“Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” is an adage that accurately describes and represents everything involved when running a business. With so much competition in the market, having a good product or service is no longer enough. In order to become successful, you need to ensure that you have a strong brand and customers willing to buy your product or hire your services. Marketing campaigns promote your brand while sales bring in the revenue that you need. But the simple definition of these key aspects of business is a far cry from the numerous processes involved to ensure these are efficiently done.
There are days when you spend hours strategizing on how to best draw customers and even more hours putting these strategies in play. Despite all the hard work you and your staff put in, you still don’t see the numbers that you need to grow and become successful. The secret is to find a tool that can help you become more efficient.
What is Marketing Automation Software?
According to Pardot, a B2B marketing automation software provider defines the tool that allows you, the business owner, to automate your marketing and sales processes. The marketing automation tool offers features that help you manage your online campaigns more efficiently. While each developer and provider has unique systems, the basic functions of these can be described by the features below.
- Email Marketing – In a research done by The Radicati Group, Inc in 2015, they stated that there are over 2.6 billion email users all over the world. In fact, in the US alone, it is estimated that by the end of 2016, each user will have an average of 1.8 email accounts. With so many possible prospects, businesses have adapted email marketing in promoting their brand. The software allows you to manage these correspondences to improve revenue. Consumers are guided through the buying process instead of being stressed and harassed into a purchase. This feature allows you and your team to create professional emails either with pre formatted templates or through a user friendly visual editor.
- Closed Loop Reporting– This feature allows you to calculate the ROI on your marketing campaigns. According to Inbound Marketing Agents, a marketing solutions provider based in Nashville, marketers have a lot to offer from this feature. Business owners certainly appreciate a tool that will let you measure the effectiveness of all your online marketing strategies, such as social media and email. And because you are able to quantify the quality of your campaigns, you can determine which ones have higher success rate.
- Lead Scoring and Analysis – The best marketing automation tools give you the ability to effectively analyze your leads and enable you to segregate effective leads from those dead ends. By being able to do so, you spend time focusing on income generating correspondences rather than following up on prospects that are not yielding sales.
- Prospect Tracking – This feature, included in automated marketing software, compliments lead analysis, scoring and enhances email marketing. This tracks activity of prospect customers so you can identify their needs efficiently. For example, if a customer purchased baking equipment from your store, then you can make sure to include them in any promotions of the same items.
- Social Marketing – In a research done by Drum cited on Dream Grow, an online marketing resource, 52% of consumers in 2015 were influenced by Facebook. This is a favorable change from the previous year 36% report. With such impressive number, business owners can’t afford not to tap into this market; hence, explains why marketing automation software vendors highlight the importance of this feature.
- Landing Pages and Online Forms – This feature included in B2C marketing automation software allows you to generate new and update existing leads with the necessary details to streamline the transition from marketing to sales. According to Unbounce, a landing page developer and consulting firm based in Vancouver, this feature increases the conversion of traffic to leads. Consumers who visit your website to check for information become prospects by simply filling-out a well-laid out form.
Benefits of Software
A quick online search can bring up the different benefits of the software. Business owners and marketers provide useful insight on product reviews of marketing automation software, including the features below.
- Automated Workflow – To promote your brand and make your business a success, you use different types of strategies that require numerous tasks, some of which are repetitive. The thing about repetitive tasks is that once these become a routine, these are given less attention and focus resulting to errors. A synthesized process reduces human errors causing negative impact on the running campaign.
- Better Customer Relationships – With billions of email users all over the world, email marketing becomes a staple in promoting products and services. However, there is an alarming number of statistics preventing business owners from maximizing the benefits of emails. According to Spam Laws, an online resource for information on spam, there are over 14 billion spam sent out every day, 36% of these are advertising-related. This lead to consumers ignoring marketing emails from companies like yours. But with B2C marketing automation software, you can nurture you leads to build a better relationship with your customers. You send out related emails.
- Increase in Revenue – By enjoying the two previously mentioned features, your business sees an increase in revenue with fewer human errors causing your marketing campaigns to fail; hence, enabling you to promote your brand more efficiently and attracting more prospects or leads. Email marketing automation software lets you guide your prospects from the moment they show interest up to the point of sale; hence, with the increased in revenue, your business start growing and showing profits.
Why Your Business Needs Automated Marketing
An automated marketing system provides solutions to challenges common in running a business. To better help you understand how crucial it is to make an investment with this tool, below are some examples of business solutions that the software offers.
- Low Revenue
Problem: Campaigns are not showing ROI
Solution: Marketing automation allows you to monitor and measure the effectiveness of campaigns you are running. As business owners and marketers, your bright ideas in promoting your brand are not always in-line with what appeals to consumers. In order to make more informed decisions and strategies, you can use the tool to analyze how you can improve your campaigns.
- Low Repeat Customers
Problem: Customers are not coming back or staying to do business with your company.
Solution: There are million reasons behind the low numbers and revenue from repeat customers. However, in order to find out the root cause of this challenge, you need to access the information about your campaigns and leads. Consumers may be getting turned off by regular email reminders or ads that you send them after the first purchase that they end up ignoring your correspondences. As a result, they missed out relevant information that they may have taken advantage. The bottom line is consumers need to feel valued and not forced in buying or doing business. An automated marketing tool allows you to run campaigns that consumers will respond to. In addition, when your customers start seeing that you have their best interest at heart using well-thought marketing initiatives, they turn from leads into loyal partners.
- Low Productivity from Workforce
Problem: Marketing and Sales team members are not producing results.
Solution: There are million and one tasks involved in running efficient and effective campaigns. From sending out emails to managing social media, these tasks prevent you and your workforce from focusing on the other important things in generating profit for the company. By synthesizing all the processes into one platform, all the background work can be done quicker without compromising quality. It also frees up your time so it can be spent growing your business and driving profitability.
Whether you are running an SMB or one with multiple locations, an automated tool can streamline your processes and improve your performance. Check out the list of marketing automation software on CrowdReviews.com so you can start exploring your options today.
Jeev Trika
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