The Many Benefits of Marketing Automation

The days of marketing without a central process and clear focus are becoming numbered.Today, technology allows so much in terms of planning and efficiency that not leveraging this power certainly puts you at a disadvantage with your competitors. Clearly the trend is to automate the marketing process, hence we have the term marketing automation. What are some of the things that we can expect from this system for marketing?  

At its core marketing automation is using software to create an integrated approach to marketing. Take email for example. It's fairly simple to use an email service provider (ESP) to create some basic email marketing campaigns. And many marketers do. But utilizing a system such as software to create a marketing campaign can take your output to a different level. The use of data can allow to segment and target certain groups that may not be approached effectively with a general, or blast format. Content can also be cut up to market certain groups in a particular way. Overall, the ability to customize your marketing can reap large benefits.  

What is it that we all seem to have less of these days? Time. Another great benefit to marketing automation is the ability to save time through streamlining. By creating a centralized platform that can be controlled through one point of contact, marketers save time. Whether we are talking about a focus on content, email, social, events, or anything else, having your data and resources in one spot is highly efficient and allows for a quick, integrated approach to planning.  

Quality lead generation can be a focus. With the data that can become available through the automation process, behavior can be targeted. Through software, activities such as: movement through a webpage, an increase in certain content recently read, or the downloading of a white page, can be collected as data. This will allow the marketer to craft certain steps in order to convert the potential customer. Such follow up can include: a campaign email, a timely marketing message, or social messaging to elicit a response. With marketing automation there is really no limit in the ways one can market.