As a business owner it’s your responsibility to continuously seek new and better ways to effectively run your company. Taking advantage of the latest technological systems designed to streamline your business processes is the right place to start. And one such software that’s fast becoming popular among many business owners is marketing automation.
Not only is this software designed to automate your marketing activities, but it helps minimise repetitive tasks. However this concept far exceeds merely making life easier for your marketing team. Marketing automation offers many benefits as we’ll highlight below.
But first we unpack what exactly the concept entails.
What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation is when businesses use software that’s designed to automate, execute and manage repetitive tasks related to social media, email or web actions. The goal here is to improve general performance and organisational efficiency.
Benefits of Marketing Automation
Cut Your Remuneration Costs
Where you had to employ staff members to manually send out emails to customers, the marketing automation software now handles that. Instead of using a team, one person can literally set up marketing and lead generation campaigns that are automatically generated based on specific criteria.
Within a few months of setting up these campaigns, the software allows you to send out literally thousands of emails automatically on a daily basis. This naturally translates to reduced sales workforce meaning lower remuneration costs.
Minimal Errors
If you task one individual to send out a countless number of daily emails to your clients, you can’t rule out errors. The boredom associated with repetitive and monotonous tasks will lead to increased grammatical & spelling errors. In worst case scenarios, an email can be sent to the wrong person entirely.
This is where marketing automation comes in to “save the day”. Because emails are automatically generated, the risk of the above mentioned errors is eliminated.
Personalised Service
Most marketing automation software allow for personalisation of emails. Instead of sending generic emails to your customers, you can offer a more personalised touch by addressing the client by name. Not only will this encourage client engagement, but it can result in increased customer loyalty.
Increase in Revenue
If you use marketing automation software, the risk of missing out on customer follow-ups is significantly reduced. This is because any follow-up emails will be sent as and when scheduled.
The same can’t be promised if you rely on individuals to carry out such tasks. It’s not uncommon for someone to be so overwhelmed with work that they fail to send the necessary emails on a particular day. Or he or she can forget completely. Unfortunately this can cost the company a lot of revenue.
On the other hand using marketing automation will result in an increase in revenue because of increased sales activity.
Increased Efficiency
By incorporating a marketing automation solution in your company, your business will function more effectively. Resources are utilised more effectively. As a result, you can expect a general increase in productivity and efficiency in your business marketing operations.
More Creativity
The drawback of repeating mundane tasks tends to stifle creativity. By letting the software handle such tasks, your marketing team is better motivated to devise new ways of retaining customers.
Because your staff members don’t have to focus on repetitive tasks, it frees up their time to focus on more creative activities.
Reach a Wider Target Audience
Thanks to marketing automation you can reach a wider target audience across different online and offline platforms—with a simple click. Depending on the software package that you pick, you can reach customers on their mobiles via text messaging or postcard targeting. We don’t need to explain how cost-effective such a strategy is.
Effective Management of Social Media Campaigns
It’s no secret the crucial part that social media plays when it comes to marketing your business. Many customers are found on various social platforms and it’s important to strategically position your business messages where your clients are.
Your business must be readily accessible on platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn depending on where your niche frequents. But running social media campaigns can be quite involved and time consuming. You need to continuously update your followers regarding what’s happening in your business.
Rather than tasking someone to monitor these social media pages, marketing automation software can allow you to post to multiple accounts in one go.
Final Thoughts
The above benefits aren’t entirely exhaustive. There’s much more you can look forward to. Marketing automation is a comprehensive system that’ll certainly make running your business much easier.
Is this something you believe your business will benefit from? While there are always pros and cons with any type of software, we can guarantee that with marketing automation, the benefits definitely outweigh the disadvantages. Ready to boost your impact in your industry?