Definition: Marketing automation
What is marketing automation?
Marketing automation broadly refers to the use of digital technologies and software to drive more efficiencies across a wide range of repetitive, manual marketing tasks. Typical examples of marketing tasks that can be automated include social media publishing, email responding, lead generation, and even content creation.
Aside from saving marketing teams time and resources, marketing automation software effectively enables marketers to leverage data to standardize each step of the marketing funnel and customer journey, allowing them to deliver personalized, relevant content and messaging to the right audience at the right time. This ideally results in a better understanding of a customer’s unique challenges and needs to help nurture stronger relationships.
How do I choose the best marketing automation software for my team?
Marketing automation solutions come in all shapes and sizes, and while many platforms promote themselves as an “all-in-one” solution, any given solution will inevitably have its specialty—whether that’s content management, digital asset management, customer relationship management, analytics, etc.
Therefore, when considering marketing automation platforms, a good start is to ask yourself: what does my business want to achieve with the technology, and what results do I expect? And, of course: what’s my budget? To get a better overview of different marketing automation providers on the market and the features they provide, it’s recommended to leverage comparison sites such as G2 and Capterra.
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Which marketing automation tools should I choose for my business?
Businesses can enjoy significant benefits from automating their marketing processes and workflows. Here are some of the most effective types of marketing automation tools and how they help brands.
Email marketing automation
Email marketing automation tools help businesses create, send, and track email campaigns. They enable businesses to segment their audience based on various parameters. This approach means they can personalize their email content accordingly and ensure the right messaging and offers are presented to the people who are most likely to respond to them. With email marketing automation, businesses can schedule email campaigns in advance, automate follow-up emails, and track their performance.
Social media automation
With social media automation tools, businesses can schedule posts, monitor social media engagement, and measure the performance of their campaigns. These tools make it easy to manage multiple social media platforms from a single dashboard and keep track of their social media activities from anywhere in the world. Brands can also use the platform’s analytics suite to see which campaigns are working well and which need improvement.
Landing page automation
Landing page automation tools help businesses create and optimize landing pages for their marketing campaigns. The best automation tools are simple and straightforward, often incorporating a drag-and-drop editor to create landing pages so users don’t need any specific coding skills. With landing page automation, businesses can test different versions of their landing pages to see which one performs better and boost their conversion rates.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) automation
These tools support businesses in managing their customer data and the various interactions they have with them. CRM automation enables brands to automate their sales and marketing processes, track customer behavior, and personalize interactions with customers. This helps marketers improve their customer engagement and build stronger, long-lasting relationships with their customers.
