Marketing automation is a software strategy that does a lot of your repetitive marketing actions for you. Previously, targeted advertising was done primarily through the postal service but social media channels have since become the most important marketing channel. With consumers able to communicate with you directly through these channels, it’s more important than ever to take full advantage. That’s where marketing automation can help you. Check out some of the benefits marketing automation can bring to your business.
1 - Save Time
Using marketing automation allows your company to schedule multiple campaigns far in advance and releases them when you need them released. This replaces the middle man and your marketing department can fill their time more productively than overseeing marketing maintenance. Not only is this applicable to emails, it can be used on all of your social media platforms too.
Most marketing automation tools enable you to manage different social media accounts from a single dashboard, and post to all at the same time. Whilst this has been possible with tools such as Tweetdeck and Hootsuite for a while, having everything connected to the same system makes it easier to track leads and make sales.
2 - Better ROI
Automatically setting up advertising campaigns that are triggered on a schedule means you don’t need your employees to do it. After using data to build up successful targeting, you can send out thousands of emails and alerts a day. This may mean that you don’t need such a large marketing department and can either make cut backs or redeploy staff where they are most needed. Additionally, better email targeting makes this already high-ROI channel even more effective.
3 - Multichannel management
Anymore, no one has just one way they can be contacted; most people have at least 2 separate email addresses and various social media accounts. This makes it harder and harder to keep track of your customers and to know the best way to target them. Marketing automation can help you to do this with options that let you choose the channel you want to make contact on whether it be through text messages, phone calls, emails or tweets, all are possible using this strategy.
You will need to make sure that the software you decide on is right for your needs as some marketing automation tools have more options for multi-channel targeting than others. Most will cover email, social media and phone calls, but only a few can use text messages or postcards.
4 - Refine your marketing process
One of the side effects of marketing automation is that you need to give the software information about your intended market which helps you to refine who your targets are and can be. This can save you time and money without wasting adverts on people that don’t fit your demographic, and assist you to nurture leads to make your demographic bigger.
5 - Consistency
Using a single service to target all platforms helps to keep your advertising consistent and promotes your brand; something that is very important when attracting and keeping customers. This also helps customers to recommend you to other potential clients and builds your reputation.
6 - Personalization
The automation software targets customers based on previous purchases and makes recommendations, making all your adverts personal to them and therefore are more relevant. This increases your chances of making a sale and makes the customer feel more valued.
