Marketing automation has revolutionized B2B lead generation in the last decade. Think of programmable platforms and applications tailored for marketing, sales, and customer service. With that automation comes freedom from hours of repetitive work or mental effort. Sales are free from monitoring and reporting on marketing campaigns. But marketing automation also offers other unexpected benefits. What makes automation a necessary innovation for marketers?
Increased scalability
One of the biggest obstacles to scaling your business is the cost of manpower as you grow. Business growth can be challenging because the need for staff often predates the big payoff, killing cash reserves. Marketing automation allows you to scale up your marketing. as necessary while avoiding duplication of effort and wages.
Once a marketing system is set up, it will handle the load as your business grows without hiring new staff. Many online services will automate anything from reporting to data capture to email marketing. Many of these services are free at the outset. They can offer various levels of service that grow as your business grows.
Small business owners can take advantage of free marketing automation as a side benefit. They can start to pay only as their business pays them, making ongoing growth painless.
Accurate reporting
Reporting and analysis are central tasks for marketers. With accurate reporting, marketers can make solid business decisions around whom, about what, and how they get the message out. Marketing efforts need constant monitoring to catch when a campaign is starting to flag or the creative needs swapping out of an online ad.
Automated reporting ensures that the presented data is accurate and produced efficiently. Most reporting tools generate graphs, tables, and core information. Simple, specific data allows you to analyze the information coming through easily.
A business can set these tasks to generate reports regularly, and then the processes will work independently. That means you have more time for the critical job of analyzing the data that comes through.
Time reduction and higher efficiency of marketing processes
Much of marketing is repetitive, easily automated work. Think of transferring customer details into an email or recording responses into a spreadsheet. In an average marketing/sales cycle, a client is contacted multiple times through email or snail mail. Their responses are recorded. Their information is transferred from a marketing-based management system into the sales system. From there, on to customer service.
In the past, much of this work would be done by hand. Now we can reduce the time and effort spent on these mundane tasks by automating them. Now, customer nurturing software can take a contact from marketing, through sales, and then on to customer service. All this without copying and pasting details—giving your whole team a centralized source of information.
Automated services ensure every lead gets a prompt response and solid marketing follow-up. No prospect can fall through the cracks of a manual system.
Most importantly, business leaders need to spend their time looking at the big picture and strategizing a way forward. They can’t spend most of the day head down in a spreadsheet—free your time for more high-level pursuits like campaign development or data analysis.
Better alignment of marketing and sales departments
A business can connect automated email marketing software to your customer nurturing software. It will fire when a client performs a specific action (like visiting your website or filling out a form). An automated marketing email can be sent to spark interest even when a current client hasn’t been heard from in a while.
As clients respond on the marketing journey, automation can shift them into the sales pool for follow-up. New prospects will be sent many emails that funnel them and qualify them as solid sales leads. Then the automation will assign that lead into the sales cycle. It’s complete with all necessary internal email notifications. This work must only be done once, and the marketing and sales teams coordinate more smoothly.
Higher conversion rates
With the consistency of automation, follow-up, and customer nurturing, conversion rates go way up. Marketing automation can drive a 14.5% increase in sales productivity with a 12.2% reduction in marketing overhead.
About 80% of marketing automation users increased their number of leads using marketing automation software. 77% increased their conversion rate. Tools like sales chatbots increase lead conversion and qualify leads for follow-up.
If you’re looking for marketing automation tools and help with lead generation, BANT has the automation and services you need. Contact us today for a demonstration.
Devanny
Devanny (dev-uh-knee) is a Social Media Marketer based in Las Vegas. She's a dog lover with a propensity for mystery novels, and when she's not at her laptop working on comprehensive marketing campaigns, she can probably be found running around Disneyland or curled up with a good book!