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No matter how big or how small, almost every marketing team needs some automation to help them out. Imagine having a robot on the marketing team that does all those tiny, time consuming, and repetitive tasks that no one actually wants to do…in a really efficient way. That’s what marketing automation is, and although it generally requires a little work setting it up on the front-end, your team will be grateful once it starts getting to work.
At the end of the day, marketing automation allows you to better streamline the customer journey, the team’s lead generation, and improve overall lead conversion.
It’s easy to assume that because it’s ‘automated’ and it’s like having a robot on your team, that marketing automation takes the personal touch out of your interactions with your customers. But really, it only helps to personalize your entire lead marketing funnel and create a tailored experience for your leads and potential customers.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, marketing automation won’t take care of quite everything you and your team have got on your list, but there are a few tried and true tasks that marketing automation softwares have mastered and will only serve to lighten your load by letting the softwares take over.
Email workflows and moreBuilding out an email workflow is often the bane of any email marketer’s existence and different permutations of customers, where they’re coming from…and more, can often confuse and complicate workflows even further. A good email marketing automation tool can allow you to build out a workflow and let it run seamlessly on its own from first click on your website, to signing up, to onboarding.
Customized pop ups and landing pagesA good pop up message can take your leads from a blog post to your home page and all the way to that crucial ‘sign up’ button very quickly and a bad one…can annoy them to never come back. But, when done right, marketing automation can help you build out pop up messages and landing pages that give your leads exactly what they need or want when they arrive on your site or blog.
List buildingBefore you can send your emails though, it’s important to start building out lists of your clients and the people who will be getting the emails. Implementing marketing automation with landing pages or customized pop-ups based on where leads are landing, or what they’ve clicked on, can put them in particular lists that get specific emails targeted to their needs or questions.
Social mediaIt’s not reasonable to think that a marketing team has the time or bandwidth to be constantly monitoring and posting on social media for a brand. Social media automation tools can do everything from helping you to schedule out your posts days or even weeks in advance, can post current articles based on your parameters or (#)hashtag choices and monitor any mentions on social.
Top Softwares for Marketing Automation
You can now put it to the test with some of these top marketing automation softwares. While many of them do it ALL, a few of them are specialized and should be experimented with. The golden rule of marketing automation? Keep it all within reason, and know when to turn it off. Just because you can automate every aspect of the funnel, doesn’t mean you should.
- Marketo’s slogan is ‘world leaders of marketing automation for companies of any size’ so it’s probably safe to say they know what they’re doing. Marketo’s marketing automation is built upon creating entire campaigns, from the lead generation all the way to managing mobile marketing. It’s a great first step for a company looking to build up tried and true marketing automation into their team.
- Hubspot is another all-in-one solution for most marketing automation needs. From building out landing pages, to list building, hosting pieces of content, and sending out email flows, Hubspot’s system allows you to literally have your hub of marketing automation in one place.
- Buffer allows users to connect social media accounts and schedule postings for each profile for days or even weeks in advance. Perfect for those tweets that perform so well on Saturday evenings.
- AddThis is all about those handy pop-up messages. AddThis allows you to build out your pop-ups based on the rules you build. Here’s where your list-building of different client scenarios will come in handy…but it’s also a simple means of lead capturing or distributing popular pieces of your content, without much lift on your marketing team’s end.
