Marketing automation is one of the greatest innovations in the field of e-marketing. If done right, it could potentially make the biggest difference in your current marketing system. The time it takes in manually segmenting leads and sending marketing campaigns individually could take up so long, let alone when you have a wider range of audience. Marketing automation is an effective tool to help marketers save time and be more effective.
Although marketing automation platforms are great, some challenges are also embodied in it. If you are a marketer and is thinking about venturing into this medium, it is only right that you get to know the advantages and disadvantages in using it. You only get to have the cream of the crop out of this tool if you also get to know the balls and chains of it.
At the end of this article, you will be able to know the many benefits and a handful of challenges in using marketing automation software.
The Pros
Basically, there are so many benefits of using marketing automation. If you are a marketer, all you ever want to do is make your marketing system be more effective; hence, the reason why you are always on the look for new innovative ways. Marketing automation tools give you so many satisfying benefits that are summed-up below:
- Reduce Employment Cost – for every business, the chance to save some dollar is always a great deal especially for a fairly small business. Marketing tasks that are manually done by a team can be done by a single person through marketing automation.
- Reach Target Audience – marketing automation software features involved tool that will help user classify audience according to their interests and preferences making it easier to segment leads and provide relevant contents.
- Improved Productivity – one of the best benefits of marketing automation software is that it helps you do routine and repetitive but important marketing activities at a much quicker time; thus, giving you the benefit of having time to do other important stuff.
- Highly Targeted Campaigns – because marketing automation has features in it that enables you to segment leads and customers, you are then able to create more relevant marketing campaigns. Providing quality campaigns is pointless if your recipients will find it uninteresting and irrelevant.
- More Accurate Reporting – good thing about automation is that you get real-time and accurate reports. You will be able to track leads’ status and identify repeat customers. Having real-time visibility is great because you get an insight of whether your current marketing system is making an impact or not.
- Consistent Campaign Publishing – if you don’t have enough time to do mundane marketing tasks like campaign creation and promotion, then, no worries because you have marketing automation app. It allows you to create marketing campaigns at a time and set them on a schedule to go live. Great if you are busy and can’t commit to be consistent in your campaign publishing schedule.
- Customer Relationship Management – since every marketing strategy all focus on customer relationship, marketing automation system aims to give you tools in improving customer relationship management through targeted campaigns that provide relevant and informative contents.
- Unified Workgroup – behind every marketing success is a handful of people dedicating their time and effort. The key to any successful corporate activity is a highly organized workforce. Marketing automation helps staffs to work in a more organized manner through more accurate marketing reports and easier overall marketing job.
Those are some of the so many benefits of marketing automation. Marketing automation software for small business or for a big corporation gets similar benefits, so if you either have a small or big business, don’t hesitate to invest in one because it is an excellent tool. Remember marketing automation software is only a tool to make it easier for you to implement marketing strategies effectively, half the battle relies upon you of course.
The Cons
Out of all the enticing benefits of marketing automation are few challenges to meet. Though marketing automation is great for optimizing a marketing system, there are also drawbacks embodied in it, which may somehow outweigh all the positive effects if users neglect to consider. This article aims to let the reader know of these drawbacks for the purpose of giving pre-warnings and let the reader be more efficient and careful in using the tool.
- It Can Be Expensive – some marketing automation software vendors have various price ranges. Software that has specialized features tend to be pricier compared to the standard ones. The fact that not every marketing automation tools are the same, its prices either.
- It Can Be Complicated – marketing automation apps may consist of many different tools that instead of being helpful, leaves marketers puzzled and not know where to start due to the overwhelming amount. If you are a marketer who is not very keen with technology, then, it will take you some time to get things right. To help you combat this drawback, it is best to do research first and see some reviews of marketing automation software to see which ones are easy to use especially for a newbie like you.
- Deserting of Other Tools – marketing automation software may have an overwhelming number of tools sometimes. More often than not, marketers tend to use only a couple of these tools and overlook the other ones. Without enough knowledge, a marketer is unaware of the importance of the other tools that could have been helpful for their marketing needs.
- Segmented Leads May Not Always Be Accurate – marketing automation has a feature called leads segmentation that gathers information about leads in order for the marketer to properly classify them and create an appropriate content addressed to them. However, information gathered may not always be accurate and enough due to the limited information a lead shares and the software gathers.
- Excessive Emails – in automation, there is always a risk of blasting prospects and customers’ inbox with campaign messages. Without the right control, your software can send excessive and redundant emails to an audience, which obviously is not the most pleasant thing to do as a marketer who wants to build good communication to customers and prospects. It is recommended to send email campaigns on the right timing so as not to annoy your prospects.
Tips to a Successful Marketing Automation
Now that you know the benefits and the possible drawbacks of using marketing automation, it’s about time you learned how to do it the right way. Below are some tips on how to use marketing automation software for small business for an effective marketing strategy.
- Prioritize Your Customers – every business’ lifeblood runs through providing a better service to customers. Manual or automated, one must never forget to prioritize customer relationship management. Although marketing automation makes the job of marketing so much easier, the marketer must not deduct the effort it gives in nurturing clients.
- Make Good Content – marketing automation software are only tools to help marketer publish contents effectively. The quality of the content still relies on the user himself; thus, content should be given enough effort. Make a content that your audiences will find helpful and interesting.
- Proper Segmentation – the software cannot segment leads by itself; you as the user needs to carefully set standards and restrictions in order for it to generate the best qualified ones. Without proper segmentation, all the other strategies become pointless. You don’t want to send a campaign about giant burgers and crispy chicken nuggets to an audience who is vegan; therefore, careful segmentation is indispensable.
- Include Personal Touches – nothing beats personalized campaigns especially when you are dealing with email marketing. There aren’t a lot of businesses who send email campaigns that at least addresses the recipient by their first name. Marketing automation can help you send effective email marketing campaigns that does not appeal too robotic.
- Proper Timing – marketing automation allows users to make multiple contents at a time and schedule those to go live anytime they want. You need to know when is the best time to send another email or marketing campaign to your customers and prospects. It is a big no-no to bombard your audience’s inbox with email promotions; you might find your way into their spam box.
- Conduct Surveys – marketing automation have features that allow marketers to conduct survey to their email lists. A survey is a good way to ask people what they want and what they’d be interested at. This is going to be a good chance for your business to make improvements and find ways to provide what the crowd needs and wants.
End of the line
There you have it! Those are the pros and cons behind every marketing automation system that you need to know. Being able to know of the possible effects before choosing marketing automation software will help every marketer. As an addition, do careful research to have a guarantee that you only get the best marketing automation software. Remember that success doesn’t just happen, it is planned.
If you are looking for reliable marketing automation software, see the list of reviews on marketing automation software by CrowdReviews.com and see who’s made it on the top as the best marketing automation software
Trevor Price
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