In today’s digital world, marketing professionals must work even harder to engage their target audiences through dynamic campaigns. As the majority of consumers have moved online, so must marketing efforts.
To help marketers do their job effectively, a range of marketing automation software has been launched to assist with digital campaigns.
What is marketing automation?
Simply put, marketing automation is a catch-all term for software platforms, online tools, and digital technologies. These services have been designed to help marketing professionals market their companies and distribute marketing materials effectively across multiple channels.
Marketing automation software removes a lot of the leg work from repetitive tasks that marketers have to do in order to deliver their digital marketing campaigns to the right audience. It also helps digital marketers optimise, analyse, and create dynamic content and campaigns for every step of their sales funnel while automating which audiences to target with which content and when. Simply said, marketing automation is a great solution for any type of business, from small local companies to franchises with multiple locations. To learn more, including how to find all-in-one marketing solutions for a business with many locations, click here.
What are the different types of marketing automation?
Marketing automation covers a wide variety of different tools, processes, and softwares. With advancements being made in almost every area of marketing automation, nearly every aspect of a digital marketing campaign can be automated.
A few types of marketing automation have been set out below:
CRM automation
One of the most notable features of automated marketing, customer relationship management (CRM) can conveniently collate consumer data in one place. This helps marketing team members to quickly access relevant customer data to inform their sales funnel allowing for the distribution of hyper-relevant marketing assets at the right time.
Email automation
Another big hitter in the marketing automation sphere is email automation. Automating your email marketing allows marketers to launch and distribute campaigns based on schedules, triggers, and relevant customer data (usually informed by a CRM). Email automation cuts out repetitive tasks and frees up marketing resources for other campaigns.
Landing page automation
Using the right marketing automation software, it can be extremely simple and effective to automate your website’s landing pages. Designated landing pages targeted at your buyer personas can greatly increase your on-site conversions. Automating landing pages helps your marketing team build dynamic landing pages and launch them with ease.
Web-form automation
Web forms are essential for engaging your target audience and generating conversions. Whether this is simple subscribe bars or contact forms, web forms should encourage a consumer to take action that supports your campaign objectives.
Automation of web forms is similar to landing page automation in that it helps marketers get more done in less time.
Social media automation
Social media marketing has become vital to all businesses and can drain your marketing team’s resources if not managed properly. Using social media automation to take care of scheduling, publishing and cross-posting gives your marketing teams time to focus on creating dynamic campaigns and content, instead of wasting precious minutes on minor social media tasks.
Blog automation
Automated blogging can help your marketing team organise, adapt, and optimise your company’s blog content calendar, while still posting relevant content at the right time. It will not create content for your team, but a dedicated content management system (CMS) for your blog will help create a consistent and engaging stream of content.
What are the benefits of marketing automation?
As you can see from the above, there are a multitude of benefits to using marketing automation tools and software.
Chief among these benefits is the time these tools can save your team. As popular interfaces have become so varied, marketing teams have become stretched when trying to launch campaigns across multiple touchpoints. Marketing automation software reduces the time marketers need to spend on campaigns, freeing up valuable time to get to work on something else.
Additionally, marketing automation can help marketers scale campaigns, optimise quickly, target effectively, and manage marketing budget spend to deliver successful marketing campaigns.