...marketing automation is an all-in-one marketing powerhouse, allowing you to generate leads, follow up with consumers, and even demonstrate return on investment. Think of your marketing automation platform like it’s a video game. Lead scoring and personalized email campaigns are just the first level. As you move up through the levels, you access more gold coins, superpowers, and additional lives until you are a powerhouse marketing machine! Below are four ways to move on to the next plane of marketing automation…and you don’t even have to battle the boss to win the game!
Many companies who purchase a marketing automation platform are doing it with a few use cases in mind, but embracing your marketing automation platform can change the way you do business. Because these platforms can take in data, segment, manipulate and target communications, while also writing out to databases, these tools can enhance many business practices in the organization.
Your marketing automation platform allows a change in thought process of what a communication is. For instance, you might have an email marketing team, a mobile team, a social media team. Well all of these are channels of communication and your marketing automation platform can manage a lot of the content being driven through these channels, while maintaining a consistent message to the customer.
3. Real-time Personalization
Imagine this for a moment: what if everyone who visited your website received a personalized experience? Let’s say you serve a number of different industries. Using a marketing automation platform, you can set up your website so that when someone in the manufacturing industry visits, she sees a different set of content, calls-to-action, and web copy than a visitor in, say, the finance industry. Each visitor has different needs—period. So, giving each individual a targeted experience, whether that’s providing him an industry-specific case study or inviting him to an industry-specific event, makes the information more relevant and encourages conversion.
Most organizations would never consider using their "email marketing system" they just purchase to delver personalized content to their website in real-time, isn't marketing automation an outbound tool? Not necessarily. Because marketing automation tools can listen for events and trigger a realtime campaign for 1, and then deliver results through web services, it allows for ultimate customization, even for inbound.
4. Go Mobile
Mobilization is becoming increasingly necessary. According to Nielsen, the average consumer spends more time online via mobile devices than she does via a desktop or laptop computer. And the majority of that time is spent on apps—not the mobile web. All-in-all, companies need to go mobile, but without the right tools, it can be difficult. Not only do you need a strategy, but you also need to work with much more data. But with the data from marketing automation platforms combined with mobilization strategies, companies can effectively implement mobile campaigns, whether that means a native app or an optimized page.
I'll continue to harp about the mobile strategy. This is a channel that needs to be targeted to customer behavior, however it will be the ultimate channel when used properly. The marketing automation tool can listen for cues, such as geo location and deliver a customized mobile experience for the customer, whether that be in-app content or push notifications, the marketing automation tool should be at the center of your mobile strategy.