The concept of marketing automation gets mentioned more frequently as it gains prominence throughout the industry. Unfortunately, this actually does the resource a disservice considering there are numerous forms of marketing automation. Each comes equipped with its own specific set of uses and benefits.
Here are the most common types of automation Active 8 Marketing recommends to businesses.
Marketing automation consists of technology used to automatically manage marketing and sales processes across multiple channels. Automation may appear simple on the surface, but when you observe its inner workings, the concept gets more complex.
Email Automation
Email automation consists of sending targeted messages to potential customers based on them meeting predetermined criteria. Email marketing is the most common automated marketing channel. More often than not, email automation is used to nurture leads.
Service-based businesses often use email automation to send feedback requests to customers following an appointment. Retail companies use email automation to inform customers about upcoming deals, new products, or to offer discounts around their birthday.
Nurtured leads have a 23% shorter sales cycle and a 9% higher average deal size. Lead scoring is another effective method businesses use to boost sales numbers.
Lead Scoring
Lead scoring is the process of assigning a value to leads in order to prioritize outreach. This system allows sales reps to spend less time manually quantifying leads and more time closing deals. A lead scoring algorithm ranks each potential client based on the probability of them becoming a customer.
Marketing Sherpa claims organizations that utilize lead scoring experience a 77% increase in lead generation ROI. Lead scoring is best suited for businesses spending significant time dealing with unqualified prospects. Traditional and predictive are the two available lead scoring options currently available to marketers and salespeople.
Traditional lead scoring involves manually determining the strength of a lead based on the attributes an individual possesses or lacks.
Predictive Lead Scoring
Predictive lead scoring uses machine learning to analyze data and determine the quality of a lead. The steps are as follows:
1. Software identifies commonalities between existing customers and prospects who don’t close.
- Software calculates each contact’s likelihood to close property. The likelihood to close property determines the probability of each person becoming a customer within 90 days.
- An automated ranking system places each potential customer into one of four tiers. Contacts in tier one are the most likely to become a future customer.
As with any machine learning tool, your predictive score will become more accurate over time as data continues to accumulate.
Lead scoring helps marketing and sales teams work in tandem to optimize the selling process. It helps establish a protocol between two departments that typically don’t communicate as often as they should.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
This consists of a range of features on a platform like HubSpot to manage or maintain relationships with customers. For example, when someone makes a purchase, you can program your website to automatically send them a thank you email. Automated CRM features enable you to dedicate more time to more important tasks.
CRM platforms help retail and ecommerce companies manage their inventory more efficiently, better understand their leads, and enhances their ability to monitor their business.
Marketing automation can be overwhelming at first, but the financial benefits associated with implementation are too significant to ignore. Active 8 Marketing has extensive experience educating companies on how they can utilize the various forms of automation currently available.
Interested in integrating marketing or sales automation into your business? You can register for a free, 15-minute introductory call here!
