Blog

Marketing automation is marketing's answer to industrial automation. You might be wondering what marketing has to do with industrial products. Let us explain.

Marketing can be considered a factory where marketing initiatives are manufactured and distributed, just like industrial goods are manufactured and spread through assembly lines. Just like an industrial product requires raw materials, marketing initiatives need data that comes from multiple channels—data about your customer base, their preferences, behaviour, etc. This data is gathered through distinct marketing campaigns via your marketing team or your owned third-party tools and social media platforms.

Once all the information is gathered, it needs to be processed to be automated and distributed. This platform is termed marketing automation.

The Soul of Marketing Automation

The marketing automation function within marketing technology enables marketing teams to automate campaigns. It comprises four critical components: lead management, customer data platform (CDP), campaign management, and analytics. However, all these components must work in tandem and help deliver on the same goal:

• Find and engage with prospects most likely to become customers by using advertising channels such as email marketing, social media marketing, display ads, search engine optimization (SEO), etc.
• Retain existing customers by providing omnichannel personalized experiences to disseminate marketing content.
• Identify opportunities by analyzing the behaviours of all customers acquired through various marketing channels using customer analytics.

For instance, you can use marketing automation to send highly personalized messages to specific customers or prospects based on their behavioural data. You can also use marketing automation to create targeted offers that are automatically distributed based on an analysis of your customer base's buying preferences.

"Salesforce helps best in achieving what marketing automation promises."

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a set of modules that allows marketers to effectively manage all four components mentioned above—lead management, CDP, campaign management, and customer analytics. This article looks at these marketing automation modules and how they can help marketers get the most out of marketing automation.

Lead Management: Meet Marketing Objectives with Leads

Marketing automation typically begins by identifying the right prospect using the CDP tool. This tool stores all relevant prospect data in an organized manner from beginning to end—data such as contact preferences, website behaviour, custom events, etc. This dataset supports the marketing team to qualify prospects into leads that are more likely to become future customers.

Marketing Automation Campaigns: Engage Customers with Personalized Marketing Messages

One of marketing automation's most significant advantages is simplifying marketing processes, particularly campaign management. Marketers can easily create automated marketing campaigns targeted at specific customer segments to ensure that customers receive the right message at the right time, increasing engagement rates and enhancing customer retention. Moreover, measurement scales like open rates, click-through rates, etc, provide visibility to the marketing team on their invested marketing efforts.

Customer Analytics: Measure Marketing ROI with Campaign Reports

Marketers can measure campaign ROI, develop insights into customer behaviours, and identify the most effective marketing tactics to drive sales. The analytics component of marketing automation allows marketers to create landing pages that direct visitors who arrive on their website through paid advertising campaigns to specific products or target audiences. 

Marketing Automation Enables You To Get the Most Out of Your Marketing Efforts

Marketing automation enables marketing teams to automate their marketing tasks to focus on more strategic initiatives. With marketing automation, marketing teams can streamline lead management processes, simplify marketing campaign management, and help measure marketing ROI. Salesforce marketing cloud offers a customer data platform that gives marketers access to all the relevant customer data needed to personalize marketing messages.

In addition, marketing teams can schedule email blasts or tiered text messages based on specific criteria and track campaign performance from start to finish. This enables marketers at mid-sized companies and larger organizations to get more marketing bang for their marketing buck.