Marketing automation – What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation is the execution of marketing actions automatically using a software tool prepared for these tasks.
By making these processes automatic, their efficiency is increased and control over their results is facilitated.
Marketing automation allows you to carry out various actions with users based on their behavior and the phase of the customer journey map in which they are.
Advantages of marketing automation
Automating online marketing tasks has various advantages for companies, and that is why it has been an increasing trend in recent times. Some of the advantages that these processes offer us are:
Efficiency
By automating these processes, efficiency will be gained since the time savings and reduction in the possibility of errors will be very substantial for those in charge of carrying them out.
Cost reduction
Likewise, it is less expensive to automate some marketing processes than to carry them out manually.
Carry out complex processes that could not be done by hand
In fact, some of these would be unmanageable if done by hand, due to the amount of variables and data that can be handled in digital marketing.
Segmentation
Automation allows you to segment the database in a much more efficient way, as it allows you to send the appropriate message to each user based on their actions and behavior.
Monitoring
It also makes it much easier to monitor these actions and their results, being able to analyze whether it is as expected or whether the strategy needs to be changed.
Marketing automation applications
The practical applications of marketing automation are multiple. These are some of them:
Generate automatic responses to events
It can be configured that certain events or “triggers” initiate a communication process with the user, without the need for the intervention of any person. For example, a confirmation email after registration.
User classification
It also allows users to be classified and segmented based on the actions they carry out (whether or not they download content, whether they open campaigns, etc.)
Establishing flows
Depending on these behaviors, you can establish branched flows through which you guide the user depending on the actions they carry out, accompanying them throughout the conversion funnel.
Lead nurturing
This allows what is known as “lead nurturing”, that is, sending leads appropriate content at each point of contact so that they end up carrying out a conversion.
Lead scoring
Leads can also be qualified with a score based on their interactions that tells us if they are closer or further from the conversion.
Marketing automation tools and channels
There are various tools and channels that we can use in marketing automation. Some of the most effective are:
Email Marketing
Through Email Marketing Automation, branched email flows can be created with campaigns that are sent depending on the behavior of subscribers with your campaigns or your website.
SMS Marketing
The SMS channel, like email, allows you to automate messages that are sent when certain events occur or do not occur by your clients and subscribers.
Social networks
Social networks also have automation tools to interact with users based on their behavior. An example of this would be chatbots.