Why use marketing automation? Research has shown that the introduction of automation technologies is one of the fastest-growing trends. Today, an increasing number of tools are used to make the life of business owners less stressful. For example, B2B entrepreneurs, like B2B web marketing agency, find it easier to manage sales and revenue, create and retain customers, gather information about potential buyers, manage cross-posting campaigns and social media files.
It provides B2B with great benefits: You don't have to keep track of every detail of your company.
What is marketing automation?
What is marketing automation, if not conducting marketing activities using special software and tools to improve the sales process? Automation of such activities aims to increase the campaign efficiency by automatically collecting and processing the information about business sales leads, thus eliminating time-consuming tasks related to manual input and analysis of the above-mentioned data.
Based on the obtained data regarding the consumer's interests, demographic factors, and activities undertaken on a given website, marketing automation software identifies potential customers and then sends them an appropriate, personalized B2B email marketing message.
The program automatically prepares offers and advertising content and targets a specific group of customers, most often via email, based on a previously created contact database. Marketing automation software is usually integrated with other systems, such as CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and ERP systems.
Why is marketing automation so important?
Why is marketing automation crucial? It allows for a thorough analysis of your users’ behavior and identification of qualified online business leads, as well as for triggering particular patterns based on such data.
There’s no need to do manual work since you can adjust the settings of each campaign and social media post in advance and send messages at the right time, when your recipients expect them most.
State-of-the-art technology will help you create amazing personalized content for your customers to win their hearts and build long-term relationships. Moreover, you can see the statistics as soon as the campaign is on air and analyze what worked well and what can be improved. As you can see, you will save lots of time and use fewer resources with automation.
Stages of sales and marketing automation
Marketing automation is a complex task that includes the following stages.
- Content creation and submission. Without impeccable content, sales and marketing automation is useless. Thus, you need to convey your competence to potential clients through the materials you publish and do it regularly to keep their attention. Please note that creating amazing case studies and sharing them via targeted advertising on social networks will add value to your strategy. Use modern tools to identify and select the most appropriate audience. The right software will help you make the most of your marketing efforts.
- Launching advertising campaigns. Of course, the results will greatly depend on the technologies that will ensure the inbound traffic. There are several strategies and channels to start driving traffic. Under each traffic channel, there is certain software that helps to solve certain tasks. You can put popular platforms to good use, for instance, apply LinkedIn Helper. Facebook Ads and contextual advertising are other traffic sources. Additionally, don’t forget to review your contact list to remove outdated addresses.
- Tracking analytics of advertising campaigns. Use appropriate tools to understand the metrics and implement the necessary changes.
How does marketing automation work and what cases does it apply to?
How does marketing automation work? The latest technology is applied to streamline all sales and marketing processes. This great way to interact with customers at a deep level without wasting too much time is used at different stages of the buyer’s journey. Usually, automation platforms are applied in the following cases:
- B2B digital lead generation campaigns
- Lead nurturing campaigns
- Customer retention programs
- Upselling and cross-selling programs
- Referral schemes
- Event-based marketing
What are the best practices of marketing automation for B2B? Belkins knows how to improve email marketing automation for B2B lead generation. So we’ve picked the 4 crucial steps to take in order to fully benefit from automation.
B2B marketing automation: 5 steps for you to take
- Map out the customer’s journey thoroughly before configuring automation workflows. This will help you to properly cover all the key steps, from discovering your brand to making a purchase. This is how B2B marketing automation works most effectively.
- Set the key metrics and monitor them regularly. Analyzing a set of key criteria will help you understand what strategies are most profitable for your company. Having such information at hand will save you lots of time and help you make the changes to grow your company faster.
- Create process visualizations. Based on the detailed diagrams of your marketing automation workflow, visualize your big-picture marketing objectives via the digital instruments and share them with your marketing and SDR departments. Such an approach will increase motivation among your teams and help them work more effectively.
- Provide database segmentation. It’s important to categorize your customer data. Think about who you’d like to engage and why they are likely to buy from you. It will help you organize your email lists and attract much more interested subscribers than before. Always include the unsubscribe links for business sales leads to opt-out at any time. Moreover, remember about cleaning email lists regularly by removing unengaged leads. Such a useful habit will help you keep engagement rates high and maintain better email deliverability.
- Prepare an excellent content strategy. Start with building your content library. Create interesting, engaging, and relevant materials to reach all the stages of the customer’s journey. And, of course, never get tired of personalizing your message content by applying the tips suggested by automation platforms.
Surely, the whole point of B2B marketing automation is to maintain business processes and help them run smoothly in the background. However, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t participate in them anymore. On the contrary, always be looking for ways to optimize your workflows for better engagement.
Hopefully, you have all the answers to the question, “What is marketing automation?” Now you know how marketing automation works.
Apply the tips mentioned in this article to facilitate your business growth or generate B2B sales leads with Belkins to skyrocket your success.
