With digital marketing, the consumer is under constant scrutiny. As marketers, we juggle social media tools and channels such as Meltwater, MailChimp, Google Analytics, Google Trends and Google AdWords on a daily basis. Manual marketing has been replaced by more modern solutions. To keep all the balls in the air and acquire the right leads today you also need marketing automation.
Automation not only saves you time and energy; the software also helps you reason in advance and communicate more effectively. All moments of contact - on social media, websites, mailings, CRM systems, etc. - are collected in a single platform. So you know exactly what your contacts are interested in, and therefore you can reach them exactly when they want it and where they want that meeting. In this way, you respect their privacy in the process. What are the results? Better insights, increased productivity and higher quality leads. The main reasons why automation is now essential in marketing are:
More quality leads
Marketing automation works on the philosophy of inbound marketing, with lead scoring, i.e., scoring. Your contacts' data and their behavior on your site and the next site are scored. Information such as when someone visits one of your site's main pages, clicks on an email or shares your page on social media is routed further down the marketing path. Therefore, you know exactly who is ready to sell and when.
Far-reaching segmentation
Effective communication requires segmentation. With marketing automation, you can create lists based on interests, position sector, company size, company name... on one and the same platform.
Dynamic content
Dynamic content fully allows you to customize your campaign content according to the profile and behavior of your audience. This means you can approach your contacts as if you know them personally: you can tailor the main element in your newsletter to pages they have previously visited, make events available according to their location, announce a webinar based on their knowledge and level of interest, and much more. Marketing automation allows you to use such content in forms, on web pages, on landing pages and in emails.
Effective A/B testing
The effectiveness of a (email) campaign, landing page or form depends more on the message itself. Marketing automation software allows you to test two variations of the same campaign and then send the better version to the rest of your contact list. Try a different subject line, image, button text or button color and see which version gets the most clicks.
Dynamic campaigns
Campaigns are represented as processes (work flows) consisting of different stages. Each stage is activated by audience behavior (triggers). If they click a link or button in your first email, they may be directed to a further stage. If they don't open the mail an interim stage follows, in which, for example, the subject line is changed. If this does not elicit a response then the message is rephrased. You yourself can decide how your campaign progresses once you have laid out the process. Campaigns can proceed sequentially until each contact follows an individual path.
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Stronger sales
Marketing automation bridges the gap between marketing and sales. Eloqua, for example, can be combined with Salesforce's CRM program. Once contacts are defined as potential customers, then your sales colleagues can be informed. They can see exactly what each potential customer is interested in.
Higher productivity
Since all marketing activities are managed and directed centrally, less time is spent on planning and coordination. Once you define the process, you can spend your time on something else. Your marketing team can work faster, more flexibly and more efficiently, acquiring new customers almost in their sleep.
Better customer insight
With marketing automation, you know exactly what actions your customers are taking before they proceed to purchase. Every behavior on your website is recorded on an individual consumer journey map: the pages contacts visit; the forms they submit; the emails they click; the messages they follow up on... All of this gives you better insight into your target audience, so you can choose the right moment to contact them.
Measurable result
To measure is to know. The number of people you reached, the pages your customers visited and shared, which buttons or links were clicked, the events they attended, the messages they subscribed to... at the end of the campaign, you have an accurate report of the results. You can link this data to other marketing activities, allowing you to analyze and predict behavior in context.
Marketing automation is a tool to make better use of marketing. Its power lies in hyper-personalization and centralization: with the right platform, you can improve the customer experience, increase your team's productivity and acquire more quality leads. Of course, this is just technology - you still need (hybrid) marketing specialists to develop and analyze your processes. Our tip: think ambitious, start small, grow fast.
