Do you know the potential value of each visitor to your website? How do you decide which prospects need nurturing and which are ready to make a purchase? How can you understand the value of your marketing campaigns? Marketing automation provides these answers.
What Is Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation is a type of software platform which enables you to track, grow and develop online interactions as they progress towards sales conversions. From website performance to digital campaigns, marketing automation simplifies repetitive marketing tasks. The greatest benefit of marketing automation is that every aspect of your digital marketing can be regulated and evaluated in one place, providing control whilst saving time. You can learn more about Marketing Automation with these great articles:
- 12 Reasons Why Marketing Automation Works for Small Businesses
- Why Marketing Automation And How It Works?
- 5 Statistics That Will Change Your Mind About Marketing Automation
How Does Marketing Automation Work?
The metrics provided by marketing automation enable you to evaluate the success of every element of your digital marketing. You’ll gain insight into which channel visitors used to access your site; such as organic search, paid ads, landing pages, social media or email campaigns. The way prospects behave within your site can be tracked, to build a picture of the entire online journey. For example, if a prospect clicks on product information and then proceeds to a section on pricing, they are indicating an increased level of interest in making a purchase. Once you have determined where the customer is placed in the buying cycle, you can identify prospects to progress into your sales funnel and prospects requiring longer term nurturing.
Why Nurture?
Let’s consider that 85-95% of prospects are not ready to buy straight away. Marketing automation enables you to nurture leads over a longer sales cycle. Notifications are issued whenever a prospect accesses online content, alerting you to their specific interests. You can then send further useful content related to the products the prospect has shown an interest in. This approach maintains the prospect’s attention, making them more likely to purchase from you when the time is right.
Through marketing automation you’ll begin to understand which campaigns, content and calls to action generate the most positive buyer interactions and areas which don’t work so well. Areas requiring additional resource or a new approach are highlighted, to help you appeal to the right audiences and generate higher quality inbound leads.
The Right Content At The Right Time
Understanding the type of content your prospects find the most valuable can also help you determine where to focus resource on content creation. Do your ideal prospects present buying signals after downloading an e-book, accessing a case study relevant to their industry, viewing product videos or clicking on a call to action, sent with a thank you for downloading content? Once you know what content medium engages positively with your client base, replicate this regularly to maximise brand appeal.
The Facts & Figures
Statistics from the State of Digital Marketing 2016 Report reveal 55% of companies have already adopted marketing automation technology. Online blog posts and articles are rated as the most effective form of content marketing, with e-newsletters, infographics, whitepapers, videos and webinars also providing a valuable return on investment. The report also revealed that 52% of marketers found a lack of strategy the biggest barrier to marketing automation.
What Does This Tells Us?
While most businesses have a website presence and engage in some ad hoc social media marketing, the number of businesses lacking an overall strategy highlights the importance of understanding the buyer mind set and tailoring your digital marketing around this. Creating valuable content and combining marketing automation with content marketing has been proven to provide the most effective way to increase higher quality inbound leads.
At JDR, we’ve partnered with leading software providers, so businesses can take advantage of our preferential rates and managed marketing automation service. Contact us today to find out how solutions such as HubSpot Marketing Automation will provide the efficiency and control your business needs to attract and convert the right customers.
