We all hear about Marketing Automation in almost every facebook group, news outlet, investment opportunities, trainings or simple blogs we follow. But do we know what marketing automation is?
What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing Automation is the process that automates marketing efforts in order to reach the goals. Basically, instead of having marketing people doing repetitive tasks for the business, they get done by software.
A more official definition of marketing automation according to wikipedia:
Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies designed for marketingdepartments and organizations to more effectively market on multiple channels online (such as email, social media, websites, etc.) and automate repetitive tasks.
What marketing automation is not?
Marketing automation is not magic. Do not expect software to start working on your behalf without any involvement in setting things up or refining them from time to time.
Marketing automation missconceptions
Is not personalization: while marketing automation integrates features specific to personalization, is not only about it.
Not a new name for email marketing: email is just a channel through which marketing automation software is sending the message to the consumer. Other channels include: push notifications, text messages, banners, ad networks.
You just set and forget about it. While you can definitely forget about it and it will still bring a lot of revenue to your business, is not recommended. Consumers evolve, business the same and you want to improve things even more, because otherwise you will become outdated.
Most important features of marketing automation
- Email marketing
- Push notifications
- Landing Pages
- Campaign Management
- Lead scoring / management
- Social Marketing
- Forms and surveys
- Analytics (A/B testing & reports)