Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation. Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? Chances are you’ve come across the term somewhere, wandering in the vast catacombs of the Internet. So what’s all the fuss about it?

Well, according to the Techopedia, “Marketing automation is the use of software and Web-based services to execute, manage and automate marketing tasks and processes. It replaces manual and repetitive marketing processes with purpose-built software and applications geared toward performance.”

Too much? Okay. Simply put, Marketing Automation uses software to perform all the repetitive and time-consuming manual tasks and processes related to marketing.

As the world becomes more and more automated, we are left with the fact that automation is no longer a choice; it is the future. But what does automation actually bring along with it?

-Stewart Butterfield, Co-Founder of Flickr, Founder of Slack

So we have established that Marketing Automation is the future, and that’s great. But to a lot of people, it might seem to make the marketing communication colder, more impersonal. There is a fear that, if left to the machines, marketing communications may lack the human touch, and personality.

That, however, is not really true.

As acclaimed Digital Marketer Neil Patel puts it, “Marketing automation makes it easier to send personalized, 1:1 targeted messages. In other words, marketing automation makes communication stronger. When you automate your marketing, you can focus more heavily on the quality of your campaigns and messaging.”

Basically, it helps us add more personal touches to the communication by collecting user data, and doing all the repetitive tasks that need to be done.

Thus, the whole point of automation is to make marketing easier, more personal, more customized. However, due to its inherently counterintuitive nature, several misconceptions have become prevalent among the marketing community. Another widely-held assumption people have about automation is:

Marketing Automation = Email Marketing

It is an easy mistake to make, since e-mail marketing is certainly a part of Marketing Automation, but it is not the only thing that can be automated. The difference is, where e-mail marketing focuses only on one channel and point of interaction for the consumer, marketing automation connects multiple channels such as social media, search engine, e-mail and content marketing. It then guides these points of interaction to trigger viral engagement, generate strong leads, and nurture long-term connections.

There are a number of marketing processes that can be automated.

Email marketing may not be the same as Marketing Automation, but it sure as hell forms a big part of it. Automation can be used to personalize emails using collected customer data. It can also be used for triggered emails, which are sent after a certain action is performed by the customer which in turn triggers the email. It can also be used to create and schedule newsletters to be sent out to customers. Using Artificial Intelligence, automated response messages can also be crafted based on behavioural data. According to the Aberdeen Group, using Automation in Email Marketing can increase your lead conversion by almost 50%! Looking at that, doesn’t it seem like a good idea to automate these activities?

Today, more and more people look for products, information, deals and sales on social media. It is very important to engage with these potential customers on social platforms. There are softwares that keep track of all your social media, your websites, who is visiting which page, what content goes on which platform etc. It can also be used to schedule your social media calendar.

Lead scoring is a means of depicting the level and quality of leads acquired: whether they are qualified leads, hot leads, and so on and so forth. Automation helps keep track of these scores, providing a measure of how far down the conversion funnel each customer is. For example, if a prospective customer is actively clicking on and opening all the content sent to him/her by the company, his/her lead score rises automatically.

Keeping track of all your leads is definitely important, but with automation you can actually go one step further than that. You can organize your leads and clients into different segments, and then target them with communication. Segmenting the prospects greatly increases the efficiency of marketing communication.

Ex. 1. Drip feeding emails is another excellent way of automating email marketing. Essentially, drip-feed emails are used to follow up with people who have signed up for your newsletter, in order to get them to take the next step of their customer journey (becoming a paid member, asking for a consultation, etc.) This can be based on automating the sending of emails over periodic amounts of time, or based on behaviour of customer. But there is a lot more that can be achieved with drip feed email, as illustrated by this example:

This is one of the reasons behind InsightSquared success with cold leads. According to account executive Dylan Rushe:

In the above case, we can see that a novel approach has been used. While the first email expresses interest, the second one acted as a reminder, inciting curiosity on the part of the customer as to what the company would like to discuss. The third one shows consideration, as well as leaves room for the customer to get back in touch with the firm.

In marketing, Automation is the Future. Automation increases Personal Touch. Automation reduces Human Effort. But how do we actually achieve it? To quote the Bard, “That is the question.”

The fact is, there are a lot of different approaches to marketing automation, with number of softwares and tools already available. What companies need to do is to find the right tool that will automate several marketing processes at once. Let us look at some examples.

Marketo is a marketing automation platform that consists of email, mobile, social media, account based, Web-based and marketing analytics. Using this, businesses can control and spearhead the engagement with customers through multiple channels from a single platform. It aims to create long-term, end-to-end engagement with the customers.

Marketo’s Engagement Hub gathers data that will help customize the customer interactions, while its cloud-based infrastructure is capable enough of handling millions of customers everyday.

HubSpot is one of the most popular inbound marketing platforms, specializing in free CRM that that helps businesses organize and track customers. According to HubSpot, its CRM “automates the tasks salespeople hate.” With this platform, all the data is compiled on a single dashboard, allowing a business to map the journey of customers. This dashboard enables the business team to maintain a clear view regarding their performance towards their goals.

Apart from the CRM, the brand also offers blogging, SEO, SMM, email, digital advertisements and analytics.

There are many more such platforms, like Autopilot, ONTRAPORT, Mailchimp etc. that all provide specific range of services. By understanding what spectrum is required for your business, you can choose the platform that suits your business the most.

-Bill Gates, Co-Founder of Microsoft Corporation

The above quote applies equally to Marketing Automation. We have spoken at length now, about the various softwares and platforms available for automating the marketing processes. However, all these automation platforms utilised would mean nothing without the right strategy behind them. As Bill Gates says, the automation will only ever be as good as the operation it is applied to. And who would know better than ‘good ol’ Bill’?

Marketing Automation frequently brings with itself a practice of content marketing, native advertising and other forms of inbound marketing tactics. These emphasize a greater focus on what the customer wants to see rather than what the marketer wants the customer to see. These tactics are used for pulling the customers towards the brand by providing content that is engaging and relevant to the customer’s mind. Apart from this there are, of course, the usual push tactics, such as paid advertising, or email lists, that are also a great way to showcase your products for generated leads.

However, all such tactics require an underlying strategy: one that takes care of the big picture. It is ultimately this strategy that determines whether your marketing will work efficiently, with or without automation.

In the end, Marketing Automation is simply a tool for the marketers to use; how you use it is ultimately up to you. Do you use it purely to provide great, high-end content and attract customers using inbound marketing? Do you use it to aggressively push your product through advertising? Or do you use a blend of the two that suits your business best? You can automate marketing processes, but the process of decision-making and strategizing can only be achieved by people. Ultimately, it is the human touch that guides the automation, rather than the other way around. Every marketer must keep that in mind: the more you personalize, the more you improve the quality of communication, the better.

So just provide the content and communication that is simple, human and honest; automation will take care of the rest!

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