How to Save Time by Automating Your Marketing Processes

The good news is that marketing automation has now become a common option for lots of business owners and marketers. There are plenty of inexpensive and easy-to-use tools on the market that are designed to help marketers and business owners streamline better their workflows and tasks. By using automation tools in your marketing efforts, you can not only get things done more efficiently and save time but also boost engagement, conversions, and revenue.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation refers to technologies that manage marketing campaigns and processes across a range of channels automatically. It allows businesses to target customers better by sending automated messages across email, social media, text, web, and more. Since the messages are automatically sent according to instructions that are known as workflows, which have been set up previously, it is an excellent option for reducing manual work and freeing up time to focus on more important things within the business. There are dedicated workflow management tools available and many automation tools come with templates that you can use to design workflows, or you can build them from scratch. They can also often be adjusted during a campaign, to achieve better results.

Use Marketing Automation Software

Both marketing and sales departments can use marketing automation tools to automate campaigns and sales activities, maximising efficiency and increasing revenue. When repetitive tasks are handled effectively by the marketing automation tools, this frees up employee time to spend on more important issues, along with reducing the risk of human error.

What Do Marketing Automation Tools Do?

Simply put, marketing automation refers to a set of tools that have been designed to simplify and streamline some of the most mundane and time-consuming tasks that must be done in modern marketing and sales roles. From creating hubs for digital campaign creation to automating the process of qualifying new leads, the main aim of marketing automation tools is to simplify an increasingly complex business world.

With marketing automation tools, you can easily implement digital marketing strategies without the need to manually write out and press send on every email, post, message, or campaign. The best automation tools also include features that you will be able to make use of for identifying and defining your target audience, allowing you to automatically trigger a range of actions that are based on consumer behaviour and more.

Once the campaign is rolled out, automation frees up your time to focus on other tasks and track the performance of your campaign, making it easier for you to make adjustments as needed when you start getting results, while implementing a project plan.

Automated Marketing Platforms

To get the most from automating your business’ marketing processes, it’s important to choose the right tools and platforms. Today, marketing automation is no longer a luxury for the majority of marketing professionals and business owners and has become essential for running an efficient and effective marketing department. Some of the best automated marketing platforms to choose from are:

ActiveCampaign CRM Automation Tool

ActiveCampaign is presented as customer experience automation and is known to be one of the best automation platforms available. It combines email marketing with a powerful CRM solution in a marketing automation platform. Along with this, it offers further solutions for marketing, sales, and customer support. It includes various marketing automation features, such as automated workflows, which you can turn into drip campaigns. You can tag and label customers in your CRM, allowing you to target specific messaging to suit their needs easily. It also includes a range of form-creation tools, which you can use to encourage interested visitors to convert to leads. The marketing tools can also be applied to social media, allowing you to use this platform to build an effective multi-channel marketing strategy.

Salesforce

Salesforce is a huge name CRM automation tool that also offers a marketing automation platform as a part of the total marketing cloud along with email and social media marketing. You can use it to create custom emails and build unique customer journeys that can work across various communication channels. Each customer that interacts with your brand will create data that you can put to use for segmenting them better. Then, you can use the segmentation to help plan the next email marketing campaign, allowing the right content to reach the right audience. Salesforce’s marketing automation platform also offers A/B testing capabilities, allowing you to create reports on test results and your marketing campaigns automatically. When you choose this tool, you will also get access to various digital advertising and mobile marketing features.

HubSpot

HubSpot is a very popular platform for inbound marketing and CRM. It offers a marketing solution that includes various marketing automation tools and features and provides a huge step up from basic email marketing. The design tools make it easier than ever to build engaging marketing emails without knowing any code, and it’s easy and simple to create workflows with the visual design tool. You can customise and create a range of triggers, which will set off various automated responses depending on the trigger. Workflows can be automated for several goals, such as sales or new subscribers signing up. You can use it to create landing pages, drip campaigns, and more to encourage more sales and revenue. Use HubSpot for lead scoring and automating a wide range of day-to-day tasks.

Marketo

Marketo is a SaaS product that is serious about marketing automation. It is an excellent tool for marketing analytics and allows you to do a lot, including behaviour tracking, which makes it easier for your brand to find the right customers for your email marketing campaigns. Using this platform, it is easy to build various marketing campaign workflows, and you can easily track analytics to determine how your marketing campaigns are having an impact on conversions, sales, and revenue. It provides a 360-degree view of your contacts and allows you to connect with your customers via email, web, messaging, and social media. It’s excellent for increasing customer engagement, thanks to the real-time data for engagement that you can track and use. It allows you to create personalised content for improved sales easily and has a range of unique tools you can take advantage of, including AI for list segmentation.

Autopilot

Autopilot is a marketing automation software that includes a range of useful templates that have various uses. For example, you can use one template for certain autoresponders to emails, while another can be used for designing your main email newsletter. Templates are not only well-designed, but you can also choose them based on your end goal, such as lead nurturing or tracking email engagement. The drag and drop functionality of the designer makes it easier than ever to build emails, and segmenting your leads is also a simple task. It has many collaboration features, making it easier than ever to work together with team members to create workflows and campaigns. As an omnichannel solution, it works well across various channels, including email, Facebook Ads, SMS, Google AdWords, and others.

Sendinblue

Sendinblue is a complete digital marketing platform offering modules suitable for any kind of business, from small companies to larger enterprises. Along with marketing automation features, it also includes a CRM that can be used for storing customer data. Trigger personalised marketing messages with real-time customer activities and behaviour, ultimately helping to keep your brand at the forefront of your audience’s minds. Along with this, the CRM profile is updated in real-time, and there are tools for web chat, email marketing, and text message marketing. It offers a range of solutions for marketing automation, including a visual, easy to use workflow builder and plenty of simple workflow templates you can use. Along with email marketing features, there are also automation tools for Facebook ads, landing pages, and retargeting.

GetResponse

This inbound marketing software allows you to create marketing content for the main purpose of bringing new leads and customers to your brand. It offers a range of email marketing tools that allow you to build appealing newsletters using the simple drag and drop function. Choose from a range of email templates and automate sending them at the ideal time. An autoresponder tool makes it easier than ever for you to make sure that your subscribers get the right message at the right time. User behaviour is analysed and can trigger a range of automated responses. GetResponse is also easy to integrate with lots of different platforms and services, particularly eCommerce SaaS.

Once you know how to use marketing automation and the right tool for your business, you can save a huge amount of time while achieving better results.