Create a Workflow

Do not get lost along the way. The workflow will serve as your guide through the entire Marketing Automation process. Thus, it is just like a map that helps you to navigate and move forward to your destination.

2. Start Small and Grow in the Process

When marketers don’t implement a plan, they overlook the size of the overall campaign. Therefore, do something that is within your capacity. Once you master your trade, then you can grow your automation plans.

3. Automate a Process That Exists

Marketing automation is reinventing a process. It does not make sense to reinvent and improve something that does not exist.

4. Understand Your Customer’s Buying Cycle

Learn the different stages of an individual’s buying process. By doing this, you can use your content to deliver the right message – from problem recognition to post-purchase evaluation.

5. Buyer Personas Are Helpful in Marketing Automation

Buyer personas refer to the semi-fictional characters of your target customers, audience, and readers; they help create a precise definition of who your target customers are and what they want.

6. Make Your Campaign More Human

Through Marketing Automation, you can provide a personalized customer experience that will make your brand more memorable. An excellent example of this is Facebook’s behavior-triggered email. Have you noticed Facebook sends you a notification if you have not logged in a specified period? This is called a triggered email, and according to Campaign Monitor, “Triggered (requested emails) and autoresponders, of course, get higher open rates (45.70% and 34.80%) than newsletters (22.83%).”

7. Do Not Rely on One-Size Fit-All Marketing

There are different types of target markets and each them is unique. There is no guarantee that you can satisfy them all with a single go. Remember, B2C marketing is more direct to end-users, whereas, B2B marketing is for larger groups and organizations.

8. Retain and Build Relationships

Let Marketing Automation retain and build stronger relationships with existing customers. The cost of selling and marketing to new customers is more expensive than retaining existing ones. So, focus on customer loyalty by making your customer base feel appreciated.

9. Conduct Tests

Monitor the progress of your plans; test your strategies once again. Process improvement is a never-ending battle. Even if your projects are successful during their first run, it does not mean you can stop there. There is more to improve and to enhance the overall experience of your target customers.

Marketing Automation Best Practices Infographic

Wrapping Up

So, what have we learned so far? Well, Marketing Automation can contribute to the success of your company by automating those little mundane and often repetitive things that take up a fair amount of company time.

In addition, Marketing Automation improves your ROI and helps you maintain a healthy customer base.