Marketing Automation and Achieving Your Business Goals

With the automation of most processes in the 21st century, it was only a matter of time before marketing automation reared its very useful head.

But, why should we use marketing automation as part of our marketing strategy? Well, it’s because it has a very close link to the generation of revenue for your business.

How is marketing automation linked to generating more revenue? To answer that question, firstly, we must understand that, in order for a business to successfully generate more revenue, it must:

• Drive traffic to its website;
• Convert said traffic into leads and
• Convert those leads into paying customers and loyal subscribers

The efforts of marketing automation take true effect in the conversion and closure stages of the sales funnel.

What Does Marketing Automation Mean for My Business?

To put it simply, marketing automation is a term that refers to software used to automate the marketing processes of your business across multiple digital channels.

It allows you to deliver personalized, automated messages directly to your target audience prospects and customers which aim at addressing and dismantling certain barriers to purchase.

The software allows you to create dynamic sets of messages to send to contacts, who receive a message based on specific factors that could include:

• Where they are in the buying process;
• Their spending habits;
• A reply or non-reply to a previous message; or
• The past interactions they’ve had on your site, etc.

Additionally, it allows you to simultaneously nurture your leads throughout the buying process until they reach they final purchasing stage.

How Does Marketing Automation Work?

The software allows you to collect data through the interactions people have with your business, including on social media, website visits, emails and app usage to name a few.

This data is collated and stored before providing you with a bird’s eye view of each individual customer. After that, the software does the rest for you.

It helps you:

• Streamline audience segmentation (categorising your audience based on demographics or other criteria)
• Develop targeting processes to establish the right audiences

Marketing automation incorporates many different aspects of business development and marketing, which include:

• Email Marketing;
• Content development;
• Lead Generation;
• Conversion Rate Optimization and
• Inbound Marketing

There is a variety of marketing automation software out there designed to help businesses prioritize and execute marketing tasks more efficiently.

It’s important to monitor the prompts that lead website visitors to a sale in order to determine how to further capitalize on those successes.

Conversely, the business learns about web traffic which goes to waste and, in turn, can make alterations to their online marketing strategy to change this outcome for the better.

B2B and B2C Marketing Automation

There is marketing automation software available for small or large businesses. However, whether a business is a B2B (business to business) or B2C (business-to-consumer) model will have an effect on the type of messaging they send in their respective campaigns.

Both types have the same goal: to improve conversion and revenue, but there are differences in how they will achieve their goals.

B2B Companies

Includes:

• Lead nurturing;
• Scoring Leads and
• Lead life-cycle management.

When businesses are in the process of considering a major purchase, there are often multiple individuals involved in the decision-making process. It’s not a matter of simply persuading one person (as in B2C sales) but rather a group of professionals.

In order for a business to establish themselves as an authority in their respective industry, they must offer in-depth informative content.

With this goal in mind, B2B messaging has a particular focus on long-form content such as e-books and case studies.

B2C Companies

Includes:

• Cross-selling;
• Up-selling and
• Customer loyalty.

B2C companies focus on brand-building and giving their leads reasons to become loyal customers. B2C sales and conversion cycles move at a much faster pace as there is usually only one or two people to convince at a time.

To obtain returning customers or to promote the business, the typical B2C messaging includes personalized product recommendations or offers which are tailored to specific types of customers.

Examples of Marketing Automation Software

• Behaviour-Based Automation; List-building and Lead Scoring
• Built-in CRM or Integration with 3^rd-Party CRMs (like Salesforce)
• Email A/B Testing
• API Access
• Google AdWords Integration
• Revenue Reporting

10 Benefits of Marketing Automation

• Identify and monitor your website’s traffic.
• Use behavioural-based tracking to understand what motivates each click on your website.
• Build stronger relationships with customers through delivering individually-tailored content – this assists to increase conversions and revenue.
• Understand your potential customers via building persona based email marketing with work flow campaigns- send the right information to the right people at the right time.
• Improve conversion with dynamic form building and auto-completion for known visitors.
• Track prospects from creation to sales closing and take full control over your data.
• Convert visitors to leads by building great landing pages.
• Justify your hard work and investment with powerful data analysis metrics and customised reports.
• Integrate with hundreds of 3^rd party software providers via Sharpspring.
• Free-up some time while not compromising the authenticity of your content.

Digital Marketing South Africa

If you are not using your website and email as tools to market your business, you’re missing out on potential customers, sales and conversions.

Digital Marketing South Africa can help you take your business to the next level. We have a team of digital wizards equipped with all the tools necessary to help you grow your business online.

We handle all aspects of online marketing, including:

• Marketing Automation
• Content Creation
• Content Strategy
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Social Media Marketing (managing and sharing across all social networks)
• Email Marketing
• Pay Per Click

Feel free to contact us for more information about our online marketing services.

ITM – Website Design in Cape Town

It is critical that your web design be modern and use current technology.

In addition, your website should support your marketing efforts and include elements such as a blog engine and direct links to your Social Media pages.

Digital Marketing South Africa utilises the professional web design services of ITM Website Design.