Marketing automation refers to software platforms that help businesses automate their marketing and sales engagement processes to generate more leads, convert those leads to sales and optimize ROI. – SharpSpring
A strong marketing automation strategy increases lead conversions and moves leads through the inbound marketing funnel to maximize your marketing dollars.
Marketing automation platforms allow companies to capture prospect information and engage with leads based on their interests and behaviors. This focused approach to engagement results in a higher rate of lead conversions to opportunities. It also centralizes a range of marketer’s tasks such as social media management, email marketing, blogging, landing page creation, campaign tracking, and more. Repetitive tasks like monitoring website interactions, sending emails, scheduling follow up tasks, and reporting can be automated with these platforms.
The advantages of a using an automation software for your marketing isn’t just for large businesses. Companies of all sizes can see improved lead conversion rates and marketing efficiencies with automation. See below how businesses of all sizes can benefit:
Start-ups & Micro-Businesses
If your company is just getting started or doesn’t have available staff to handle a comprehensive marketing strategy, don’t let resource constraints stop you from getting the most out of your marketing initiatives. Using an automation tool can help you grow and manage your contact database along with manage your email and social media campaigns. Comprehensive reporting and analytics help you make data based decisions on where to spend your marketing dollars.
Small & Medium Businesses
Small and medium businesses (SMBs) are able to use marketing automation to gauge the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns. The automation of activities like lead scoring, follow-up, email campaigns, list segmentation, improve efficiencies for sales and marketing teams. Automation enables marketing teams to develop effective emails and landing pages, then track campaigns from start to finish, giving a full picture of how leads move through the funnel.
Large Businesses
Most large businesses already have a sizable contact database and a variety of marketing software programs to manage and track their marketing efforts. A marketing automation platform used in conjunction with a CRM system streamlines data management and removes cold contacts from email marketing efforts.
Large businesses that manage multiple campaigns and websites will benefit from the insights such as, which landing pages are converting the best, what emails and social posts are most engaging, and the content pieces with the most downloads. Automated segmentation for dynamic lists also makes sure that teams are sending relevant content to leads based on their criteria.
What are Common Features?
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
- Anonymous Visitor ID
- Campaign Tracking & Optimization
- Email Automation
- Lists/Segmentation
- Social Media Management
- Buying Personas
- Blogging Platform
- Lead Scoring
- Sales Notifications
- Reporting & Analytics
- Form Builder
- Landing Page Builder
- Dynamic Capabilities
How to Maximize Automation For Marketing Success
A successful marketing automation strategy is dependent on planning, implementation and consistent usage. The following items are key to your marketing automation success:
Strategic Planning: Marketing automation software isn’t just flip the switch and forget it. You need a marketing strategy that the system can support through campaigns, lead scoring, lead nurturing, and reporting.
Personalization: Creating personalized messages within the platform that are targeted based on lead criteria increase engagement and conversions with your marketing efforts. Track lead information and behavior so you can build relevant conversations with your contacts.
Adapting: As you continue to use automation in your marketing efforts the metrics generated keep you informed on what’s working and what’s not. Making adjustments to your marketing strategy based on the data you collected allows you to focus efforts on the marketing tactics that are the most effective.
When is the Right Time to Automate Your Marketing?
If you are thinking of moving forward with automating your marketing but aren’t sure if the timing is right, the following questions will be helpful:
- Have I established an inbound marketing strategy?
- Does my sales team have trouble tracking all our leads?
- Do marketing and sales feel disconnected?
- Am I able to discover and identify hot prospects and quality leads?
- Do I have visibility into how effective my marketing and sales strategy is?
- Am I using a mix of spreadsheets and software applications to manage my marketing and sales goals?
- Could I benefit from more leads, higher lead to sales conversion rates, and optimizing my marketing spend?
Our team at Cutwing Marketing offer marketing automation support services to our clients on a variety of platforms. We are a certified partner with SharpSpring CRM Marketing Automation. Contact us to learn more about automation or a quote on the SharpSpring platform.