What is marketing automation?
Marketing automation helps marketing professionals perform their tasks more efficiently and get better results. It consists of a range of tools and functions that help companies manage and plan marketing campaigns, monitor their results and make decisions based on them. Marketing automation can include tools such as email marketing tools, website and social media tracking tools, and CRM systems or interfaces that help companies maintain and develop relationships with their customers. Marketing automation can help companies save time and improve their marketing efficiency.
What kind of businesses are suited to marketing automation?
It is particularly suitable for companies that want to improve their marketing effectiveness and increase their sales. Marketing automation is also ideal for companies that want to save time and improve the efficiency of their marketing processes. It can be useful for companies such as:
- Large companies that want to manage large amounts of data and run complex marketing campaigns
- Small and medium-sized businesses looking to streamline their marketing processes and save time
- Online shops that want to take advantage of marketing automation through effective email marketing and website visitor tracking
- Companies that want to improve their customer experience and maintain customer relationships through CRM systems
With marketing automation, businesses can improve the customer experience and increase sales by sending personalised emails or offering customers deals based on their past purchases, for example.
What kind of automation should an online shop do?
There are a number of different marketing automation tools that an online store can use to improve its sales and marketing processes. Here are some examples:
- Email marketing: the online store may send emails to customers in the form of newsletters, offers or product information, for example. Email marketing automation allows an online store to send emails automatically, for example after a customer has placed an order or if the customer has not made a purchase for a long time.
- Website visitor tracking: the online store can track the activity and behaviour of website visitors using tracking tools. This allows the online shop to gain information about, for example, where visitors come from and what pages they view. This information can help an online shop to optimise the performance and offerings of its website.
- Automatic updating of product categories: the online store can automate the updating of product categories, for example, based on product information or stock status. This allows the online store to ensure that product categories are up to date and that customers only see the products that are available.
- Customer register maintenance: the online store can maintain a customer register and collect information on customers’ purchase and behavioural history using a CRM system. This allows the online store to offer customers more personalised offers and content, and to maintain customer relationships.
- Search engine optimisation of your online store: your online store can automate the optimisation of your online store for search engines, for example with SEO tools or search engine optimisation tools. This allows online shops to improve the visibility of their website in search engines and attract more visitors.
- Automatic social media updates: the online store can automate the visibility of new products on social media channels, allowing its followers to be informed about current products quickly and efficiently.
- Advertising automation: an online store can automate advertising to automatically update on new products, for example on social media channels or Google.
There is plenty of scope for automation. It is essential to identify which frequently recurring tasks take up the time of your online store administrator. Success Stories has automated a wide range of actions for its customers, which have both saved time and generated sales.
What marketing automation software exists?
There are many different types of marketing automation software, offering a wide range of functions and tools for marketing professionals. Here are some examples of marketing automation software:
- Email marketing programs: these programs provide tools for planning, sending and monitoring email marketing. Examples of email marketing software include Mailchimp, Constant Contact and GetResponse.
- Website visitor tracking software: These programs provide tools for tracking and analysing website visitors. Examples of website visitor tracking software include Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics and Mixpanel.
- CRM systems: these programmes provide tools for maintaining and managing customer relationships. Examples of CRM systems include Salesforce, HubSpot and Pipedrive.
- Ecommerce optimisation tools: these programs provide tools to optimise your online store for search engines and improve your website’s visibility in search engines. Examples of ecommerce optimisation tools include SEOmoz, Ahrefs and SEMrush.
- Marketing automation software: These programs offer a wide range of marketing automation functions and tools, such as email marketing, website visitor tracking, CRM functions and e-commerce optimisation tools. Examples of marketing automation software include Pardot, Marketo and ActiveCampaign.
How to choose the right marketing automation software?
To find the right marketing automation programme for your business, it is important to consider your own needs and objectives. Here are some things to consider when choosing a marketing automation programme:
- What types of marketing tasks does your company want to automate? It is important to consider what types of marketing tasks your company wants to automate and what tools are needed to do it. For example, if a company wants to improve the efficiency of its email marketing, it needs an email marketing automation program.
- What kind of budgets does the company have available? Prices for marketing automation software vary widely, so it’s important to consider your own budget and which software is best suited to it. The company should also consider what revenue is expected to be generated by the marketing automation programme and calculate which programme offers the best return in relation to price.
- What kind of activities does the company need? It’s worth thinking about what kind of functionality you need in your marketing automation software. For example, if a company needs CRM functionality, it is important to choose a program that offers it.
- What kind of customer services does your business need? It is important to think about what kind of customer services your company needs in a marketing automation programme. For example, if your company needs a lot of advice on how to use the software, it is important to choose a program that offers good customer service.
- What kind of integrations does your company need? It is important to consider what kind of integrations your company needs in a marketing automation programme. For example, if a company uses many different marketing tools, it is important to choose a program that offers integration with existing tools.
In practice, we’ve found that an open-ended description of the current state of a company’s processes gives the best insight into the potential for automation.
Marketing automation integrations
Success Stories is a partner of the ActiveCampaign marketing automation system. We have used the system to automate a wide range of email marketing activities as part of a company’s sales funnel. ActiveCampaign integrates seamlessly with Pipedrive CRM, but also with many other CRM tools. ActiveCampaign works perfectly with, for example, the WordPress publishing system, providing accurate information on, for example, website visitors.
We should be involved early on in the design process to provide insight into the potential of automation.
Achieve your goals with marketing automation
Well-designed marketing automation delivers long-lasting success. Success Stories is a good partner to take care of all the intricacies of marketing automation for you and get your business on the road to sales growth. You can ask us anything about marketing automation.
Are you considering a partner for marketing automation?
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