Challenge: You’ve got a database full of thousands of prospects. To maintain these relationships and encourage sales, you know you need to provide each one with the individualized, highly relevant, and compelling messages they expect. If you don’t do this, your competition will. How do you accomplish such a feat?
Solution: Many companies are turning to marketing automation technologies to deliver this perfectly tailored and timed messaging. And it is working.
According to research by Marketo, 75% of companies using marketing automation see a return on their investment within one year. Plus, businesses who use marketing automation are 32% more likely to experience growth than those who don’t.
Sounds like a no-brainer, right?
Not exactly. To begin such a campaign, marketers often need to convince their teams, departments, and upper management to get on board. This is not always such an easy task since an initial investment will be required and few of these individuals understand much about how internet marketing works.
The good news is, once you convince them, it’s only a matter of time until you become the workplace hero. Because marketing automation works. It delivers loads of benefits. And it will help your company make more money.
To accomplish the pesky task of getting everyone necessary on board, you’re going to need to market this idea the same way you would your organization’s products or services. That means clearly and concisely spelling out the benefits for the right people.
To help get you started, some of the key benefits of marketing automation are below. When making the case for using marketing automation to pursue your company’s goals, be sure to provide specific examples of ways this technology can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the sales process.
Using marketing automation technology like Marketo can help you achieve the following:
Obtain better metrics. Increase conversion.
Marketing automation enables you to compel your audience to perform the behaviors you desire. Through dynamic content and other programs, you will be able to set up rules that react based on how prospects behave when visiting your website or landing pages, interacting with you on social media, or receiving your e-mails. When a rule match occurs, your marketing automation software will instantly create personalized content exactly when it is needed. The result is increased engagement, conversions, and sales.
Make your team more productive. Save valuable time.
Say good bye to many time-consuming, cumbersome, manual processes. Marketing automation can eliminate many of these tasks and save your team lots of valuable time. Plus, it never takes a sick day or holiday. Marketing automation technology can also help out in the human resources, customer service, and billing departments – but that is info for another article.
Utilize multiple channels more easily.
Your prospects most likely use a wide range of platforms. Marketing automation allows you to easily reach them wherever they may be spending their time online and in a way that is appropriate for that channel.
Expand your database. (And use it to the fullest!)
Marketing automation removes the need to have individual employees stay on top of updating databases. It streamlines the workflow, allows for clean data exchange between departments, and basically enables you to build the massive comprehensive database that is 100% necessary for success in today’s competitive global marketplace.
Nurture those leads.
According to extensive research, your customers don’t want to talk to a salesperson until they are 50-90% of the way through the sales cycle. Marketing automation allows you to build personalized nurture campaigns that will direct prospects down different paths based on which actions they take. You can also score these leads according to these actions and their demographic data – then you can provide them with the content that is most relevant to them and their position in the buying cycle.
Align sales and marketing efforts.
Marketing automation technology requires you to set rules to implement a lead management process. This forces sales and marketing teams to discuss which customer actions and qualities best demonstrate interest and what messaging will be most relevant for key audiences. Marketing automation also provides the sales team with increased information on the prospect’s previous actions when using your website, receiving your e-mails, visiting landing pages, etc. This makes it easier for the salesperson to gauge where a prospect is in the buying cycle when they pick up the phone to talk to them.
Time it right.
Marketing automation will help you detect prospects’ cues and send precisely the right message at the right time. Your relationships with potential customers and the content you send them will be set up based on their level of readiness to buy, ensuring the communications they receive are appropriate (and never pushy).
Recover lost sales and conversions.
There is nothing worse than when a prospect comes one click away from downloading a whitepaper, filling out a contact form, or – worst of all – making a purchase. Marketing automation will ensure these individuals are contacted with friendly, individualized reminders that will often convince them to complete the desired action.
Keep your customers happier. (And keep more customers.)
After a customer purchases a product or service, you can enhance their experience by providing additional tips, information, discounts, rewards for brand advocacy, and so much more. All of these methods strengthen your relationships and boost customer satisfaction.
Increase your revenue.
In sum, marketing automation enables you to fully leverage your database of prospects. It helps you send them the perfect message at the perfect time. It allows you to easily conduct multichannel conversations. Most importantly, all of this allows you to produce more conversions and improve sales. That is why so many leading companies are making marketing automation their top priority.
First steps toward marketing automation . . .
Compelling, right? Of course it is! Research shows that top marketing performers are 60% more likely to automate their lead management.
So don’t wait. Make your proposal and spell out those benefits to the people in your organization who matter.
Need help? Contact Lake34. We’ll discuss the best solutions for you, provide you with a cost estimate, and help you communicate the profound value marketing automation can provide for your company.
We look forward to chatting with you and helping your business grow!
