If you’ve participated in conversations about ERP and CRM solutions, chances are you’ve probably heard about marketing automation. We’ve put together this quick guide to help answer common questions about this type of software solution.
What is marketing automation?
As with other types of cloud-based software solutions, many labour intensive repetitive tasks can benefit from automation.
Marketing automation is the automation of tasks that involve acquiring and managing leads. Such solutions work best when properly integrated with a CRM solution, which automates the process of managing a lead as throughout the sales cycle.
What does marketing automation do? Is it just automated email campaigns?
Marketing automation solutions generate leads through a variety of features, and automated campaigns are just one of many features.
To understand how marketing automation works, you have to consider these features as an ensemble. Together, they can produce strong leads at a high volume. Continue on to the next question for specific information about these tools.
What are marketing automation tools?
Marketing automation tools, also known as features, are the ways that a solution generates leads. The following are just some of the many tools that marketing automation offers.
Inbound lead management is a powerful feature that can predict the lead’s position in the purchasing cycle by looking at their interactions with your site and marketing content. With this information, a marketing automation tool can help sales representatives reach out to the lead with the right information, at the right time.
Automated marketing campaigns are another helpful feature that can save time. By combining email, social media, and other marketing channels, automation software can help your business roll out a marketing campaign over time, posting to social media and sending out emails at predefined times. This frees up your marketing team and gives your business a more consistent marketing presence.
Automated content updating is also a powerful SEO automation tool. With the ability to post content over time, it can keep your business relevant with little oversight.
Marketing automation software is also capable of rating and filtering leads, which can help control the quality of leads that go to your sales team.
Why use marketing automation?
The benefits of marketing automation go beyond simply providing a platform to launch marketing campaigns and manage leads.
The key to successful marketing is a well-informed, strategic approach. By automating the repetitive marketing tasks, your marketing team has more time to do research and build winning strategies.
Marketing automation software also allows your organisation to decrease its cost per lead and improve marketing ROI.
Does marketing automation work?
Marketing automation, like CRM and ERP solutions, does work. It’s become an important part of the modern marketer’s toolkit.
However, it’s important to understand that, like other cloud-based task automation services, automated marketing is just that: a tool. Like any tool, it will only work when properly applied to a task.
Where can I learn how to implement marketing automation?
There are a lot of factors that go into choosing a marketing automation solution, and once you’ve chosen the right one, there are many considerations that go into properly configuring and amortising your solution.
Acoustic specialises in helping companies implement marketing automation solutions that work optimally for them. This is just a piece of the digital migration to automated, cloud-based solutions that MicroChannel can help organisations like yours perform.
For more information on how we can help you implement your automated marketing solution, contact us. We’re happy to answer any additional questions you have!
