For all these reasons, we could answer: increased productivity, freeing up working time to dedicate it to activities that require human talent, and, as a consequence of the above, improved profitability.
The question they should be asking themselves is why they haven't yet started an automation strategy in their marketing department. Not doing so is a mistake.
If you are already considering the possibility, we will explain 3 key points that, as a marketing manager, you should know and assess before starting the process.
Tools
There are a lot of marketing automation tools out there. The latvia business email list choice should depend on what your needs are.
VERY IMPORTANT: From our experience we know that marketing teams are surprised when they discover how much can be automated. Analyze how you work now, what you spend your time on, and what you would like to not have to do manually. Don't limit yourself in wanting to automate. Almost certainly everything you want is possible.
In a previous article, The digitalization of the B2B marketing department, we explained the differences between a digitalized marketing department and one that is not. Read it and you will have many clues about the possibilities offered by automation.
Make a list of tasks that can be automated and find a tool that offers these features. If you don't know where to start, talk to your advertising agency and they will be able to advise you.
Almost all marketing automation tools on the market operate under a scalable service contracting model that allows for tailor-made solutions to be built and expanded as needs grow.
One of the best examples on the market is HubSpot's marketing automation tools, which offer four versions: Starter (which we talked about in this article) , Basic, Pro, and Enterprise.
Strategy
Processes that are automated must be at the service of the overall strategy. Automation can be part of anything from a mini email marketing campaign to a complex international Inbound Marketing strategy .
We advise you to take a large piece of paper and a pen and start making an outline of what is going to happen.
Let's look at a simple example:
A user fills out a form on a landing page requesting information and tells us that his profession is laboratory manager at a pharmaceutical company.
We want the following to happen:
The user instantly receives a personalized email thanking them for their interest and indicating that we will contact them as soon as possible.
The data you have provided in the form is automatically collected in the CRM.
Since this is a laboratory manager, we want salesperson X to receive an email notification so that he can contact him as soon as possible. If the salesperson cannot reach him, checking a box in the CRM activates a workflow to:
Send the user a personalized email indicating that we have not been able to locate them.
If the user does not open the email, 2 business days later, another email is sent explaining our interest in speaking with him/her.
And so, keep adding actions conditioned by rules... as much as you need. Do you understand why you need a big piece of paper? This automated flow is very simple, but your strategy is probably more complex. No problem. If you have a clear strategy, you know which processes need to be automated.
Profitability
The best consequence of marketing automation is the increase in overall profitability, which occurs mainly for the following reasons:
It saves a lot of time. A lot of it. This way, people working in the marketing department can focus their work on generating value, thinking and designing strategies.
No opportunity is lost. Whether it is day or night, holiday or work day, automation works tirelessly.
Staffing costs are reduced. There is no need to hire an army of employees to do tasks that marketing automation software does more quickly and more reliably.
Boost business growth. Automated marketing allows companies to boost actions aimed at attracting new customers without having to incur exorbitant expenses, but rather in a scalable and much more economical and efficient way.
This last point is the most important. Thanks to these processes, companies that previously would not have considered competing in certain markets now do so and do so. Marketing automation is their secret weapon, their philosopher's stone. It is what allows them to get ahead of their competitors – even the biggest ones – and knock them out commercially in the online world.
