Marketing Automation: What’s That?

You’ve probably heard about marketing automation. It’s new to the marketing industry and the term gets thrown around more and more each day. But what actually is marketing automation and how does it help companies? That’s a great question, and we’re here to answer it for you – quickly and concisely.

Marketing automation is a type of software that companies can use to replace manual, repetitive tasks typically completed by the marketing department. Mainly, marketing automation takes care of segmenting customers, managing email campaigns and tracking responses and actions of the target market. Marketers spend hours in their CRM systems sorting through thousands of contacts creating lists, groups and segments based on sex, age, title, company, education and more. They do this so their marketing campaigns get to the right people; the people that might want to buy their product or service.

Automating the process can save a significant amount of time and yield better results. Manual processes are always vulnerable to human error. A software system designed to properly segment lists based on specific keywords produces less or zero mistakes. Once the software has developed these lists, the automation system can also help create and send an email campaign. Custom content can be added to pre-formatted messages taking minutes instead of hours. During and after the emails are sent, the marketing automation system will also track how any of the emails have been opened, how many led customers to the website and even where the potential customer went on the site.

Being able to more effectively target prospects, create and send emails as well as know what the prospect is interested in can make the sales process better and quicker. Marketing automation provides marketers with facts and statistics that help them convert leads. In fact, companies with marketing automation reported 107% better lead conversion. Instead of trying to gain attention from a large list of prospects, automation can help narrow lists and send specific messages that catch the eyes of decisions makers.

In addition to the three tasks we discussed above, companies can also use marketing automation to forecast sales and trends more accurately, hit sales quotas and create a comprehensive database of current and potential customers. Automation can be used effectively in small, medium and large sized organizations that want to market more proficiently. No matter the size of the marketing department, when this type of software is be utilized correctly it can make the whole company more successful.