The Future Of Marketing Automation: Trends Small Businesses Need To Watch In 2024

What does the future hold for marketing automation? As the technologies underpinning marketing automation continue to evolve, new opportunities emerge for businesses to streamline their marketing strategies and improve their revenues.

It’s an exciting time to get involved. In this article, we’ll look at three of the important trends shaping marketing automation that businesses should watch out for this year.

1. Predictive AI

Predictive AI is one of the most exciting software developments of recent years, helping marketing automation platforms join the dots within historical data and customer interactions to plan more hard-hitting, relevant, and cost-effective marketing strategies. Predictive AI turns your CRM data into a powerful business asset, and can spot opportunities and connections faster and more effectively than humans can.

Many of the leading marketing automation platforms now incorporate predictive AI into their standard tools, so that users can more accurately forecast customer requirements, personalise marketing communications, and optimise their resource allocation. The result? Higher conversions, happier customers, and higher revenues.

2. Enhanced Data Security And Privacy

The rise of AI has made customers even more concerned about how their data is collected, used, and accessed, and this has strong implications for marketing automation. Automated or semi-automated marketing communications must incorporate consent and compliance at the design stage. Many of the recent updates to HubSpot and other leading platforms are designed to enhance their data privacy and consent features, making it easier for both businesses and their customers to stay on top of regulations and provide streamlined privacy controls.

3. Full-Scale Omni-Channel Marketing Automation

Individual customers have communication preferences, but someone who ‘only uses email’, or ‘only uses LinkedIn’ to research products and services is a rare breed. Most people use multiple online channels throughout the day, depending on where they are and what they feel like. Omni-channel marketing automation recognises this and is gaining traction among the leading platforms. Omni-channel marketing gives businesses a seamless, full funnel approach to marketing, helping create a consistent brand experience across all potential touch points, including websites, blogs, video, email, social media, and off-line interactions. All channels can be automated and managed through a unified platform, increasing customer retention and engagement.

Next Steps

Working with an experienced marketing agency, such as JDR, keeps you on the pulse of marketing technology without having to continually scan the newsfeeds or invest in new products yourself. To find out more about the benefits of working with an agency, please contact one of our team today by calling 01332 982198.

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