Marketing automation – the future of digital marketing

What is marketing automation?

It is conducting comprehensive marketing activities using software that allows you to collect information about prospects, analyze it and classify customer groups, and then conduct automated communication to them based on prepared marketing scenarios.

Marketing automation includes activities that are repeatable, cyclical and fully tailored to the needs of a given user. Automation consists of scenarios, which in turn consist of events that trigger action (so-called triggers) and actions, i.e. planned events that are to occur as a result of the trigger.

Marketing automation allows you to improve the effectiveness of marketing activities and at the same time relieves the workload of marketing team members by eliminating repetitive activities. This makes it possible to generate better sales results, acquire more leads and better allocate efforts to encourage the customer to make a purchase.

Marketing automation functionalities

Marketing automation software available on the market gives marketers more and more opportunities to automate their activities. The most popular and most frequently used marketing automation functionalities include:

• CRM – a tool that perfectly combines marketing and sales activities. The panel collects detailed contact data, which makes it easier to segment the database and effectively target marketing activities.
• Support for all customer communication channels from one place – thanks to marketing automation, it is possible to analyze previous contacts with the customer (type, frequency, contact channel) and, on this basis, direct tailored communication to him using scenarios.
• Automation of marketing and sales activities – automation of communication, response to specific customer behavior, contact segmentation, scoring (which we will talk about briefly in a moment), advertising targeting, etc.
• Analytics support – marketing automation tools enable you to prepare detailed reports for selected periods and present them in an accessible way.
• Monitoring traffic on the website and mobile application.
• Manage email marketing and social media with marketing automation software, and easily publish content.

So what is lead scoring?

Good marketing automation systems segment users or assign them points, so that marketing communications can only be prepared for customers who have the highest potential.

Lead scoring allows you to identify valuable contacts by assigning them points for specific features and behaviors. On the one hand, points are awarded thanks to information provided by the user himself, on the other hand, the system itself draws knowledge from observing his behavior.

We distinguish between behavioral scoring (it takes into account information such as: how many times a given user visited the website, how much time s/he spent browsing it, what products s/he viewed and what actions s/he took) and demographic scoring (who is the user, what position he holds, what is his income, etc.) . Effective lead scoring allows you to accurately and quickly assess whether the user is ready for the next sales stage. In short, it increases the quality of leads and translates into an increase in conversions.

What about customer retention?

Marketing automation is also a response to the so-called abandoned carts and customer retention problems. Reducing the number of abandoned carts is an eternal problem for marketers and automation is a great solution in this context.

Marketing automation rules allow you to set, for example, dynamic messages encouraging you to finalize the order after adding products to the cart. These may be personalized e-mails or customized web-push messages.

When it comes to customer retention, marketing automation makes it possible to intelligently encourage inactive users to use the tool or website, e.g. by sending e-mails or notifications.

Why is marketing automation the only right way today?

Marketing automation is a solution for every business that is ready for further development.

Although some, especially more advanced marketing automation systems, are a significant investment, it is worth choosing. Why?

Effective targeting of ads and messages

This includes advertising, e-mail marketing and social media. Messages are sent precisely, only to groups of prospects who are really interested in given products. Prospects’ reactions and interactions, e.g. in social media, are carefully monitored and the content is adapted to their purchasing history. This also applies to monitoring customer behavior in mobile applications.

Maintaining regular customers

Customers come and go, but it is worth considering how to make them stay. Statistics show that on average 80% of turnover is generated by 20% of regular customers, so it is not worth postponing checking who your regular customers are and what their expectations are. Marketing automation makes this possible, as well as adapting appropriately structured communication to these customers based on previous behavior.

Analytics

Automation of marketing activities means the most effective analysis of the effectiveness of implemented activities. Strategy planning and decision-making are based on specific data, and acquiring new customers is easier when advertising is based on analysis.