automation

In the digital age, marketers face daunting challenges, pressing expectations, and demanding work circumstances. Time-consuming processes, outdated methods, and manual workflows have no place in the present marketing world. Amidst the pressure and stress to generate and convert leads, marketers cannot afford leaky processes, unqualified funnels, and slow capabilities that can completely drain the marketer. The need for automation to transform all marketing activities and prevent marketer burnout is more than ever. Fortunately, strong developments in marketing automation have transformed the core processes of marketing and have provided powerful avenues to expedite, streamline and optimize the marketing workflows.

This article details some of the top areas in marketing where automation is transforming the entire marketing chain and leading to a positive impact.

How Has Automation Changed the Face of Marketing?

Ever wondered how you get those automated messages, gift vouchers, personalized emails on your birthdays or anniversaries? If you don’t visit a website or open a mobile application for a longer time, you receive reconnecting mails or customized offers for you. Marketing automation is behind this game-changing facet of marketing. The event-based triggered emails, automated promotional feeds, or reminders of abandoned cart or coupon offers for refer-a-friend are all powered by marketing automation technology.

Societal challenges have raised expectations about marketers’ social performance, says HBR.

The wider push to incorporate personalized marketing for more engagement and response from the customers has expedited the implementation of automation in marketing activities.

Today almost all functional areas of marketing are witnessing automation of some kind. During the Pandemic, 77% of Chief Marketing Officers automated more tasks through AI-enabled automation. Automation in marketing is utilized for various marketing functions such as lead generation, lead nurturing, funnel management, personalized targeting, referral campaigns, email marketing, analytics, and more. Intelligent automation simplifies marketer’s daily operations, expedites lead conversions, and brings accuracy to targeted marketing campaigns.

Below are the top automation-led transformations in marketing:

Comparing Marketing Content’s Effectiveness

Marketers need to check what versions of content, tactics, emails, designs, etc., perform better in the conversion funnel. For example, marketers need to evaluate what headlines, CTAs, adverts, business videos, product descriptions, email subject lines bring better conversions than other options. Without automation, the judgment, analysis, and calculations for such various marketing elements are next to impossible. Automation makes the comparison between two versions of marketing content quicker, accurate, and effective by deploying automated A/B testing or Multivariate testing.  A/B testing and multivariate testing improve marketing programs and user experiences.

Advanced Segmentation of Leads

Marketing leads rarely belong to the same category or pattern. Customers come with different demographics, buyer persona, lifetime value, behavior, personal interests, buying patterns, creditworthiness, etc. Manually bifurcating the large customer databases to create subdivisions is not feasible considering multiple segmentation factors. AI-based automation tools enable marketers to automate the entire process, and intelligent automation leads to more specific and targeted marketing. Automation-led advanced segmentation is particularly crucial for cross-selling, location-based marketing, churn customer retention strategy, etc.

Drip Marketing (Lead Nurturing Campaigns)

Taken from agricultural terminology, drip marketing works in a similar fashion as drip irrigation. The difference being that drip irrigation nurtures crops, and drip marketing nurtures potential customers. Many times, the leads that are not prepared to buy at present may decide to purchase from you in the future. Drip campaigns capitalize on this opportunity. Drip marketing campaigns focus on sending emails (personalized) to engage leads with your brand over an extended period. Smart Automation tools create systematic drip campaigns targeted towards various types of leads. Welcome drips, onboarding drips, drips to engage inactive customers, etc., can be automated and monitored using automation tools.

Branching Workflow Automation

Branching workflow automation in marketing is logic-based automation where pre-determined conditions trigger a sequential flow of activities for converting leads. Branching logic works to identify, evaluate and categorize leads that reach you via your website and other online channels. Based on their activity on your web properties branching workflow logic determines what action is required from your side to convert the lead/visitor. It then automatically triggers the sequence of actions without the need for any manual intervention. Branching workflow automation is like a marketer who vigilantly tracks the activities of leads 24/7 and knows the exact follow-up actions.

Progressive Profiling 

Progressive profiling is the process of gathering pieces of personal information from website visitors, leads, and potential customers in a sequential manner. Rather than bombarding a customer/lead to reveal everything about them on the first visit and making them utterly uncomfortable, progressive profiling uses a sequential process to gather lead info on the repeated visits and compile them to create the final lead profile. With marketing automation tools, marketers can automate the process of progressive profiling. Whenever customers visit web properties, the tools prompt customers to fill forms that contain fields that ask for limited information from them. The information is captured in the CRM database. Next time the customer visits any web page, a different form asks for different information, and the previously taken fields are not repeated. These automated forms trigger the visitor’s browsing activity on your website. Automation in progressive profiling is critical for lead nurturing tactics. Progressive profiling works to offer a more pleasant and comfortable experience to visitors.

Personalized Experiences to Customers

Automation makes it super easy for marketers to reach customers with personalized greetings, tailored presentations, and special offers based on recent purchases. Suggesting customers products based on their buying behavior or future needs help not only in delivering positive customer experiences to customers but also assists marketers in cross-selling and upselling. For instance, a customer who purchases a flight ticket from a travel portal gets personalized emails with discounted rates for a hotel stay at the destination. Without automation, such personalized gamut will be monumental tasks for marketers.

Wrap Up

Automation in marketing is not a new concept. However, the improvements in the traditional tools and the advent of highly sophisticated marketing automation software are contemporary developments. From lead scoring to conversion rate optimization, automation is positively impacting all marketing activities. Marketers should not refrain from utilizing the capabilities of the new-age marketing automation tools to lead their marketing efforts to new heights.

James Mordy is a content writer for GoodFirms (a leading Software research company). A voracious reader, an avid researcher, a logophile, and a tech geek, he loves to write about the latest technologies shaping the world. He often articulates the very nuances of the tech world in his blogs. In his free time, he loves to watch movies and analyze global stock markets.

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