What is Marketing Automation & How Can Your Business Benefit?

The face of marketing as we know it is currently undergoing a seismic shift. We can no longer rely on throwing content out into the void and crossing our fingers in the hope that a customer might make a purchase. At a time when consumers' and businesses' finances are being pinched, we as marketers must rise to this very real challenge. Luckily though, we’ve got just the tool that can support you in navigating this financially irregular period.

When you look at businesses as a whole, the majority share one goal and one associated challenge; generating high-quality leads. Attracting new customers and retaining their attention through to purchase is a fundamental challenge for brands all across the globe. Fortunately, marketing automation is here to streamline and accelerate this process. According to a recent survey from HubSpot, 78% of media planners are utilising marketing automation, with 26% of the companies who aren't, are planning on doing so. In the same report, 43% of marketers agree that automation has been the most effective trend for their organization’s growth.

Let’s find out why…

What is Marketing Automation?

By definition, marketing automation is the utilisation of software and technology to simplify or automate a variety of activities.?

Marketing automation is purposefully designed to help take the strain off your internal resources by automating monotonous marketing tasks. In addition to providing various shortcuts in completing time-consuming tasks, these marketing automation tools can also support you in providing more personalised experiences for your customers.?

Many people assume that the term ‘marketing automation’ is the same as ‘email automation’ but that isn’t quite true. Although marketing automation does encompass automated communications via email, it also does much more. Modern marketing automation tech harnesses the full power and potential of data to influence your leads through their buyer’s journey. Something that even big businesses still struggle with to this day.?

With the right marketing automation software (something we’ll cover more in-depth later), your business can save time, improve its organisation and convert more leads into paying customers. A big game changer for big and smaller businesses in both B2B and B2C markets.?

How does Marketing Automation work?

So how does it work? Well, we all have those evergrowing lists of manual, repetitive and sometimes tedious tasks. These tasks are often relatively straightforward, but time-consuming, a resource that us marketers are already pretty short on. Marketing automation helps to remove these distractions from our to-do lists and enables us to focus on bigger impact initiatives.?

Whilst marketing automation strategies will be different for every organisation, many of them will share some similar steps.?

A marketing automation strategy is typically constructed of the following:

• Landing pages
• Chaflows/chatbots
• Email marketing

In addition to these lead nurturing tactics, there are often various other small tasks going on in the background. From automatically generating meetings and reminders to sending follow-up communications. All of which will have the potential to save your business time.

Whilst your automation strategy might start small, it will evolve into a sophisticated process that encourages your users to take action when they are ready to do so. Modern marketing is all about providing value to your prospects because over time, this value will be reciprocated in the form of a purchase.?

One thing to bear in mind is that marketing automation is not a function you should set up and forget about. This is a common myth that unfortunately many believe. In order for your marketing automation strategy to generate the best results, it requires consistent monitoring and development. You must remember that automation is here to support your marketing, not do it all for you.?

Marketing Automation vs Customer Relationship Management

Although CRM platforms and marketing automation may seem similar at first, they both serve a unique set of purposes. This may or may not be completely new information to you but it’s important that we differentiate the two. Obviously, we cannot speak for all CRMs or all automation tools so bear in mind we’re speaking generically...?

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