Most firms currently employ marketing automation software solutions to improve operational efficiency. According to a Forrester poll from 2018, 55% of marketing decision-makers want to increase their technology expenditure.
If you are missing out on this 55%, your business must be hurting. However, if you want to experience how marketing automation software can influence your business income, this piece is for you.
As a result, we’ve compiled a list of the best platforms for marketing automation software and tools. Join us as we get started
What is Marketing Automation Software?
Marketing automation software refers to platforms and tools meant to help marketing departments and businesses promote more successfully across many online channels like email, social media, websites, and automate monotonous operations.
Benefits Of Marketing Automating Software and Tools
The marketing automation platforms enable you to spend more time on creative ideas while raising your closure rate and lead quality. It aids in the development of your firm and allows you to concentrate on more critical issues of day-to-day operations.
For example, you will be able to significantly cut your staffing costs; lead nurturing and marketing campaigns may be run automatically rather than manually. As a result, your business can potentially send thousands of tailored emails every day without lifting a finger.
This form of automation also improves sales activity by increasing lead management and prioritizing, which leads to a higher ROI. Furthermore, marketing automation tools provide data points to hold your marketing teams accountable, allowing you to change and improve ideas.
Essentials of Marketing Automation Software:
The following are basic essentials of marketing automation software;
#1. Workflow management:
Workflow management automates a process that often necessitates the intervention of numerous separate individuals. Administrators can create rules that specify who and when a user must accomplish a task. This also includes notifying users when they need to take action, resulting in a single fluid process designed to guide clients through the sales funnel, from awareness to purchase.
Read also: People Management: Top Skills For Managers
#2. Advertising automation:
Marketing automation platforms help guide clients through the sales funnel by automating when prospects see specific adverts. If clients return to a product page several times, your software will provide them with adverts according to where they are in the sales funnel. Perhaps, if they are considering purchasing the product, this could result in a sales advertisement.
Whereas, if they have been looking at competing products, this may result in an advertisement from your website. This helps to keep your product visible so that people consider purchasing it even if they are considering other goods.
#3. Mobile marketing:
In addition to email and social media marketing, marketing automation tools may automate mobile marketing. Push notifications, wearable device notifications, and Apple Wallet and Google Pay notifications can all be used to connect with customers. This way, even if your websites aren’t accessible, you can still send notifications to keep customers abreast about sales.
Read Also 15 Tools And Techniques For Successful Mobile Marketing
#4. Social Media Marketing:
Marketing automation software enables organizations to automate the management of a social media campaign. It can as well enhance customer engagement and visibility for your service or company. You can schedule automated posts like polls, giveaways, and referral programs using automation technologies.
Moreover, using likes, comments, replies, and retweets, marketing automation software can assess the customers’ perception of your postings. This not only helps to build brand recognition but also allows users to see how their brand is previewed.
#5. Lead management:
One of the most efficient ways to attract new consumers is to use marketing automation software to manage leads. Marketing automation software with lead scoring and grading tools evaluate leads’ key demographic and online behaviours like newsworthiness and frequency.
Businesses can also automate drip marketing campaigns, which transmit relevant messages over time, for example on prospect actions and campaign steps. Next, automated activity tracking tracks which email a prospect clicks on, web pages they visit, and keywords they employ. All of these lead systems enable businesses to analyze prospect data without having to manually evaluate each client lead.
#6. Email Marketing:
The automation of email marketing is one of the primary purposes of marketing automation platforms. For instance, once a customer subscribes to your company’s newsletter, it takes over and begins sending out email campaigns on online auctions and lead scores.
Personalization and branding of marketing emails are also automated by email marketing functions. As a result, each email sent is a personal letter to anyone signed up for your newsletter. We explained more about Email marketing tools in our last post.
Marketing Automation Software Types
Marketing automation software is a catch-all word for any software that enables a business to simplify its marketing efforts to boost operational efficiency. With this in mind, many technologies used by firms daily, for example, CRM and email marketing solutions, provide automation functions. However, while many platforms offer marketing automation, their focus and range of capabilities may differ. Some of the different emphasis you could find in a marketing automation solution are as follows:
#1. Pricing automation:
To increase sales, e-commerce websites and online retailers can utilize pricing automation tools. If a buyer visits your website several times and browses a specific product, it is quite likely that they are considering purchasing that product.
Pricing automation allows retailers to automatically lower or raise prices based on customer interest or repeated product page visits. This enables retail sites to close sales by offering clients a pricing point at which they are willing to compromise.
#2. Inbound marketing:
Inbound marketing automation is intended for marketing departments that are more serious with content management. To attract new clients, this frequently translates to teams that write blogs or produce social media material. Marketing analytics, reputation management, social media monitoring, and sales lead creation are inbound marketing duties that can be automated. The automation of these processes saves time for marketers to study customer data and make accurate decisions about how to improve marketing strategies.
#3. Business-to-business (B2B) &. Business-to-consumer (B2C):
Marketing automation software can benefit B2B and B2C businesses by allowing them to send more particular and relevant messages to their customers. However, B2B and B2C organizations have different needs that must be satisfied by this sort of software.
For instance, B2B organizations have significantly longer buying cycles, and the decision process entails more steps. Furthermore, B2B purchasing choices are rarely decided by a single person; rather, a group of decision-makers performs thorough studies before making a purchase.
Meanwhile, B2C consumers frequently make individual decisions and make purchasing decisions faster than B2B consumers. These distinctions have an impact on a company’s marketing strategy— The routes via which it reaches its customers and the sorts of content that are automated. As a result, B2B and B2C businesses evaluate marketing automation software capabilities differently.
#4. Lead management and nurturing automation:
Marketing professionals can use lead management and nurturing automation to automate the process of acquiring and qualifying leads. This is especially valuable for sales teams, as users may define a qualified lead. This could happen if prospective consumers view your product page three times in a row, or only arrive once. Furthermore, you get to choose when the automation tool sends out notifications to contact qualifying prospects and close a transaction. Sales reps can save a lot of time by focusing on only the most qualified prospects with this tool.
Top Best Marketing Software Tools 2023
Marketing automation software tools enable businesses to maximize their strategy by automating email marketing, social media posts, and lead creation. Below are some of the best platforms that offer the best marketing automation software tools for your business.
#1. Thryv:
Thryv is a complete client experience platform designed for small enterprises. A software that allows you to find a job, manage it, and get credit all from a single interface. It also includes best-in-class support that is available at any time.
Additionally, Thryv automates chores and places consumers at the core of your business with one simple program. Thus, making it easy to reach more customers, get paid faster, and generate reviews effortlessly. Thryv’s award-winning software is transforming the way over 40,000 firms do business and manage their clients.
#2. Drip:
Drip is an email and SMS marketing software solution for growing e-commerce firms looking to improve their email marketing. Leverage the power of your e-commerce consumer data to create a complete email target and SMS marketing techniques that will increase your revenue, such as targeting customers according to what they buy, browse, and click on your site.
Interestingly, Drip makes it simple to target the proper audience by using pre-built or custom segments that update in real-time. For example, if you want to send an email to customers who bought a particular item last summer. Or who looked at the headwear that was recently on sale. Not a problem!
According to reviews, Drip is used by thousands of e-commerce organizations across the world to engage customers with pre-built playbooks such as welcome series, abandoned carts, and post-purchase emails.
#3. Hubspot Marketing Automation:
In terms of features, HubSpot’s marketing automation ability is one of the most powerful tools on this list. It’s also the most popular to customer perception, with a position in the upper right quadrant of the G2 Crowd.
Indeed, HubSpot has a whole growth suite that includes marketing software, and support tools, which link with HubSpot’s CRM seamlessly. Having all of your data in one location can unlock automation possibilities that would be difficult to achieve with a different platform.
HubSpot’s marketing automation functionality includes an easy-to-use visual board where you can create basic or complex conditional workflows. Ultimately, the workflows tool extends email automation to help you scale your business and spend less time on repeated chores.
#4. Moosend:
Moosend is one of the most dependable marketing automation software platforms for email marketing. It serves a wide range of enterprises such as e-commerce and SaaS. It also makes use of a smart website monitoring to deliver the appropriate email campaign to individuals who show interest in a particular item
Customer data can be used to generate product recommendation campaigns on product views. This data also enables you to generate thorough reports on the administration’s progress allowing you to make more intelligent decisions.
All of the features listed above, as well as automated recipes and 80+ integrations, are available with Moodend’s Free Forever plan for up to 1,000 subscribers.
#5. EngageBay
EngageBay is a cost-effective marketing, sales, support, and CRM solution for small and medium businesses that help them acquire, engage, and convert website visitors into customers. The cloud-based platform enables firms to leverage marketing tools to cultivate long-term client relationships.
Some predominant features on EngageBay include email marketing, landing sites, live chat/helpdesk, ticketing, telephony, appointment scheduling, contact management, and more. Furthermore, it has an integrated CRM that helps businesses to monitor and track all activity related to customers, leads, and deals as they move through pipelines. Plus users can produce leads using marketing features such as automatic email templates, customizable forms/popups, social media involvement, and more.
Businesses can also use Zapier and Xero integrations to link EngageBay to a variety of third-party programs, including Salesforce, Intercom, MailChimp, Hubspot, and others.
Monthly memberships are offered, and assistance is provided via documentation, phone, and email. However, a trip to their official website will provide you with all of the information you’d need to access this relatively cheap marketing tool.
#6. Active Campaign:
ActiveCampaign is a small business CRM that incorporates email marketing and marketing automation with its sophisticated and adaptable capability. It is one of the most comprehensive options available. Their reliability is also recognized as one of the best on the market.
Although, this is probably not a useful tool for novices or those with limited technical skills. It takes a little more time and effort to learn, but once you do, you’ll find the platform quite enjoyable.
#7. Pardot:
Pardot, a subsidiary of SalesForce, is a cloud automation service that primarily serves enterprise clients with the necessary technical resources and time to master the platform.
They include a slew of capabilities for automating engagement with current contacts. For instance, CRM integration, email marketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring, and ROI analysis to ensure your campaigns are effective.
Furthermore, you may track all website interactions and provide forecast lead scoring depending on the parameters you define. All these contribute to high marketing efficiency and less time and effort on the part of your sales staff.
However, it’s crucial to note that while Pardot is a sophisticated enterprise tool, it lacks lead-generating functionality. And perhaps, may be out of reach or too expensive for smaller enterprises or entrepreneurs.
#8. Autopilot:
This is one of the market’s most visually appealing marketing automation platforms. They create an email marketing, messaging, and automation platform and position themselves as the most user-friendly marketing automation software. As previously said, their visual editor is clean, simple, and enjoyable to use.
Furthermore, their technology is often used for more elaborate messaging and targeting, but you can still design a simple time-sequenced autoresponder.
#9. Adobe Marketo Engage:
Marketo has been around for quite some time, but was recently acquired by Adobe and put into their enterprise marketing cloud. As a result of this, you’ll have powerful corporate marketing automation and optimization suite for data measurement, experimentation and personalization.
Typically, the technology is for enterprise customers, thus it is out of reach for the majority of small business owners.
#10. GetResponse:
GetResponse is a marketing automation software with numerous layers and functionalities. They begin at $10 per month (which includes basic autoresponders and a capacity of 1,000.) However, their more expensive plans include powerful capabilities such as E-commerce tools, email marketing, landing page, autoresponders, CRM etc.
GetResponse is straightforward to use, and you’ll usually get good results from it, even though, it works best with the simplest capabilities, such as email newsletters. Working with the platform can get more difficult if you plan on incorporating complex conditional logic and marketing automation.
#11. VBOUT:
This software provides a plethora of tools and features to assist marketing professionals in automating their duties intelligently. It includes drag-and-drop landing pages and forms, as well as a visual automation builder and email marketing capabilities.
Furthermore, it offers in-depth native analytics and user monitoring, providing marketers with a comprehensive picture of their leads’ engagement and campaign performance.
Is marketing automation the same as CRM?
Software for customer relationship management (CRM) and software for marketing automation have different uses. The fundamental distinction between CRM and marketing automation software is that one is largely used for marketing, and the other is mostly used for sales.
Is marketing automation the future?
It is without a doubt the future of digital marketing given the mix of potent tools like email automation. Choose the direction of digital marketing now to start making wise selections.
Is marketing automation a skill?
A broad range of marketing and technological abilities and capabilities must be developed by marketing automation specialists. People that are both analytical and imaginative are most suited for the position. To understand campaign performance data, a Marketing Automation Specialist needs analytical reasoning on the left side of the brain.
What is the biggest obstacle to marketing automation?
In fact, 45.9% of those polled who don’t use marketing automation claim that their largest challenge is a lack of platforms that offer the features they require.
What is next in marketing automation?
In the future of marketing automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) will be two key strategies. You must make an investment in machine learning if you want to create the best marketing campaigns possible.
Is SEO part of marketing automation?
Making it simpler for leads to find the offered material is the fundamental goal of SEO, which is an independent discipline in and of itself. All of the components of a bigger marketing strategy, including SEO and marketing automation, must work together for maximum effectiveness.
Who benefits marketing automation?
Businesses that embrace marketing automation find better overall campaign results and more success. Companies who automate portions of their marketing plan really see 53% higher discussion rates than those who do not.
Conclusion
Automation might be technical in nature. Therefore, look for platforms with strong knowledge bases, tutorials, and other customer support alternatives as you investigate the benefits of marketing automation.
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FAQs On Marketing Automation
What Is Marketing Automation Used For?
Marketing automation is the use of technologies to automate marketing tasks. Many marketing teams automate routine processes like email marketing, social media posting, and even ad campaigns, not only for efficiency, but also to deliver a more personalized experience for their clients.
Who Needs Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation is used by the best marketing teams to improve the accuracy of their campaigns, provide better leads to their sales teams, and generate higher ROI. Marketers who use marketing automation are better equipped to qualify leads and send them on to sales, resulting in increased revenue and growth.
Where Is Marketing Automation Used?
First, marketing automation captures prospect interest and manages lead generation and lead nurturing via campaigns across a variety of online and offline channels. Then CRM takes those prospects and manages the continuing customer connection by tracking sales and sales opportunities.
What Problems Does Marketing Automation Solve?
- Lack of lead conversion
- Unengaged customers
- Marketing inefficiencies
- Lack of sales and marketing alignment
- Generating more revenue
What Is CRM Automation?
CRM automation refers to the ability of a CRM system to automate repetitive, manual operations in order to streamline work and boost efficiency. CRM automation can include a variety of functions in marketing, sales, and customer service.
