As its name indicates, it consists of automating all marketing processes that are susceptible to it.
And there are many more of these processes than is usually believed and they cover the entirety of a marketing strategy . Let's see them organized into 8 blocks:
Digital advertising.
Lead generation.
Contact qualification.
Smart content.
Relationship with contacts and clients.
Reporting.
Correction of strategies.
Transfer of information to the sales team.
1. Digital advertising.
Process automation within advertising platforms has been with them since their origins. Automation possibilities have evolved rapidly and, when strategies are clear, automation saves a great deal of time for the teams in charge of managing these campaigns.
However, you have to be careful. It is one thing to automate bulgaria business email list certain processes such as modifying bids based on performance, and quite another (and still very risky today) to leave the management and optimization of the campaign in the hands of algorithms.
We have already discussed the risks of return on investment or online reputation associated with full automation in the article The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Digital Marketing Management , which we invite you to read for more information.
2. Lead generation.
What happens when a user accesses your website and sends your company a form or an email requesting information? Do you manage them manually, one by one?
Do you attract massive traffic to your website or do you have automatic filtering systems to prevent users who have already been there and have had a certain behavior from being ignored or dealt with by other procedures?
The answer to these and many other similar questions are the solutions offered by marketing automation, linked to the implementation of a CRM , to reduce the time spent managing company personnel and increase the effectiveness of investments in digital advertising aimed at attracting contacts. In the next point we clarify all this a little more.
3. Contact qualification.
This is a process common to all companies and takes up a truly outrageous amount of time. This is in addition to the loss of opportunities that occur due to sick leave, overwork, or simple forgetfulness.
Knowing whether a contact we have created on our website is interesting or not for our company and at what point in the funnel of their purchasing decision they are –what we call qualification–, referring that contact to the team that will manage it and, finally (if done), recording the result of all this management... How much time does it take you and your team?
If you are doing this work manually, I invite you to read these articles that will help you understand the benefits you will get by automating these processes. Yes, they can be automated. Seriously. Please read this:
Digitalization of the company: also marketing and sales.
Marketing automation: tools, strategy and profitability.
You will find answers to the questions you may be asking yourself right now.
4. Smart content.
One of the most powerful possibilities offered by marketing automation is to have smart content on our website, blog and emails. The best way to explain it is that these are blocks of information that display different content based on the profile of the user who accesses them.
This profile can be built based on the user's behavior on the web, their qualifications... the possibilities are practically endless.
The goal of smart content is to show each user the information that really interests them and that is adapted to the life cycle stage they are in within the conversion funnel. If you want to know more about what a conversion funnel is, we invite you to read this article: The conversion funnel as a B2B marketing opportunity.
5. Relationship with contacts and clients.
Maintaining an active, ongoing relationship with potential (qualified) customers so that they keep us in mind when they need our products or services again is just as important as giving each user the information they are looking for at the right time.
