Saving time and money is possible through Marketing automation
- September 14, 2021
Marketing Automation is based on the use of software where some rules are defined, making certain routine tasks become automatic. Through this process, you can communicate with your clients at the right time. This leads to a more efficient and segmented connection (since these software guarantee access to more valuable and quality insights about your contacts) and more time to dedicate to the leads who are more prepared to make the purchase.
Reading guide:
- Marketing automation in numbers
- How do you know if you need marketing automation?
- 10 ways to save time and money with marketing automation
a. Updates and posts on social media
b. Dynamic Content
c. Content Amplification
d. Customer reservations and appointment
e. Lead Nurturing
f. Post-sale emails
g. Lead Scoring and Segmentation
h. Upsell offers
i. Incentive and loyalty programs
j. Data base - How to measure results with Marketing Automation and what KPIs should you monitor
- After all, how can Marketing Automation help you?
Marketing automation in numbers
The main goal of automation is to ensure that the sales team has access to high-quality leads, so they can be more productive and earn more revenue for your business.
When done effectively, automation helps companies of all sizes achieve their marketing goals and drive results.
Did you know that...
- … 90% of the world’s best marketers consider automation to be of great importance to their success?
- … Almost 80% of CMOs say the main reason to implement automation is to increase revenue?
- … On average, sales productivity increases 14.5% with automation?
While many aspects of your business can benefit from automation, each case is different, and you should always analyze and automate what works best for you. You should also bear in mind that automation is not intended to replace people, but to facilitate and streamline your work so that it is more productive and profitable.
If you want to know more about how Marketing Automation works, what are its benefits and features, read here.
How do you know if you need marketing automation?
Marketing automation enables you to achieve more goals with less effort. If one or more of the following statements apply to your business, you should consider investing in Automation:
- Your marketing efforts are not going as well as you wanted
- Your sales cycle is too long
- You don’t have enough data to segment your leads
- Your potential clients are not “responding” well to your approaches.
- Your lead list is too short
10 ways to save time and money with marketing automation
Remember: even with the best automation tool, your campaigns and messages should always focus on real people that customers can talk to.
But after all, how can you save time and money with automation? We leave you 10 possibilities:
1. Updates and posts on social media
By automating the posting of content and ads on social media, you can save more than 6 hours a week on network management and allocate that time to other tasks. Plus, you make sure your profiles are always up-to-date!
2. Dynamic Content
You can display personalized content and offers, based on previous searches and the user’s purchase history. Do you know that businesses that use this feature show an average increase in sales of 20%?
3. Content Amplification
You can increase your response rate by 250% if you automate outreach and follow up emails.
Check out these 4 tips to sell more through email marketing
4. Customer reservations and appointments
If you set appointments for meetings with clients using an automation tool, you save 80% of your time in planning and managing teams.
5. Lead Nurturing
Companies that automate lead nurturing, with well-defined email campaigns in terms of offers and schedules, see a 10% increase in revenue.
Learn more about the Importance of Leads to Increase Online Sales
6. Post-sale emails
Did you know that acquiring a new customer costs between 5 and 30 times more than retaining one? Follow-up email automation drives customer engagement as well as upsell.
7. Lead Scoring and Segmentation
By automating this process, the sales team greets potential customers when they are ready to buy. In this way, they can handle the sales approach much more simply.
8.Upsell offers
Businesses that use the upsell option when selling online (for example, offering a product that is more beneficial to the customer and more profitable for the business at the end of the purchase) can increase average orders by 360% or more.
9. Incentive and loyalty programs
Did you know that 49% of consumers are willing to switch brands just because they got a discount coupon from another brand? To ensure this doesn’t happen to you, encourage and reward your customers for their loyalty, always giving them reasons to buy your products or services again.
10.Data base
Marketing automation allows you to update your CRM (customer relationship management) automatically, using information collected directly from the actions of leads or customers, as well as the interactions they have with your digital marketing content. In this way, you will always have a clean and updated database, without having to waste hours on it!
Measure results and define KPIs
Marketing automation software gives access to various analytical data and reports. With this tool, you will be able to make better decisions, faster and based on real data, about how you want to apply your efforts and your investment. Through a data-driven approach, you will be able to increase interaction with your customers, leading to higher revenues and a distinct competitive advantage.
In addition, you also have access to performance data from your marketing and sales teams, allowing you to measure the results obtained according to the efforts applied.
There are at least 8 KPIs that you should have on your dashboard and pay attention to their values and evolution:
- Percentage of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) that become Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) – this indicator gives you a good overview of the relationship and communication between the marketing and sales teams.
- Relationship between MQL and opportunity: you can effectively track and verify the contribution of the marketing team to the Pipeline.
- Relationship between MQL and revenue: shows how the marketing team is contributing to the best sales.
- Number of Recycled Leads for Marketing Automation – If this number turns out to be too high, you should review the concept of Lead ready to be approached by sales
- Length of the Sales Cycle – One of the marketing and sales objectives usually involves the shortening of the sales cycle. If you follow this indicator, it will be easier to align the steps to be followed in this direction, making the marketing and sales teams work in the same line.
- Campaign performance – Check which type of campaigns work best for your business, and you’ll be able to generate more revenue with fewer resources.
- Content Performance – Track these indicators to see what type (or types) of content drive your Leads through your sales funnel. (You may be interested in our article: 3 steps to develop a successful funnel for e-commerce) Then, review your budget application in content.
- “Sticky” points: Potential customers are expected to “slide” through the sales funnel smoothly and continuously, just like when we pour water into a real funnel. Unfortunately, this is not always the case! There are points in the sales funnel where customers tend to get “stuck.” It is important that you identify these points, monitor them, and improve them.
Find out what KPIs you can automate to improve your company’s efficiency
So how can marketing automation help?
With all the tools and functionalities that these software offer, instead of spending time on routine tasks that could be automated, you can just invest that time on more complex tasks, which must necessarily go through human intelligence. This does not mean that automation should replace people, but to make their work easier and more efficient.
While Automation can benefit different businesses in different ways, there are 5 benefits that are common to almost every business:
- Increased productivity of the Marketing and Sales teams
- Improved Lead Nurturing Efforts
- Increased revenue
- Increased customer retention
- Improved Marketing Strategy
Read on! Marketing Reporting: not knowing how to interpret results can negatively impact your business
