Have you ever stopped to think about how marketing automation can help your business grow and stand out in the market?
Marketing automation is a strategy that uses technology to increase, in a staggered and strategic way, the conversions and results of your marketing actions.
It is also an efficient way to identify, impact, captivate, and conquer your target audience.
Today, there are several types of marketing automation, ranging from lead nurturing flows to creating custom funnels.
If you still don’t know how automation works in practice, we’ll explain what it is, the main types of automation available, how to choose the right platform for your company, and the benefits it can bring to the organization as a whole.
Want to find out everything about marketing automation? Then continue reading below!
What is marketing automation?
Marketing automation is the act of using technology to automate practices and processes within the marketing industry.
It is the practice of reducing manual work and seeking to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of proposed actions.
Without a doubt, this is an indispensable tool for generating leads, nurturing them, and passing the baton to the sales team.
Thinking about the routine of the marketing team, we begin to better understand the concept and also the importance it brings to companies.
Within inbound marketing strategies, for example, the team needs to produce weekly blog texts to attract visitors.
The disclosure of the same is equally important – whether by social network or by email. The objective is to show itself as a reference in the sector and, of course, to relate to its target audience.
Continue capturing leads for the newsletter, sending content to this audience. Make them move forward in the customer journey and become more interested in the company.
Send rich materials (eBook, infographics, etc.) that make this prospect advance through the sales funnel. Nurture him to the point that he is interested in the product or service that the company sells… phew!
How much the marketing team needs to do? Allied to all this, performance indicators are important to evaluate the success of actions.
The volume of activities to make the company grow is huge. Marketing is vital for sales to occur. And when technology is present, everything is easier.
Therefore, the team must manage to reduce manual work as much as possible. Digital transformation through marketing automation increases the efficiency and effectiveness of work and reduces the time spent on each action.
Thus, people can be much more strategic and contribute to even greater assertiveness in attracting customers.
Who can use marketing automation?
Marketing automation is a practice that can be applied by companies of any size and segment, as long as they have consistent digital communication.
Companies that have longer sales cycles or that work with high-value solutions can benefit even more from marketing automation, as they need to invest in more actions to take their potential customers to the conversion stage.
These companies need to build trust over time, and there’s nothing better than doing it intelligently and automatically, right?
And, contrary to popular belief, marketing automation is accessible to every business. There are several tools on the market, from the most advanced to the most basic, to start with.
What are the benefits of marketing automation?
To help you choose the right tool, you need to better understand the impact that marketing automation brings.
Companies that want to be big must deal with thousands of contacts as well as customers. Therefore, correct management is important.
And when you have technology as an ally, the mission becomes easier. Even in smaller companies, the organization remains important.
Although not so many resources are needed, the impact of technology is still positive and similar to large organizations.
Below, we separate 4 benefits of software allied to this sector that are so important within any business. Check out:
1 . Increased lead generation
The first benefit – and even the most logical one – is the increase in leads that are generated.
This is due to landing pages in the materials you create, with automation of social networks for content distribution, integration with the website, etc.
According to marketing automation usage statistics
First, let’s look at some stats that highlight how many companies and marketers are using marketing automation:
34% of companies surveyed use marketing automation to a limited etxent, 25% use it extensively, 28% plan to use it in the next two years, and 13% do not use it at all.
Source: Pedalix
2 . Focus on the persona, the relationship, and better opportunities
Knowing the ideal customer profile (ICP) of your business is important – and you know it very well. Validating the persona is much easier when using marketing automation in your day-to-day strategies.
This is one of the points.
The other is focusing on the customer and what he needs. Read: Even though today he is not interested in buying, the relationship needs to remain active.
Making a purchase decision may come in a few months and having an occasional relationship with him is not something that will make him decide for you – and not for the competition.
Marketing automation allows for this personalized follow-up. Ensures the delivery of content that educates, nourishes, and gives confidence to this lead.
The intention is to prepare him for the right purchase. And when you follow his evolution on his journey, you generate better opportunities for the sales sector to work on.
3 . Smaller CAC
First, do you know what CAC is? CAC is the Customer Acquisition Cost.
It is a metric that shows how much you spent, throughout your company’s operation (taking into account all expenses), to acquire a new customer.
If you do, for example, a promotional campaign to generate leads. And it manages to generate.
Can you imagine having to deal with a huge volume of interested parties manually, via a spreadsheet? Time will be longer, of course, to check if the lead has adherence.
If so, he has cooled down, losing some of his interest. Now add up the hours worked by his team.
At this rate, how many opportunities can be won? Marketing automation tool helps to automate these processes.
Robotic tasks are handled by technology. Relevant information about the potential client’s profile is clear and organized.
So, you see: it’s a ripple effect. Thus, you gain time to nurture the lead. If you save time, you will spend less to close the sale and, of course, the CAC is lower.
4 . Reduction in the sales cycle
CAC can shorten the sales cycle, yes, but that’s not necessarily what will weigh. To shorten the time of a sale, you need to educate your prospect well.
Deliver good content to him that shows that your product or service makes sense. The tool will help you to follow the maturity evolution of the leads.
And it will facilitate, then, the work of the sales team. Less time will be spent explaining how the sold solution works didactically.
When the SDR contacts him, this person will have much greater maturity and will be closer to deciding on the purchase.
5 . More efficiency and management in the funnel
Marketing automation can bring more efficiency to your sales and marketing funnel, as it facilitates the team’s daily life, improves opportunity management, and offers more assertiveness in approaching potential customers.
With automated manual tasks, your team makes better use of their time to seek more information about leads, test new strategies, and optimize existing flows, resulting in better sales results.
6 . Business scalability
Marketing automation offers several benefits for companies that want to grow in a scalable way.
With the right tools, it is possible to impact a larger number of people and work with more precise communication, without the need for each team member to perform manual approaches.
This way, your company can increase the number of active customers and sell more, without increasing your operating costs.
7 . Sales cycle reduction
Marketing automation can also reduce your company’s sales cycle, as leads worked along the funnel reach the sales team more prepared for a commercial approach.
With this, the seller does not have to spend time and effort trying to convince the potential customer that the solution he offers has “value”.
When the lead reaches the conversion stage, the sales team only needs to clarify doubts and break down possible objections during the contact.
The result of this? More efficiency, productivity, and, of course, conversions.
How to do marketing automation?
Do you have any idea how to do marketing automation?
Contrary to what many people think, tools that automate marketing actions do not perform miracles on their own.
To obtain good results with automation, it is necessary to have structured processes and a team capable of producing quality content.
Furthermore, it is crucial to offer suitable conditions for the strategies to be put into practice in the best possible way.
If you don’t know where to start, don’t worry! Below, we’ve shared some best practices to help your business get the most out of technology.
Focus on delivering value
It won’t do any good to use technology if you don’t focus on customer success, on delivering value to them. This is done by producing really good content that will be distributed through your platform.
Content that educates and shows that your company is a reference in its field. This is the first item.
The second is to align your tactics. Make a nurturing flow of this lead that downloaded any of your materials that is directed towards your empowerment.
In other words, it provides materials that are more and more in-depth, diversified, and with a language that is inviting, and close to this person’s reality.
The intention here is not only to get this prospect to buy but to enchant him with the brand, making him an evangelist of it.
Close management
Any tool or system that is implemented within a company needs close management.
With marketing automation, this, of course, remains true. The software, as we said, will not work miracles.
He is a strategic ally, yes, but he will depend on supervision and monitoring to deliver the desired results.
This is how to correct marketing management: attentive to performance indicators, especially with integrated dashboards, in real-time and accessible to all.
Always be ready to act, if necessary, and review your strategies – or even some positions in your team.
Analyze, measure, and adapt
It is part of close management, not always keeping the same practices within your strategies. That is, it is not because you have configured your automations that you no longer need to work with them.
Analyze and measure the success of your actions to always find what can impact more customers. Leaving the tool acting “alone” is not something that will guarantee the best results for the company.
Seek to innovate, adapt the language, and always make what you deliver to the market “fresh”.
Make organized use of the tool
Organization is key within a work environment, of course. And for the use of the tool, as well. Standardize the name of lists, flows, email templates, landing pages, for example.
Use tags for each segment or type of customer. Create rules and standards for everything. This will help you find what you need faster.
It will also avoid confusion and doubts among your team, in addition to making it easier for new employees to understand.
How to automate digital marketing?
After understanding the main benefits of digital marketing automation, you must be wondering: how to put this strategy into practice.
The good news is that you don’t have to start with a lot of complex flows. It’s recommended to start with a single automation flow and gradually build it up over time.
Thinking about helping you in this process, we’ve separated some essential tips for you to start automating your company’s digital marketing.
Planning
Automating marketing actions is an important step toward improving your company’s performance, but before starting, you need to make a good strategic plan.
You can start your planning by defining the objectives you want to achieve with automation, such as scaling your sales, optimizing the team’s daily life, selling a specific product, etc.
In addition, you must also understand who your persona is to work on communication aligned with their needs and interests.
Oh! And don’t forget to map this persona’s buying journey, with all the steps they will go through until conversion.
Qualified lead base
To implement a marketing automation strategy, it is not enough to just have a plan on paper.
You also need to qualify your contact base to ensure your campaigns generate results.
The first step in this process is to analyze your base and identify what information you have about your leads.
If you only have a mailing list, you will need to collect more information such as job title, location, industry, etc.
Having this information can help you segment your shots and target the right content for each type of profile.
After defining the priority data for collection, send an email to your base, encouraging them to fill in a more complete form.
To get a higher number of responses, offer an extra benefit, such as rich material or a special discount coupon.
Content production
Another crucial step in the marketing automation process is to start producing quality content to drive value during nurturing.
Having a blog can help you with this task, but it’s not enough to just create random posts without a well-defined strategy.
Before starting to create your content base, you need to understand your persona and its main questions at each stage of the funnel.
Remember that you don’t need to be in a hurry to produce content! Ideally, create a publication schedule so that you can maintain a regular posting frequency.
Funnels
Funnels are models that represent a customer’s buying journey, from first contact to purchase.
They are important structures for any company, as they allow planning the most appropriate actions to lead leads to the conversion stage.
In addition, they help to segment the audience and distribute content in a personalized way for each stage of the funnel.
These stages can vary but are generally divided into three main stages: top of the funnel (ToFu), middle of the funnel (MoFu), and bottom of the funnel (BoFu).
Flows
Email automation flows can also help you communicate better with your customers and prospects.
With email automation, you can send personalized and relevant messages to customers at different points in the purchase journey, such as a welcome message after confirming a purchase or an incentive to return if the purchase has been canceled.
In addition, the platform also makes it possible to configure automatic shipments to your employees, to keep them informed about the sales made.
And you know the best of all? In a practical, fast, and personalized way.
Tools
To automate your marketing, you need to integrate your automation platform with your CRM.
While the marketing automation platform is responsible for capturing and nurturing leads until they are ready for a commercial approach, the CRM takes control the moment these leads become qualified business opportunities.
The integration between the tools allows the passing of the baton to be done automatically and in an organized way, preventing important information from being lost along the way.
Constant analysis
After implementing marketing automation in the team’s daily life, it is necessary to constantly monitor the flows created in the tool.
In addition, it is crucial to be aware of the performance indicators of the campaigns and to apply the necessary optimizations and changes.
Fortunately, most marketing automation tools offer A/B testing capabilities that allow you to evaluate different page formats and creatives to find the best solution.
That way, you can ensure you’re making decisions based on solid data rather than guesswork or intuition.
What is the best marketing automation tool?
If you are looking for the best marketing automation tool for your business, know that customer service CRM can be an excellent choice.
Customer Service platform, for example, offers automation features for sending WhatsApp and email campaigns, in addition to features such as:
- Bulk campaign scheduling;
- Transfer of chatbot conversations to human agents or between queues;
- Creation of flows to capture and qualify leads;
- Management of sales and after-sales flows;
- Transfer of conversations manually between attendants and branches;
- Chatbot with automatic routing to the specific agent.
With this tool in hand, it is much easier to carry out targeted, personalized, and effective campaigns.
Like it and want to try it?
Talk to one of our consultants today and discover all the advantages we can provide for your company.
Sales automation and digital marketing
Sales automation and digital marketing are essential for segmenting campaigns and following your leads through every step of the process.
CRM allows you to visually organize your pipeline, in addition to automating sending emails, creating proposals, and using smart templates to save your team time and focus on conversion.
Integrated with our Customer Service CRM, it is still possible to launch mass campaigns and provide a better experience to customers, through agile and automated service.
Do you want to discover how PipeRun can help your company in practice? Click here and talk to one of our consultants!
Conclusion
If you’ve made it this far, you already know that marketing automation is a strategy that can bring many benefits to your company, from optimizing your team’s time to improving your marketing actions.
However, it’s important to remember that marketing automation is not a magic bullet.
To get good results, you need to invest time and effort in creating efficient flows, data analysis, and optimizations.
If you still don’t have your marketing automated, save our tips for implementing this innovation in your company.
Want to learn more? Take advantage of the opportunity and read two articles that will surely help you to positively impact more customers daily.
FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions
What are marketing automation tools?
Marketing automation tools can make your campaigns smarter and more accurate.
In addition, we can mention other examples of tools such as RD Station, Dinamize, HubSpot, etc.
How to automate digital marketing?
To automate digital marketing, you must choose an automation platform and create flows that match your goals.
Also, don’t forget to monitor the results and continuously optimize these flows to improve the performance of your actions.
