It can be considered the main tool for generating and nurturing leads throughout the sales funnel, all the way to the moment of purchase. Furthermore, after the purchase, it serves to build customer loyalty and retention, and even generate recommendations. But, what really is Automation?
Marketing Automation is based on the use of technology and artificial intelligence to automate and unify marketing processes, ensuring communication based on consumer behavior.
Allows you to analyze the engagement and interests of the public – segmenting it – and automate customized processes, taking into account the various target audiences of the business and the various online channels used. These processes are actions defined by the company and are triggered by user behavior on the various channels – one after the other – without the need for manual intervention. That is, the Marketing Automation allows you to understand and define the interests of your Leads and the stage of the sales funnel they are insegmenting them and providing them with all the relevant and useful information to make their way through the funnel, until they are ready to make a purchase – the right moment to be approached by the sales team.
It aims to increase the efficiency and scalability of marketing, while ensuring personalized communication with leads.
This process should not replace people, but rather complement and increase the effectiveness of their work.
The market is becoming more and more competitive, demanding more agility from companies and better results, making the adoption of Automation measures crucial. Marketing Automation allows you to unify online processes, cross-referencing data from different areas and ensuring an overview of the business. These processes bring numerous benefits to any established business:
The contact requests a company receives are not always ready to make a purchase, so it is crucial that these leads are tracked and nurtured, taking them through the sales funnel, until they reach the final stage – where they are ready to buy.
Through automation, nutrition and follow-up become more efficient and require little effort. The Inbound Marketing is a valuable tool to attract, nurture and “educate” leads by developing rich and useful content for each segment, creating a positive user experience – keeping and driving the lead along the funnel.
In addition, it becomes possible to handle a larger number of contacts than would be possible if the processes were not automated, making sales opportunities greater, since the leads arrive to the sales team with sufficient information and prepared to make the purchase.
In this article, you can learn more about the importance of leads
Marketing automation allows you to understand which leads are most ready to be approached by the sales team, increasing the likelihood of conversion. Furthermore, the more information a contact has about the company’s topic, product or service, the more likely they are to recognize a need and invest in a solution.
Ultimately, leads with superior knowledge about the product/service have an easier and more successful implementation – leading them to be more satisfied, to use the product/service for longer, to buy other products/services from the company, and even to recommend it to contacts.
Marketing Automation allows you to segment leads according to various criteria and customize communication to the different segments, facilitating interaction with leads and increasing their engagement with your brand.
With Marketing Automation you can increase your company’s growth, sales, and customers without having to increase costs. In other words, it is necessary to invest in an initial phase, but it is no longer necessary when the automation structure is consolidated – the company does not have to hire more people or buy more tools to generate more sales, since the processes already automated can be replicated.
With Automation, leads are identified and segmented, are exposed to the right content, and automatically evolve along the sales funnel. This results in optimizing the time and work organization of the sales team and makes sure that leads are approached at the right time, making the whole process more efficient.(Discover a Successful Sales Funnel for E-commerce here)
By receiving the most aligned leads, the sales team is able to close them in a shorter period of time, optimizing their time and investing it in other important tasks. In addition, the Marketing team has more time to focus its efforts on tasks that cannot be automated.
The data is concentrated in a single system to which all members of the various teams have access.
Several processes become automated.
Since the lead nurturing and lead preparation processes are automatic, teams do not have to invest time in these activities and the company reaches a higher number of users with a smaller investment of resources. At the time of approaching the leads, as they are already prepared to buy, the investment of time and resources is also lower, resulting in a significant decrease in CAC.
Automation enables an improved relationship between the company and the customer, causing the latter to make decisions more consciously and mature along the sales funnel, resulting in a higher probability of higher purchases.
The Sales Cycle represents the period between the customer’s first contact with the company and the purchase. Since most of the path of the sales funnel is driven by the system, by the time the leads reach the sales team they are already in one of the final stages of the funnel, thus more informed and prepared, making the approach simpler and more objective, and reducing cycle time.
As leads, these contacts make more conscious and informed decisions. Therefore, when they become customers they tend to be more successful with the product/service, being more satisfied with their purchase, which leads them to remain customers. Increased satisfaction can also generate customer recommendations to acquaintances.
Everything being automated, everything can be measured and monitored, allowing for optimization of the funnel through data-driven decisions. Generally, Marketing Automation tools provide access to data reports that include KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and from which it is possible to derive insights for decision making and even to adapt the communication when approaching leads.
As the negotiation becomes shorter and, consequently, the length of the sales cycle decreases, there is an increase in the efficiency of the processes and a decrease in the various inherent costs.
With the ability to better understand the needs of leads, companies can find new business opportunities by focusing efforts on the right leads and at the right timing.
In addition, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools can be integrated with Marketing and Sales to document all contacts between leads and the company and to notify the sales team when a lead is qualified to be approached.
Automation software that does data encryption and uses SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protocols ensures data security.
A better use of the resources made available by Marketing Automation allows an increase in sales, and there are several ways and stages in which this use can be maximized.
To learn more about these Flows, keep reading.
Marketing Automation is based on the use of software that centralizes information and automated process routines. This software allows you to define automation rules, integrate various team members, gather and analyze data. It includes several features and can be integrated with other tools.
Although it is a very versatile tool, it ceases to be useful without human participation and intelligence.
These are the main features:
Flows are sequences of automatic actions, triggered by “triggers” defined in the tool, that lead Leads along the various points. These softwares allow the creation of several types of flows, according to the different moments of the relationship of the leads with company.
In addition to having low production costs, it can be used at all stages of the sales funnel. Through automation, it becomes possible to set up automatic email sends. Usually these tools include an email editor for easy creation and these emails can be included in both Nurture Flows and specific campaigns and can be sent to specific segments. In addition to this, you can also set up automatic email responses and have access to sending reports, open rate, and other data.
Marketing Automation software generally allows you to segment the company’s contact base, ensuring that communication is appropriate for each audience. This segmentation can be done according to various criteria – defined by the company – such as the phase of the sales funnel, the budget, the area of operation, or others, and it is possible to cross-reference data.
You can also create forms and insert them into the different stages of the sales funnel. These forms are intended to collect contact information from Leads. Once filled in, they are automatically available in the Software. Forms can be inserted in pop-ups, on specific pages of the site, or in paid ads on social networks.
Most software allows the creation of Landing Pages, providing editable templates.
It is also possible to create these tests, which allow you to test a variable in two different versions. That is, if you are in doubt between two e-mails, two landing pages,two images, you can test them on a part of your audience and then implement the one that got the best test results.
Through automation, you can also schedule network posts and monitor engagement, comments, and shares.
As already mentioned, through this tool, it is possible to integrate CRM, making a connection between the marketing team and the sales teamThis means that all members have access to the customer’s data, making the actions and decisions taken more accurate and shorter-lived.
One of the biggest advantages is the possibility to closely see the metrics of each campaign.
With all the data concentrated in one platform, it is possible to do Remarketing – a very valuable strategy to win back old customers and even get feedback or a justification for their abandonment.
Through this software, the task of onboarding is made easier, as it is possible to set up the sending of a welcome email and various notices or notifications so that team members know when to contact a customer. In addition, reports that include the most relevant metrics are now available so you can monitor and evaluate results and make decisions based on specific data.
Marketing automation can boost sales in any kind of business:
Find out how Data Marketing can help Tourism companies
Real Estate Marketing Automation to Sell More Homes.
A company’s adoption of a Marketing Automation solution not only increases its performance – attracting the right audience and ensuring they have access to useful information that leads the customer to purchase, but also improves the company’s relationship with customers post-sale.
