Marketing Automation Is Not Optional Anymore
August 25, 2023 // Email Marketing
AUDIO: Marketing Automation Is Not Optional Anymore
Lost customers, static revenue growth, missed opportunities, lack of internal efficiencies, difficulty keeping up with competitors — in marketing, there’s always a hidden cost of doing nothing. But by embracing new technology and executing a well-planned marketing automation strategy, you can create person-to-person marketing experiences that increase lead generation volume and close more deals with less effort.
If you’re unsure about the investment, here are six things you should consider:
1. Valued experiences empower buyers.
As Simon Sinek so smartly stated, “Great companies don’t offer us something to buy. Great companies offer us something to buy into.” Nearly 80% of customers say that the experience a brand provides is as important as its product or services, and 67% admit that they are willing to pay more for a great experience. When you prove your brand’s value time and time again, people buy in — over and over again. By incorporating the 8 Fundamentals of a Fortified Brand with a seamless customer experience, each point of interaction is an opportunity to drive conversion and loyalty.
2. Customers prefer hyper-responsive brands.
Close to 90% of consumers need an “immediate response” in 10 minutes or less, which is nearly impossible without marketing automation. Sales team out to lunch or had a request come in over the weekend? Not a problem. With the right strategy, platform and parameters in place, you can provide a response to any request in less than a minute.
3. Leads exist at every stage.
Most brands are great at grabbing bottom-funnel, sales-ready leads through longer “Contact Us” or “Request a Quote” forms, but some miss out on capturing leads in the early stages of their buying journey. There’s massive brand loyalty potential when you nurture leads from the beginning of the sales funnel to the end.
4. The right tool matters.
Opt for a total marketing automation platform (e.g., Marketo, Salesforce, HubSpot) over more simple email batch and blast tools. Yes, these advanced tools come at a higher price point, but most brands often find that they need the additional functionality offered by full-featured platforms.
5. It’s worth the investment.
Marketing automation technology may seem like a big budget line item, but it pays dividends in the end.
Plus, marketing automation delivers four major business benefits:
- An affordable way to stay connected with your customers.
- Easy to track and measure metrics with every initiative.
- Effective, 24/7 real-time automated messages deliver results.
- BONUS: Your team becomes more efficient.
6. Automate to accelerate sales.
Marketing is a race to the moon. Regardless of what you sell or who you sell it to, you’ll find that not only does marketing automation make it easy to compete, it makes it easy to win business. The leader in your space will create unique, impactful experiences (by meeting needs and expectations) that ultimately accelerate sales and long-term growth — make sure it’s you.
For more information about marketing automation, connect with our experts or check out this case study to find out how a B2B brand leveraged marketing automation to convert leads, new and old.
This article was published before January 2024 and does not reflect the consolidation of Performance Marketing, Vector Haus, and Blue Traffic into Anthologic.