People are constantly on the go. Their attention turns a million times a minute, and engaging at key times is vital for any marketing team to succeed. It’s at this moment of timely engagement that automation shines.
With such a variety in marketing tools currently available, it can be hard to narrow down which ones will suit your brand’s needs the most. The place all marketing teams should start? Marketing automation.
What is marketing automation?
Marketing automation is a tool that helps marketing teams turn manual processes into automated systems. This means that they can set up an automated stream and let software take care of the rest.
Marketing automation software automatically sends out email campaigns to your brand’s email subscriber list. It’s done based on specific triggers you’ve predefined. And it delivers real results.
Automated emails get an average of 86% higher open rates and produce around 196% higher click-through rates. They also have the potential of generating 320% more revenue than the average promotional email does.
With numbers like that, it’s no wonder marketing automation is continuing to rise in popularity.
It’s worth noting that marketing automation software comes in various shapes and sizes, catering to more than just email marketing.
While some larger brands may need marketing automation software that has all the bells and whistles, smaller brands would be wise to analyze their goals and focus on only the features they need to help keep them from becoming overwhelmed.
What are the benefits of marketing automation?
1. Improved productivity
One of the most beneficial factors of marketing automation is the fact that it helps to improve overall productivity. For example, in email marketing, the point of this tool is to help automate your email campaigns, simplifying the process of having to go through your list, find suitable subscribers, and send them relevant content individually.
Instead, you set up a customer journey map, define your campaign’s specific triggers, and let automation take it from there.
2. Increase in revenue
When used correctly, marketing automation can and will help you see an increase in revenue. In fact, many B2B marketers with a successful lead-nurturing program reported an average 20% increase in sales opportunities.
Marketing automation features, such as list segmentation, can help you deliver quality, relevant content to your readers, increasing the likelihood of them moving through your funnel.
3. Tangible, measurable results
We’ve shown you how marketing automation can help you see increases in valuable email marketing benchmarks. What makes this software even more helpful is that they track these results for you, meaning that you don’t have to use multiple tools and stress over information overload.
How to measure the success of your marketing automation efforts
Email marketers rely on key performance indicators (KPIs) to tell them whether or not their marketing efforts are paying off. Measuring the success of your marketing automation efforts can be done by monitoring these KPIs and comparing them to your industry’s averages:
- Email open rate
- Email click-through rate
- Deliverability rate
- Bounce rate
Does marketing automation really matter?
In our fast-paced society, utilizing tools to help simplify and automate our daily processes are worth investing in. Marketing automation is absolutely worth it because it can not only increase productivity, but it also delivers timely, relevant content that your audience is sure to engage with.
What now?
Now that you know the basics of why marketing automation is an essential part of your marketing toolbox, it’s time to start implementing it. Check out our piece on marketing automation and learn more of the benefits and how to use Campaign Monitor’s tools to your advantage.