How Marketing Automation Generates Quality Leads

Marketing automation is the new marketing buzzword. Considering the flood of information available, beginning to understand it can be perplexing.

Let’s strive to comprehend the essentials of marketing automation, potential gains and the most common scenarios in which it is used, while also trying to demystify the topic. With the help of this tutorial, you will gain knowledge of the essence of marketing automation, its value, and how you can use it to enhance your enterprise.

What Is Marketing Automation?

Careful planning and hard work are essential for a successful marketing initiative in 2022. Creating a launching pad to start reaching customers, driving people to your site, interacting with visitors, fostering relationships with potential buyers, and beyond.

You can reap many benefits by utilizing technology to maximize all of your marketing efforts. Setting up automated marketing systems, tailoring campaigns to individual needs, and figuring out the best leads to turn into customers are all parts of the process to increase conversions.

Automation of certain tasks allows for marketing activities to be increased without losing significance or becoming too time consuming. For example, constructing individualized drip marketing efforts to bring on fresh users.

When utilized effectively, marketing automation boosts conversions and elevates income. Close to half of all marketers see marketing automation as an effective way to enhance marketing outcomes and to maximize their Return on Investment.

What results can be achieved through the use of marketing automation and what is this type of system known as? Is it about using AI or bots? And more importantly, can marketing automation improve ROI?

Well, marketing automation helps you become more efficient by automating marketing activities like:

Email marketing;
Lead nurturing;
Lead scoring;
List management & segmentation;
Campaign scheduling;
Campaign personalization;
Drip campaign setup, etc.

By utilizing automation, you can make mundane, repetitive tasks go faster, therefore cutting down on the amount of time and money spent. This helps to improve the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

It’s been evidenced that over half of businesses who implement marketing automation are getting back $5.44 for every dollar invested. It is a convincing justification for beginning to treat marketing automation with the respect it deserves. Isn’t it?

Marketing Automation vs. Account-Based Marketing

Vendors and analysts think that the ultimate way to make marketing more effective is by joining account-based marketing and marketing automation together.

Lots of ABM software companies have introduced features similar to what is available through marketing automation systems. Now, ABM can contain the original email, home page and form workings, communication activities and integral data sets. Some also offer demand generation and prospecting use cases.

Account-based marketing technology aids B2B advertisers in pinpointing and targeting accounts based on precise metrics, thereby improving synchronization with sales personnel. This method contrasts strategies used for marketing to individual customers, known as business-to-consumer (B2C).

The idea powering ABM is that bigger clients are the key to success in the B2B environment. By concentrating on the actions taken by accounts, marketers can not only recognize and draw in possible customers, but also interact with them, change them into paying customers, close the deal, and then analyze the results achieved in contrast to their customers and leads.

Managing the huge amounts of info that B2B marketing professionals must contend with can be complicated, particularly when using ABM technology. This is the reason why automatic banking machines are including automation capabilities, and vice versa.

Marketing automation platforms have grown in their feature sets. Forrester noted in their Tech Tide report that the developments of ABM practices, over the past two years, were significant.

A shift in focus has been seen in technology from concentrated efforts of fill-the-funnel campaigns as well as intensive drip marketing to accumulating and individualized digital marketing, according to the report. This has become a significant way for customer engagement in all industries.

Marketing Automation vs. Customer Relationship Management

Marketing automation and CRM are both beneficial, yet they fill distinct roles.

Advertising automation keeps track of activities at the beginning of the sales funnel to generate suitable leads for sales. Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, collects and archives information about leads that show their level of involvement in the sales process, notes Jasmine Chung, the Director of Demand Generation and Revenue Operations for Openprise.

She highlighted the interdependence between marketing automation and CRM, stressing that a data synchronization solution needs to be put in place or some other measures adopted to see to it that the marketing automation platform and CRM work with tidied up data.

Types of Marketing Automation

In current times, people are aiming to receive the largest return on their investments in marketing. Naturally, the demand for marketing automation is rising. Here are a few ways to start with marketing automation:

Email Marketing

Email marketing yields the greatest returns on investment of all forms of online marketing. Marketing automation technology enables you to expeditiously automate your email marketing efforts.

Forty-seven percent of businesses take advantage of sending custom welcome emails and bringing aboard their users.

Marketing automation applications enable users to initiate emails triggered by specific events, refine personalization techniques within emails, implement appealing newsletters quickly and efficiently, and do much more.

Employ email marketing automation to provide lead magnets, individualized incentives, and educational content to prospects during each stage of their journey.

Lead Nurturing

Marketing automation helps nurture leads into paying customers.

Marketers employ this for segmenting and developing relations with likely clients after they make an action on the site, for example, completing an application form or exploring the price page.

Automation can be activated based on a stimulus, incident, or something a user does. For instance, an automatic email series could be used to encourage daily active trial users to convert to customers.

Process automation

Marketing automation reduces the amount of time it takes to complete multiple tasks by automating them. Organizing product demonstrations and sending email reminders for carts that were left unattended are two examples.

Half of businesses intend to raise the application of automation to hasten repeating operations.

Businesses utilize marketing automation to distribute individualized suggestions, expression of appreciation emails, or deals for particular occasions such as anniversaries.

CRM Automation

People tend to mix up customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation. Marketing automation can be employed to populate customer relationship management (CRM) solutions and to ascertain where potential leads stand within the CRM.

A lot of firms utilize lead scoring as a way to assess leads, prepare leads for conversations and help out their sales staff. Using marketing automation to evaluate leads can enhance the efficiency of sales operations.

Using a marketing automation tool, you can take visitors to your website and create MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads) and SQLs (Sales Qualified Leads) according to their individual lead scores.

The Benefits of Marketing Automation Software

The advantages of automated marketing were discussed briefly including increased returns and additional productivity. Let’s evaluate the technological benefits that will be clearly appreciated by your consumers and your internal personnel alike.

Understand Customers Better

Today’s buyers desire to be recognized as individuals, not as just a statistic. Salesforce affirms that two-thirds of clients anticipate that businesses comprehend their particular requirements and anticipations.

A study by Statista showed that 90% of American shoppers are bothered by advertisements that are not tailored to their interests.

Marketing automation assists companies, even ones on a small scale, to give their customers the experiences they desire. It gives them an opportunity to respond to and satisfy user activities while not putting excessive pressure on marketing or sales groups. The result is deeper insights and higher customer satisfaction.

Engage More Efficiently

Andrea Lechner-Becker, head of marketing at Toolio, elucidated that marketing automation apps can streamline the process of lead management and enable organizations to boost their sales by making marketing activities more efficient.

Lechner-Becker stated that the definition explains what the item is supposed to do. Success is not attainable without taking the necessary steps of instruction, formulation of a plan, and seeing it through to completion.

Gain Qualified Leads

Qualified leads are helpful for marketing-sales collaboration. Having high-caliber prospects aids in filling pipeline models and simplifies the daily routine for marketers.

According to Chung, marketing automation helps generate qualified leads in a number of ways:

Using a scoring model to track behavior and demographic/firmographic information
Creating landing pages that act and look like the main website
Utilizing dynamic content that focuses highly on personalization

Aventaggiato maintains that the ideal way of driving lead generation is by selectively sending messages to the correct prospects at a desirable moment. Marketing automation enables companies to deliver pertinent communications to clients at suitable times.

Aventaggiato stated that the ability to interact with the potential purchasers and current clientele in a more personal way is advantageous.

Enhance Team Collaboration

Marketing automation software is advantageous because it strengthens communication between sales and marketing teams. This is due to it putting in place common conditions and systems to be used in any campaigns, says Lechner-Becker. “Marketing automation forces teams into consistency,” she said.

Marketing automation simplifies the sales process and makes it more attainable for the sales and marketing staff to create prospective buyers and transform them into existing customers.

Chung compared marketing automation to a baton in a relay race, meaning that it assists in ensuring both the marketing and sales teams are working in complete harmony. It is extremely important that the exchange of information between marketing and sales is transferred at the right time.

Chung explained that marketing alone is not enough. Promoting is utilized to connect with the ideal individuals and provide pre-screened leads. If the data isn’t directed towards the appropriate person, the opportunity will die out.

What Common Problems Does Marketing Automation Solve?

Marketers constantly advocate for the plus points associated with marketing automation.

77% of marketers believe marketing automation helps in increasing digital engagement.
74% believe that marketing automation helped them save time.
Four out of five users saw an increase in the number of leads when they use marketing automation tools.

Marketing automation increases the financial return by accelerating all steps of the customer experience.

Marketing automation helps to address multiple marketing difficulties like fostering customer relationships, individualizing materials, and improving the quality of leads. Additionally, it automates outreach. Here’s how marketing automation helps solve common problems:

Helps Optimize Campaign Results

Marketing automation is a beneficial tool for managing large-scale campaigns due to its ability to perform A/B tests, personalize messages, separate audiences, and evaluate potential customers. Lead qualification that is based on data helps to create better synergies between the sales and marketing funnel, resulting in improved conversion rates.

Helps Reduce Workload

Automated lead nurturing and email strategies guarantee that your income channel does not stay stagnant without requiring extensive hours of laborious effort.

Improves Customer Satisfaction And Retention

Instant responses such as automated welcome messages and updates can help enhance the user’s experience and lessen abandoning/cancelling.

How Does Marketing Automation Work?

Marketing automation connects every element of your operations – from viewing your customers to launching campaigns, using diverse media, tracking results, leveraging programs and devices, and dealing with usual tasks. It is a link between your promotional activities and the money you bring in.

Marketing automation helps to facilitate your sales and conversion process by bringing together varied tools and techniques. It is essential that you make the most of every chance to communicate, follow up, and attempt to convince strangers to become potential clients and then eventually customers.

It is largely about utilizing technology to acquire, cultivate, and transform potential customers. Marketing automation eliminates the need to manually perform mundane duties such as follow-up messages, analytics compilation and sending emails, thus freeing up your day.

Marketing automation guarantees that individuals in your target group get pertinent data at the most suitable moment. Essentially, this technology propels a customer into the process of buying something without manual assistance.

Let’s take an example.

A marketing automation system can help you create a lead nurture campaign that automatically reaches out to your newsletter members who appear to be interested in the webinar. They receive an invitation without needing to take any action and a second email with an accessible PDF shortly after the webinar finishes. Downloaders of the PDF will be presented with the chance to be connected to your sales team for additional services.

Marketing Automation Best Practice Examples

Lead Generation

Marketing automation can be beneficial for any type of business, be it real estate, B2B, operating an eCommerce agency, or something else entirely. It can help produce leads efficiently.

Here are some lead gen best practices that will help you when using a marketing automation solution:

Create simple, concise and on-point forms for your website or marketing campaigns;
Incentivize sharing information via lead magnets;
Provide only one call-to-action per email to avoid confusing the prospect.

Segmentation And Targeting

A marketing automation tool can be employed to divide prospective customers into groups for efficient targeting.

Tailor your advertising efforts by organizing and breaking down potential customers according to factors such as occurrences they initiate or steps they take on your internet platform. Be sure to correspond the demographics of your viewers to the procedure of choosers in your field.

With Sender, you can subdivide your leads and configure sophisticated segmentation criteria using a marketing automation tool.

Relationship Marketing

Establish automated programs in order to bolster connections with your present following.

You can deliver customized offers, discounts, and vouchers to your mailing list for their birthdays, special events, or anniversary days. This will make them more likely to recall you the next time they contemplate making a purchase.

Cross-sell And Upsell

It’s a good idea to establish software systems to facilitate both cross-selling and upselling so as to maximize the customer’s long-term value. Set up marketing automation so that special initiatives are enacted in response to the behaviour of your website visitors.

Get Started With Your Marketing Automation Strategy

Having understood the concept of marketing automation, its merits and drawbacks, as well as the prevalent platforms, it is time to utilize this automation in your enterprise.

It does not matter what size your company is, you can take advantage of automated marketing to create more profitable leads, simplify tasks, and receive greater results from marketing campaigns. Your staff do not need to put in more effort for outcomes to be seen.

When you are prepared to make use of this technology, you should begin looking into some of the leading platforms to see which one provides the most advantageous resources for your business. It is possible that by making use of comprehensive marketing automation software, you can get rid of some other platforms that you are paying for every month.