What Is Marketing Automation Software?

With marketing automation, you can ensure your sales and marketing teams work better together to deliver targeted campaigns your audience actually cares about. This type of tool can also enhance audience segmentation, A/B testing, lead qualification, and data analytics.

Data analytics is a crucial part of the marketing automation process. It lets you see what’s working in your marketing efforts and what isn’t. This enables you to discover what's relevant to your customers and apply that to your strategy. As such, you can use the data gathered by automation software to adjust your strategy and boost results. You can also uncover the efficiencies in your market segments and what’s most important to drive sales. Then, by leveraging these efficiency gains, you can increase leads and your bottom line.

You can achieve your desired business outcomes by streamlining marketing tasks, increasing productivity, and enhancing efficiency. The extra effort and time it takes to complete repetitive tasks, such as keeping track of campaigns, monitoring leads, and posting compelling advertisements, will be reduced or eliminated.

A marketing automation platform can even help you automatically send emails at specific times or when certain conditions are met. For example, you can send an automated email to a shopper who added items to their cart but never finalized their purchase. These types of emails are known as abandoned cart messages and can remind a consumer of the products they left behind, which helps keep your business top-of-mind. You may even add a discount code to this correspondence to encourage them to buy.

Regardless of how you use marketing automation, you can help your team save time and make it easier for them to focus on other crucial tasks that require their attention.

Reasons to automate marketing tasks

There are many reasons to automate marketing tasks. For one, your team may become more productive and deliver more work without compromising quality. Whether they're developing a new marketing strategy or managing deliverables, automation can enable your team to accomplish your strategic marketing goals effectively.

There are additional advantages to automating your marketing, including:

• Increase sales. Marketing automation can make it easier to grow your sales by encouraging you to communicate with customers–regardless of where they are in the buying journey.
• Generate more leads. You can use marketing automation software for lead generation by creating a series of automated messages that'll be triggered at different times throughout the day, depending on the customer's behavior. This can be done to capture their contact information or nurture them along the sales funnel until they become leads or customers.
• Make data-driven decisions. You can use the customer data you gather through marketing automation to better target your contacts with more relevant content, which will help improve your conversions.
• Boost customer acquisition and loyalty. Your customers will enjoy the consistency in your communication and the benefits of receiving customized and timely offers.
• Promote efficiency. You can spend less time on essential tasks and marketing-related activities, allowing you to focus on the most critical assignments and ensure more work is done.

Keep in mind that a marketing automation strategy is only as great as the customer experience you build around it. This means that it’s essential for businesses to make sure that their campaign is tailored to the customer.

For instance, if you own a coffee shop, you may want to send automated birthday emails so that subscribers can enjoy a free coffee on their special day. You can also thank them for shopping at your business with an SMS marketing campaign featuring a unique discount code for their next purchase.

With a marketing automation solution, you can develop the relationship you have with customers, enabling you to create memorable brand interactions and incredible campaigns.

Factors to consider when choosing marketing automation software

Businesses have access to an abundance of different software programs that can help them increase their potential and growth. However not all marketing automation tools are created equal. If you're thinking about using a marketing automation solution, take a look at the following factors before making a decision:

• Type of business. Look for a software program that provides your specific business with the tools necessary for success. Some kinds of marketing automation platforms may tailor their services to a specific industry.
• Ease of use. The easier a marketing automation program is to use, the quicker you can start implementing it in your organization. Plus, teaching other team members how to utilize it will be faster.
• Pricing. It's a good idea to create a budget to determine whether a piece of software is affordable or not. Some marketing automation providers may have a tiered pricing system that you pay for annually or monthly, while others may allow you to make a one-time payment.
• Features. Make a note of the automation features included in your software package. Think about any features that your marketing team needs to be effective.
• Support. You want to ensure the marketing automation service provider will be there for you and your team when required.
• Integrations. Does the software you're interested in integrate with your existing tools and apps? If so, this can make it easier for your team to manage data and marketing campaigns in one place.
• Customization. If the marketing automation platform is customizable, you can ensure your team has everything they need to create automated email marketing campaigns.
• Onboarding. A proper onboarding system can help you learn the ropes quickly.

By keeping the considerations above in mind, you can easily find the best marketing automation software for your organization. Remember that businesses have different requirements and organizational needs. For example small businesses may have a smaller budget, so the marketing automation services they can use will be limited to providers within their means. That said, don't be afraid to review marketing automation solutions as you search for the right one. You may also want to demo the product to see if it's suitable for your sales team and marketing department.

Automate your marketing with Mailchimp

Marketing automation software is a valuable tool you can leverage to create a robust strategy. With the right software, you can quickly build automated marketing campaigns, create audience segments for tailored messaging, and analyze customer data to determine the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Understanding your audience and interests is key to successful marketing automation. By having a good grasp of your audience and knowing what they want, you can create relevant content, ensure marketing messages are timely, and even work with influencers they follow.

At Mailchimp, automating your marketing is easy and enables you to reach contacts anywhere in the customer journey. Plus, you can personalize every email you send to make recipients feel valued. Our marketing automation interface is simple-to-use and contains several features that can make interacting with your audience a breeze. Whether you're trying to find the best times to send email marketing messages or leverage e-commerce automations, we've got you covered with an array of comprehensive tools.