Thursday, May 21, 2015

What Does Marketing Automation Systems Entails

By Tammie Caldwell


Marketing automation includes technology and software platforms made to assist marketing departments their organizations be effective in marketing their products on multiple online channels. Such platforms include social media, websites, and email. These platforms automate some repetitive tasks performed online. A command is fed on the software to repetitive do the assigned task rather than have someone do the task every time an action is needed online. This sums up the fact the Marketing Automation systems are very vital.

Your marketing team will define what outcome they need from the platforms. They then specify the route the task that will lead to the desired outcome. The software takes in the commands, interprets them and implements what is required. The software is very efficient unlike human effort. Recent developments have made the platforms even better in analyzing visitors behavior and how to influence them to reach marketing goals. These software are normally hosted on cloud and used as a service.

There are three categories of marketing automation. The first involves collecting relevant information to assist in realizing the marketing goals. This is called marketing intelligence. This platform makes use of tracking codes on webpages, social media, and emails to enable the marketing team track behaviors of visitors interested in the product or the service that the company is marketing. The team also gains a measure of intent.

A common scenario of such software in action is tracking and capturing the information of a client who clicks on an emailed link, checking which thread on forums is attracting more people or the social media group that has many followers. With the feedback, your team is able to develop better plans to target these areas of interest.

There are marketing automation software that take over from the above. Its principle work is to guide the prospects down the funnel until they become hot prospects. Using set stages, they pick interested prospects and selectively gives them information until they get to warm up to the product. Prospects are scored by their behavior and the right mix given to nurture them.

Depending on the client that your company is targeting, you are going to use one of these sales cycles. You may use B2B (Business-to-Business), B2C (Business-to-Customer) or if targeting the government, B2G (Business-to-Government). The platforms are a perfect example how a structured business process can be intermingled with email marketing to chase the right, qualified prospects.

Some platforms are meant to ensure automation of internal retailing processes. These are referred to as workflow automation platforms. In most cases, the sales cycles are delay by the internal component that takes some time to be accomplished. Such processes include planning, budgeting, internal collaboration, development of retailing calendar among others. They check on anything that involves internal marketing process.

Your CRM administrator feeds the software with the rules and directions. The software then activate other actions needed to be done by the sales team when needed. For example, it may remind them to send emails, design marketing material, or call a client. With marketing automation you are more efficient with very few errors.




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