The Benefits of Using Marketing Automation Software

A marketer’s goal is to position their product, service or brand ahead of the competition and to generate interest amongst the target market. There are many ways to do this, but using marketing automation as a (key) tool to do this has some clear benefits. Here are eight key benefits of using marketing automation.

1. Efficiently streamline your marketing

The buyer process is complex, so automating your marketing makes it simpler to deal with multiple prospects who are each at different points in the process and therefore have very different needs.

Automation eliminates manual processes such as reaching out to different segments of your market separately, or with different campaigns that have to be created manually. Brian Downard of BD Ventures and growth hacking strategist, Ehsan Jahandarpour, identified that simply automating social posts and adverts saves six hours per week.

2. Save time and money

According to a report by Adestra, three-quarters (74%) of marketers see time-saving as the biggest benefit of using marketing automation. Marketing automation software is a great boon for saving employee effort. You can quickly copy and adjust campaigns, then schedule them in advance for efficient sending. Regularly repeated processes, such as implementing rules to send autoresponders, or a series of campaigns according to action (and inaction) avoid time-consuming manual input, often saving hundreds of hours on campaign creation and management.

And because manual labour-saving software saves time, it saves you money too.

3. Make marketing more accountable

Marketing automation systems all employ sophisticated reporting, giving you full insight into your campaigns. Detailed intelligence can demonstrate the success of each campaign, and split A/B testing can give confidence in which content is delivering the best results. Marketers can see at a glance which campaigns are delivering the best returns, and the metrics can be used to demonstrate your marketing team’s value at board level.

4. Easily manage multiple channels

Modern consumers operate on a number of channels, both online and offline. Marketing automation allows you to reach customers across all these multiple channels. Each touchpoint can be tracked and prospects monitored as they undertake their omnichannel journey. Depending on the buyer’s preferences, or stage of the buying process, you can then select from a number of marketing tactics to reach the prospect, such as direct mail, SMS message, email, social media, or telephone.

5. Introduce personalisation

It’s important for brands to differentiate themselves. Marketing automation software can put the personal touch into campaigns, conveying a sense of familiarity. Personalisation online and within digital campaigns helps build relationships and makes for a better customer experience.

6. Run highly targeted campaigns

One of the most powerful benefits of marketing automation is that it allows you to create very highly targeted campaigns. You can segment your lead base very precisely and make a highly relevant, highly targeted offer to a small section of that base. And with the premise of marketing being offering the ‘right product to the right customer at the right time’, the high levels of targeting involved with marketing automation significantly increase your likelihood of success.

Equally, you can segment your audience by need and deliver the same campaign with slightly different but extremely tailored messages that are pertinent only to each segment.

7. Achieve better conversion rates

With marketing automation, improved customer insight allows you to better identify leads and categorise them according to buyer needs, behaviour, demographics and personas. Along with split testing of landing pages or campaigns, this enhanced degree of marketing allows you to better understand your market and its segments, and in turn brings higher rates of conversion.

8. Increase return on investment

Using marketing automation, you can automate cross-selling and up-selling campaigns. In this way, you can really maximise the revenue returned from each conversion, increasing the lifetime value of your customer base.

As you can see, marketing automation has tangible benefits for any business, streamlining processes, saving time and money, and improving campaign results and returns. When used in tandem with a CRM, it goes even further, integrating sales and marketing efforts and affording a real 360-degree view of your customers, your market and your pipeline – and driving better value from your marketing initiatives.

Want to learn about marketing automation and how it can enhance your WooCommerce store’s performance? Check out our guide on What is Marketing Automation to discover how automation tools can help streamline your marketing efforts and increase sales.