What is marketing automation and what are its benefits?

Research shows that marketing automation boosts sales productivity and campaign management efficiency while reducing costs. So if you’re thinking about implementing marketing automation into your business but don’t know where to start, read on. In this mini guide, we’ll answer the question “What is marketing automation?” and discuss how it can increase marketing ROI. We’ll also cover some examples of businesses using automation successfully.

What is marketing automation?

In a nutshell, marketing automation is the use of technology to automatically complete repetitive marketing tasks. 

An easy-to-understand example is email newsletter software. If you’re collecting customer email addresses for your newsletter, you probably aren’t sending emails manually because it would take hours. Instead, you use marketing automation software to automatically forward your newsletter to anyone who signs up.

But welcome emails are just one way your organization can automate marketing. You can automate almost anything from PPC ads to SEO and marketing analytics.

Why is marketing automation important?

Here are some reasons why implementing automation into your marketing process is necessary:

• Reduced costs
• Increased productivity 
• Better data

Reduced costs

If you’re using the right marketing automation software, it’ll complete the tasks of several employees. This saves money because you won’t have to pay anyone to do these repetitive tasks.

Another way that marketing automation reduces costs is by ensuring that your CRM (customer relationship manager) is up to date. You can use CRM integration to organize the interactions with your customers without much manual work.

Increased productivity 

Research shows that introducing marketing automation into your work process can boost sales productivity by 14.5%.

And this makes sense. If it would take three days for an employee to complete a repetitive marketing task like data entry, for example, there’s probably a tool out there that would achieve the same result within seconds. 

Better data

Collecting customer data has been one of the biggest marketing trends in the last few years. The problem is that most businesses don’t know how to collect and use data efficiently, which is where marketing automation can help.

Marketing automation software that focuses on automating data management can clean and structure your data instantly, so it’s easy to understand.

Features of marketing automation platforms to look out for

Thinking about signing up for a few marketing automation tools so you can experience the benefits for yourself? Not so fast! Consider these features before shopping for marketing automation software:

• Customer data platforms
• Lead management
• Email marketing 
• Social media automation
• Automated segmentation

Customer data platforms

Before you think about writing marketing ads, you need to understand your ideal customer. Investing in a CDP (customer data platform) is the best way to do this. 

These automation tools enable you to collect customer data through web analytics, surveys, and interviews. From here, you can clean and structure this raw data logically. So if your marketers are creating campaigns, they can consult your CDP and learn about customers and their needs.

Lead management

Once you’ve introduced a CDP into your work process, it’s time to focus on automating lead management. Lead management tools are handy because they give you the ability to identify prospects, plot their movement across the web, and personalize the marketing messages they receive. 

Email marketing

Another factor of marketing automation software to consider is email marketing capabilities. Email marketing has been a staple of every website over the last decade. It doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. So when you’re collecting hundreds of email addresses daily, manually sending each one is impractical. This is why you want to use an email marketing software that’ll streamline everything involved with sending customized emails to your audience.

Social media automation

Staying active on social media by posting entertaining, informative, and relevant content is essential if you want to catch customers’ attention. Social media automation software allows you to schedule posts, gather feedback, and track mentions without much hard work.

Automated segmentation

Not all your customers are the same; they use your product for different reasons. This is why automating audience segmentation is necessary for personalized marketing.

It’ll give you insight into the following:

• What device your customers are using
• Any products that they’re buying regularly
• Which forms of marketing each segment responds to best

Examples of how marketing automation has helped businesses

One of the best examples of how marketing automation has helped businesses is the American Conservatory Theater, a theater that presents classical and contemporary productions. Within 30 days of automating the customer data collection and management process with Lytics, the American Conservatory Theater saw a 15% increase in conversions.

Another example is Industry Dive, a business news outlet that saw a 40% increase in click-throughs after using Lytics to automatically connect customer data and create unified customer profiles.

Automate your marketing with Lytics

Marketing in its modern form is becoming more complicated by the day. No longer can you post an ad, bring in customers, and call it a day. You must provide an omnichannel customer experience and personalize your messages around customer buying habits.This is where marketing automation makes your life a lot easier. It does most of the heavy lifting, so you can focus on ways to attract new customers.

One of the best places to start automating is data collection and management because the work is time intensive. So consider the Lytics customer data platform. It allows you to connect first-party data and use it to understand your customer with 360-degree profiles.