Marketing Automation: What it is, how it works, who should use it and why it is important for all companies
Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2024 7:03 am
Marketing Automation is a term that is certainly familiar to those who promote themselves on uk phone number list the web, and in particular to those who manage e-commerce sites. Marketing Automation allows you to save working time (a precious and expensive resource!), while improving the results of online advertising.
However, not all companies take advantage of it: many, often among the least structured, continue to manually manage a whole series of processes that should be automated instead. In reality, as we will see throughout the article, these companies could obtain exceptional advantages from a well-structured automation process.
The tools and costs are in fact literally within the reach of any company and represent an almost obligatory investment for those who do not want to waste growth opportunities.
There is another, indirect, advantage that we want to highlight: setting up a Marketing Automation plan forces you to think strategically, carefully reflecting on users' purchasing paths.
And that's why it's a topic we couldn't ignore in this blog.
What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing Automation is the process of optimizing and automating online marketing campaigns. All the usual digital marketing tools can be involved in this process: advertising campaigns on different platforms, sending emails, creating content for social media, creating landing pages, managing some phases of customer relations and more.
The possibilities are endless: automatically sending material to those who request it, creating a personalized discount a few days before the customer's birthday, displaying specific advertising based on interests, a reminder sent a pre-established number of days after the last order.
All actions that a good salesperson would personally take care of in a one-to-one, personalized relationship with the customer, but which become impossible to manage when we are faced with a mass sales system.
Using an oxymoron, we can therefore say that Marketing Automation manages to massify personalized customer management.
DO YOU WANT TO ADOPT A MARKETING AUTOMATION SYSTEM OR OPTIMIZE THE ONE YOU ALREADY HAVE? FIND OUT WHAT WE CAN DO FOR YOU
Marketing Automation software
As often happens in the field of web marketing, there is also some semantic confusion between the process and the tools used to apply it; sometimes, in fact, the term Marketing Automation refers to specialized software to manage this process.
In fact, on the market we find many programs, generally made available with the SaaS formula, to which it is possible to connect your channels (the website, social profiles, or even the company CRM...) so as to set up a series of automated actions, which must be implemented automatically when certain events occur.
Among these software, some are particularly widespread and represent de facto standards for the market.
In this regard, we certainly remember Hubspot: a software available both in a free form, with limited functionality, and in a paid form with broader functionality.
Other products that stand out for their completeness of features and their diffusion on the market are SalesManago, Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Klaviyo.
However, you can also organize automations with much more specific and less complete tools. In particular, the software that manages email marketing today usually integrate automation tools, either limited to emails only or that extend to the ability to send WhatsApp messages and SMS. Among these, the most well-known is certainly MailChimp.
The strategic aspects of Marketing Automation
Marketing Automation allows you to manage the customer more effectively, making them the recipient of personalized communication that increases their involvement, loyalty, and ultimately the volume of purchases.
A few automations are enough to obtain the first results: for example, setting up targeted emails to recover abandoned carts is an operation that generally allows you to immediately appreciate an increase in sales.
However, what is even more interesting is the connection between the possible automations and the concept of marketing funnel, aimed at a careful modeling of the customer journey, so as to intervene in each phase with the right leverage by exploiting a multi-channel and as automated as possible approach.
It is no coincidence that HubSpot also owes its popularity to having become the spokesperson for this specific approach to Marketing Automation, for which it coined the term Inbound Marketing.
However, not all companies take advantage of it: many, often among the least structured, continue to manually manage a whole series of processes that should be automated instead. In reality, as we will see throughout the article, these companies could obtain exceptional advantages from a well-structured automation process.
The tools and costs are in fact literally within the reach of any company and represent an almost obligatory investment for those who do not want to waste growth opportunities.
There is another, indirect, advantage that we want to highlight: setting up a Marketing Automation plan forces you to think strategically, carefully reflecting on users' purchasing paths.
And that's why it's a topic we couldn't ignore in this blog.
What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing Automation is the process of optimizing and automating online marketing campaigns. All the usual digital marketing tools can be involved in this process: advertising campaigns on different platforms, sending emails, creating content for social media, creating landing pages, managing some phases of customer relations and more.
The possibilities are endless: automatically sending material to those who request it, creating a personalized discount a few days before the customer's birthday, displaying specific advertising based on interests, a reminder sent a pre-established number of days after the last order.
All actions that a good salesperson would personally take care of in a one-to-one, personalized relationship with the customer, but which become impossible to manage when we are faced with a mass sales system.
Using an oxymoron, we can therefore say that Marketing Automation manages to massify personalized customer management.
DO YOU WANT TO ADOPT A MARKETING AUTOMATION SYSTEM OR OPTIMIZE THE ONE YOU ALREADY HAVE? FIND OUT WHAT WE CAN DO FOR YOU
Marketing Automation software
As often happens in the field of web marketing, there is also some semantic confusion between the process and the tools used to apply it; sometimes, in fact, the term Marketing Automation refers to specialized software to manage this process.
In fact, on the market we find many programs, generally made available with the SaaS formula, to which it is possible to connect your channels (the website, social profiles, or even the company CRM...) so as to set up a series of automated actions, which must be implemented automatically when certain events occur.
Among these software, some are particularly widespread and represent de facto standards for the market.
In this regard, we certainly remember Hubspot: a software available both in a free form, with limited functionality, and in a paid form with broader functionality.
Other products that stand out for their completeness of features and their diffusion on the market are SalesManago, Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Klaviyo.
However, you can also organize automations with much more specific and less complete tools. In particular, the software that manages email marketing today usually integrate automation tools, either limited to emails only or that extend to the ability to send WhatsApp messages and SMS. Among these, the most well-known is certainly MailChimp.
The strategic aspects of Marketing Automation
Marketing Automation allows you to manage the customer more effectively, making them the recipient of personalized communication that increases their involvement, loyalty, and ultimately the volume of purchases.
A few automations are enough to obtain the first results: for example, setting up targeted emails to recover abandoned carts is an operation that generally allows you to immediately appreciate an increase in sales.
However, what is even more interesting is the connection between the possible automations and the concept of marketing funnel, aimed at a careful modeling of the customer journey, so as to intervene in each phase with the right leverage by exploiting a multi-channel and as automated as possible approach.
It is no coincidence that HubSpot also owes its popularity to having become the spokesperson for this specific approach to Marketing Automation, for which it coined the term Inbound Marketing.