The ever-rising competition in the business world encourages companies to devise new techniques and strategies to get the customer attention. More and more companies are keeping their focus on the execution of the applied tactics in order to boost their productivity and actually transform their marketing campaigns into a powerful revenue-generating tool. Consequently, the marketing budgets continue to grow. Nowadays, businesses allocate 28% of their total marketing budgets to content marketing and the ones who find this channel the most promising dedicate up to 46% of their budget. At the same time, 92% of B2B companies use email marketing software and 60% of executives consider email as the channel that brings the most ROI. With customers’ satisfaction being the top priority of majority of businesses, these strategies deserve undivided attention of C-level marketers. The performance of these intricate tactics requires precision and technological backup. It only makes sense that marketing automation platforms became so popular. It has been declared countless times that marketing automation will change the world and, evidently, it does. One company at a time.
What is marketing automation?
Marketers are burdened with a lot of responsibilities like lead generation and lead nurturing. They need to find and exploit the best communication channels to reach their target audience, they have to convert their website visitors to contacts and nurture these contacts until they become sales-ready leads. It would have been a time-consuming and demanding job if it were not for marketing automation platforms, which is a technological toolset designed to automate key marketing processes. Fortunately, there is way to simplify the process. Marketing automation tools gives businesses the opportunity to track the leads and automate content delivery through different communication channels like email or content, social media or mobile marketing enabling the triumph of your lead nurturing efforts. In addition, it helps business to work with potential prospect at the earliest stages of acquisition.
The benefits of using marketing automation tools
Better up your lead generation strategy
According to the B2B marketers, the ability to generate more and high quality leads is the biggest benefit of deploying marketing automation platform. However, the automation of marketing activities is only as good if implemented correctly, as only 3% of overall traffic converts into actual leads. Otherwise, it will be waste of time, money and effort. Understanding your customer is the key aspect of a successful lead generation strategy. Businesses have to identify the needs of their potential customers and concentrate on communication channels that would actually reach their target audience. The recent studies suggest that content marketing, email marketing and social media are the best-performing lead gen strategies. 83% of marketers use content marketing to achieve their lead gen goals while 44% leverage email. It is also crucially important for companies to establish specific business objectives. For example, if B2B organizations are determined to increasing the quantity and the quality of generated leads, they should definitely use personalized marketing campaigns. The best marketing automation platforms create a 360-degree profile on their contacts and use that essential data to address each prospect individually.
Pay extra attention to lead nurturing
Lead nurturing appears to be one of the most significant parts of effective marketing tactics as the companies who use marketing automation to nurture leads experience a whopping 451% increase in qualified leads. Even so, the companies who lack of lead nurturing cannot convert 78% of marketing leads into sales. Moreover, approximately 50% of nurtured leads make larger purchases, unlike the non-nurtured. Today’s potential clients set the high standards of customer service and do not become buyers overnight. Prospective buyers face at least 10 marketing interactions with a company from the moment they enter the top of the funnel until they are transformed to a customer. Marketers need to develop relationships and maintain constant dialog with potential buyers through every step of customer journey. If you want your company to excel at lead nurturing you need to keep potential buyers engaged by offering the most relevant subject for their situation. While performing various lead nurturing activities, you have to monitor certain metrics to evaluate the success of applied tactics. The most important are:
- CTR (Click Through Rate)
- Conversion rate
- Time-to-Customer conversion
Being an expert at lead nurturing means delivering content that is worthwhile enough to keep your audience occupied. The latest studies suggest that almost 70% of all created content is never actually used. The most common explanation for the weak results is that the topic was trivial and unimportant to the audience.
Boost results through marketing and sales alignment
There has been an ongoing debate for years on whether marketing & sales departments should walk hand in hand. However, the statistics suggests that the alignment of these crucial departments is absolutely imperative. The companies that establish collaboration between marketing and sales confirm to generate 208% more revenue from marketing campaigns. These businesses create a cooperative environment where employees share valuable data and, as a result, they become 67% better at closing deals. When choosing the most suitable marketing automation platform, you will have to verify that your marketing automation tools are easily integrated with your sales force automation system. B2B organizations who enabled the alignment of these business units have achieved an impressive 32% annual revenue increase while less aligned businesses are losing 7% yearly.
The abovementioned facts prove that marketing automation is a fundamental part of modern day businesses. B2B companies need to use every resource to optimize the internal business processes for all customer-facing operations while attracting new clients and maintaining a constant dialog with existing ones. If your company is determined to keep up with the ever-changing business environment, it will have to apply creative marketing generation techniques and lead nurturing tactics. Otherwise, it will be left behind. In addition, your company will have to be backed up by sophisticated marketing automation solutions to reach your business goals and increase profits.
SALESFORCE
Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows interactions from any channel, device, and combine customer data creating real-time communication.
Unify all your data — from anywhere — for a complete view of your customers:
- Build a single source of truth
- Match data to a person
- Bring all your data under one roof
- Understand your audience across your organization
Build smarter audience segments with data from anywhere with a user-friendly, drag-and-drop platform:
- Build any way you want
- Test and optimize on the fly
- Manage audiences with ease
- Segment smarter
Activate data from anywhere across your organization for more connected, personalized experiences:
- Reach customers at every step of their journey
- Make every experience compliant
- Engage customers on a 1-to-1 level
- Open access
Connect every customer to their engagement behavior with AI-driven, cross-channel insights so you can adjust your marketing efforts – and audience segments – accordingly:
- Enrich and analyze unified profiles
- Connect to business intelligence tools
- Activate smarter
Discover the latest innovations in Marketing Cloud Customer Data Platform:
- Connect to Commerce Cloud
- Connect to Marketing Cloud Personalization
- Connect to Marketing Cloud Intelligence and Tableau
- Meet our Calculated Insights feature
- Meet our Loyalty Management feature
SENDPULSE
Automate your marketing and combine all delivery channels on one platform: email, web push notifications, SMS, Viber.
House all sales and marketing activities in one place:
- Get full visibility
- Fast-track communication
- Make data-driven decisions
- Improve collaboration
Take repetitive tasks off your to-do list:
- Automation 360
- Transactional emails
- Chatbots
- CRM
Enhance customer satisfaction:
- CRM
- Chatbots
- Segmentation
Turn prospects into paying customers:
- CRM
- Subscription forms
- Landing pages
- Chatbots
- Web push notifications
- SMS
- Emails
Make the creation process hassle-free:
- Drag and drop email editor
- Email templates
- Landing page builder
EMARSYS
Emarsys real-time, omnichannel marketing automation platform technology lets marketers run all aspects of a cross-channel marketing strategy with ease.
- Unlock agile marketing & commerce automation
- Orchestrate cross-channel campaigns at scale
- Reach customers in the moments that matter with real-time automated triggers
- Build automations based on customer lifecycle stage
- Deploy out-of-the-box tactics to quickly launch campaigns
- Measure business impact across automated programs and campaigns
APSIS
Apsis tool for marketing automation creates streamlined workflows between sales and marketing.
- One marketing platform. Endless possibilities
- All the MarTech you need – squeezed into One
- Add tools to sharpen your message and personalise your content
- Integrate your platforms to level up your customer journey
- Experience APSIS One with your own eyes 14 days FREE trial
BUSINESS.ADOBE
Adobe Marketo Engage gives you industry-leading marketing automations that solve complex, cross-channel customer journeys.
- Easily build and automate marketing campaigns
- Let AI build predictive audiences and segments
- Nurture leads and prospects across all channels
- Personalize experiences with active listening and triggered content
MAILCHIMP
Grow your business on your terms with Mailchimp’s All-In-One marketing, automation & email marketing platform.
- Get your business online
- Market your business
- Reach the right people
- Create better content
- Automate your marketing
- Take action with our insights
SHARPSPRING
Fuel your growth & drive more leads with SharpSpring’s sales, marketing automation, & CRM features in an all-in-one, affordable Revenue Growth Platform.
- Marketing Automation
- Email Marketing
- Social Management
- Landing Page Designer
- Campaign Tracking
- And More…
ACT-ON
Act-On marketing automation helps every marketer spark, extend, and expand the customer lifecycle for scalable, sustained business growth.
- Lead Scoring and Segmentation
- Marketing Attribution & Reporting
- Automated Nurturing Programs
- Sophisticated Email & SMS Marketing
- Multichannel Lead Generation
- Customer Insights to Power Sales