Why is Marketing Automation so important?

As marketing automation technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated, more organisations are embracing automation tools. Investment in marketing automation technology is forecast to reach $25 billion by 2023, signifying a staggering annual growth rate of fourteen per cent since 2017. 

Marketing automation in today’s demanding, consumer-led environment can improve efficiency and speed to market, affording brands the capability and reliability to effectively scale and foster growth, as well as saving time and increasing productivity.

Some interesting statistics about marketing automation from the Demand Gen Report 2018 state that:

• 91% of marketing automation users think it’s ‘very important’ to their overall online marketing efforts
• 74% of marketers say that ‘saving time’ is the biggest benefit of marketing automation
• 80% of marketing automation users saw an increase in the number of leads, and 77% had an increase in conversions

Delivering precise dynamic content when and where it’s needed

Multi-channel campaign management can be challenging enough, even before you add into the mix the requirement for a streamlined narrative, specific tone of voice and journey for each targeted audience – then it can quickly become overwhelming.

However, marketing automation solutions enable you to deliver dynamic content to a specific target audience at the most opportune time. You can then keep track of individual campaigns across all channels from one centralised platform. This formula is essential for successful campaign execution, especially at scale. Automation allows you to strike while the iron is hot with exactly the kind of communication the prospect wants, based on behavioural and demographic data, scheduling different posts to a variety of audiences.

By communicating dynamic content with prospective clients, you can personalise the message and address their specific pain points. Making prospects feel valued and understood will ultimately drive conversion rates and build deeper, longer lasting customer relationships. By targeting different customers with a multi-channel strategy, you are likely to convert more leads and make a greater return on your investment, so your marketing spend will also be used more efficiently.

Progressive profiling with dynamic fields

Progressive profiling allows marketers to gather information from a prospective customer incrementally, instead of all in one go. It enables you to create fewer forms and get more information from visitors, saving your sales team time and energy.

If a prospect has to fill in too many form fields, it can put them off and decrease lead conversion rates, however, shorter forms with fewer required fields normally have higher conversion rates. It makes the customer experience smoother and the questioning process less invasive, by not asking for too much information in the first interaction.

Progressive profiling is an excellent method of slowly building relevant and valuable profiles of your customers in order to be able to tailor your communications with them. 

Your forms will display questions based on the information you already have about a lead because with progressive profiling, you don’t have to ask the same question twice. Cookie tracking allows you to replace any of the form fields you’ve already collected from the contact with new form fields. With the help of progressive profiling and the technical capabilities of most automation platforms, you can use the same form for different stages of the buying cycle and content offers. This method allows you to gradually gain lead intelligence for qualification and nurture the customer experience, without sacrificing conversion rates.

Tracking the lifecycle of a lead

While data is mission critical to gain a full understanding of a customer’s buying persona, consumers don’t like being questioned in detail for feedback or going to the effort of filling out endless surveys or feedback forms.  Automation technology, on the other hand, provides brands with the chance to capitalise on modern technology to track users’ behaviours and uncover a wealth of information about a particular lead throughout its journey with their brand.

Marketing automation technologies can help marketers scale their personalisation efforts and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing a more prominent role in marketing as an automation tool. Marketers are embracing AI for its predictive abilities, more precise targeting and ability to offer consumers a more personalised experience.  As personalisation becomes the standard, consumers now expect this level of engagement across channels and digital touchpoints.

This type of automated data collection can help brands understand where the customer entered their journey and analyse the path taken, once the customer engaged with their brand. It can also enhance the customer experience by uncovering opportunities for personalisation or optimisation, creating a tailored and unique experience for each customer, thereby increasing engagement and boosting sales.

For more information or to discuss how Sherpa can help you stay ahead of the competition with marketing automation solutions, please get in touch:

• via email on letschat@sherpamarketing.co.uk
• by giving us a call on 01234 964000. 
• or by clicking here.