What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation is the use of software and web-based services to perform, manage and automate marketing tasks and processes.  It reduces manual and redundant marketing processes with quality software programs.

As you become more sophisticated and as the demand grows several features should be for the marketing automation platform to be fully profitable and expandable.  Let's discuss them here:

Data Import - Must have the ability to automatically retrieve data from billing, support, and other customer-related systems.  It needs to be able to increase, categorize and filter your marketing automation promotions.  Automation is not just about working all day to extract data, massage and import.

Data Export - You have other systems, such as a CRM, helpdesk, billing department, etc. that you need to know when a customer event occurs in your marketing automation campaign.  Examples may include setting up follow-up reminders at Salesforce or sending a proposal based on a request.

API - In addition to the ability to send and receive data, this API is essential for triggering events and updating information externally in your marketing automation campaigns.

Triggered Campaign - The ability to start a campaign from a custom action is essential.  For example, someone downloaded a white paper - you need to run a campaign that brings this lead closer.

Drip Promotion - Aligning a series of medium-to-medium communication to your customers can keep them engaged and educate them through conversions.

Lead Scoring - If you're able to customize scoring schemes based on user activity, you can effectively communicate with those people and understand where they are in the buying, renewing, or upgrade cycle.

Segmentation and Filtering - The ability to push customers in and out of promotions, filter recipients and provide a high level of customization in the offers and opportunities section that will increase click-throughs and conversions.

Social Media Integration - Listening and communicating with your target audience is essential on your company's social media.  Social media behaviour can speed up the cycle because it helps you connect faster and close deals quickly.

Visitor Tracking - Identifying unique visitors through IP addresses, customer information, form activity, logins, email clicks, etc. can help your organization run its scoring, segmentation, filtering, and contextual campaigns appropriately.

Forms and Landing Pages - Creating detailed profiles with data capture and metadata can provide you with all the information you need to create a personalized campaign that communicates the right message at the right time.

E-mail Marketing - Because it's based on every marketing automation system, it's a must-have, but you must be able to design and execute responsive campaigns for mobile readers.  Including text messaging and phone calls is definitely a plus!

Re-marketing, rebuilding, abandonment - Activities across channels, including your brand, enable you to move forward with customized messaging according to user intent.

Content Management - The ability to integrate scripts, forms and dynamic content is a great feature for your content management system.  Why to promote a new offer when a customer visits your site ... instead give them a customized message!

Unlimited, cross-channel promotions - one way is simply not enough.  Virtually every organization requires at least three initial interactions to capture leadership, renew customers, and upselling existing customers.

There is some research on how marketers are choosing a marketing automation solution, but it would be great if research giants like Forrester or Gartner talked more about the resources needed to implement and produce marketing automation, brainstorming, sophisticated costs, implementation costs, and incredible savings.  .  I believe most companies were not only unprepared for the necessary effort, they also did not realize that they were not sophisticated enough to remove these programs from the field.  Aggressive sales strategies are shutting down marketing automation - but lack of resources and features is limiting their ability to make a full profit.

There is no doubt that companies should look at marketing automation systems to increase their effectiveness by paying a lot of money for their email marketing service providers.  They can save a small amount of money by running similar campaigns while collecting invaluable data for future promotions.  It is imperative, however, that traders recognize what a marketing automation platform should do for them and that they have the resources they need to maximize their return on investment.

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