Are you thinking about automating parts of your marketing operations? If so, know that you’re not alone.

The truth is that plenty of businesses have already automated their marketing operations. Marketing automation statistics reveal that 25% of companies use marketing automation tools extensively. 34% of companies use these tools in a limited capacity. 28% said they’re not using it but have plans to do so.

Only 13% said that they’re not using marketing automation tools and have no plans to do so anytime soon.

But why do businesses swear by marketing automation? What are the benefits of marketing automation to begin with?

Below are just some of the reasons why you should invest in marketing automation.

You’ll become more efficient

One of the biggest benefits of marketing automation is efficiency. Without automation, your marketing team has to work harder to meet its work goals. A marketing automation system takes all repetitive and menial tasks off your hands. That way, you and your team can focus on other tasks that require your full attention.

For example, marketing automation solutions can publish social media posts for you. So if you publish daily, you won’t have to log in to every social media platform you use every day. Just schedule all posts for the week or month in one go. You won’t even have to think about social media until it’s time to schedule the next batch of posts.

Having tasks like these done for you automatically frees you up to work on stuff that can’t be done by marketing automation platforms for you. This includes research for your next marketing campaigns.

And if you work with a marketing automation platform, you’ll be able to get more work done in a day. If you automate your social media and email campaigns, what would normally take hours of your day can be reduced to minutes.

Marketing automation even works on push notifications. Divatress uses SMS marketing to drive more sales. And because the company chose to automate push notifications, it was able to gain 70,000 SMS subscribers within 8 months.

Omnisend - marketing automation

Omnisend, the automation platform used by Divatress, says that 54% of the revenue it generated for Divatress came from automation.

If you’d like to see similar results for your business, then you should definitely consider using marketing automation.

You’ll make fewer mistakes

Marketing automation platforms will use the data you provide to do their jobs. So as long as there’s nothing wrong with the data source, these tools shouldn’t make mistakes.

For example:

An email marketing automation platform can not only send emails but also fill in details like the recipient’s name. And as long as all of your details are correct, the marketing automation software should be able to personalize emails every time.

But why even bother with email personalization? Is it even worth automating?

If you ask the shoe brand Birdies, its owner would say yes. After all, it was only after the company automated its email marketing process and started personalizing its emails that it experienced a 16% increase in its conversion rate.

In addition, the company also saw an 11% increase in its open rate and a 42% decrease in its unsubscribe rate.

Retention Science - conversion and open rate
Source: Retention Science

Being able to target the right people and send them emails at the right time is the key to a successful email marketing strategy. You won’t be able to handle that if you do things manually. Marketing automation tools can go through all your customer data in seconds.

So if you want to improve your sales productivity, your marketing team will have to automate at least part of their digital marketing campaign.

You’ll need fewer employees

Having too many employees can really take a toll on your finances, especially if you’re a startup or a small business. Every dollar you save goes a long way toward growing your business.

The good news is that marketing automation software can take over the tasks of several employees. So even though you’d have to spend money on a marketing app, you’ll probably still end up saving since you’re reducing your overhead costs. 

You can also use marketing automation tools like chatbots to answer questions sent through messaging apps like Facebook Messenger. It doesn’t make sense to dedicate manpower toward answering the same questions over and over when chatbot technology exists now.

Chatbots are also great at simplifying lead generation. That’s what Blush and Bar did to increase its revenue by more than $39,000.

Recart - automated lead generation solution
Source: Recart

Their new automated lead generation solution made it possible to capture user data without them having to type it in (except for the user’s email address). All users have to do is tap one of the answers whenever they’re prompted to.

Apparently, this simple change made all the difference in the world for Blush and Bar.

And maybe this is the same automated solution you need to capture more leads for your business.

You’ll become more consistent

Marketing automation enables you and your team to be more consistent with your work.

Take social media marketing as an example. An automated marketing tool can function as a hub for your team. That means you, your managers, marketers, writers, and graphic design artists can go over scheduled posts and make sure that they’re consistent in tone and quality.

You’ll become more cohesive

Depending on the marketing automation solution you use, you can assign tasks, monitor progress, make revisions, add comments, and more. You’ll know what others are working on at any given time.

How does that help you?

Say your sales team wants to have a chatbot on your site to capture potential leads. The team can check other tasks within the marketing automation software to see if there are other teams that are already working on adding a chatbot feature. That way, no team ends up working on separate projects that do the same thing.

The chatbot market, by the way, is expected to increase by $1.1 billion from 2019 to 2024 according to Technavio’s industry analysis. The market’s growth acceleration? It’s expected to accelerate at a  compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.51%.

This only shows that businesses are seeing the potential of marketing automation technology like chatbots. 

You’ll create better reports

Here’s one thing everyone can agree on:

Nobody likes doing reports.

While everyone knows how important they are, reports just take too long to create. This is especially true for those who are doing it from scratch. 

But when you use marketing automation software, you can generate a report with a click of a button. Even better, you can be sure that the data in the report will be accurate if you set everything up correctly.  

Some marketing automation software allows users to set a template so that reports come out consistently. There is even software that lets you download reports manually or sends them via email automatically.

Note: If you’re only looking for tools that can help you monitor your social media activity, here’s a list of the best social media monitoring tools.

You’ll scale your operations

A marketing strategy needs to be scalable if you want to continue growing the business. If you handle your marketing processes manually, your team would struggle to keep up with customer demand.

But that won’t be the case if you run automated marketing campaigns.

A marketing tool won’t care if you have tens, hundreds, or thousands of customers. It will continue working as you gain more customers. 

Here’s a real-world example.

Premier is a small shop that sells skateboard-related products. It has an email open rate of 73% and a click rate of 12%. Not bad at all, right? The shop manages to generate revenue of $4,000 in less than a month thanks to its marketing automation.

Klaviyo - email rates
Source: Klaviyo

How was it able to achieve success?

The owners of the company wanted to find a way to notify their customers whenever they had a sale. But they were against doing it manually since that would take up too much of their time. So they turned to marketing automation instead.

These days, their marketing automation tool would send Premier customers price drop emails automatically whenever a specific product drops its price. And that’s when the owners will notice a spike in their customers’ shopping cart activity.

Marketing automation clearly worked for this company And it can work for yours as well.

You’ll nurture leads

Lead nurturing is simpler when you rely on marketing automation. There are automation tools that will let you launch drip email campaigns. And it will track your progress along the way.

If you nurture leads manually, there’s no telling how long it would take you to do it. And the process can be complicated too, especially if you’re new to lead nurturing. Automated campaigns take care of the tricky bits so you don’t have to.

How can marketing automation and lead nurturing work together?

Automated email marketing campaigns can not only track leads but also tell you where they are in their purchasing journey. 

So when potential customers suddenly decide to abandon their shopping carts, an automation tool can send a follow-up email reminding them they have pending orders on your site.

Or if a user browses your site to look for a specific product before walking away, the automation tool can send marketing emails that can incentivize that user to come back.

Do these sorts of marketing campaigns work? Yes, they do.

According to Fresh Relevance, its clients reported an overall sales uplift of 31.6% using some of the tactics we’ve just mentioned.

Fresh Relevance - marketing campaigns
Source: Fresh Relevance

Other marketing automation strategies that worked include personalizing emails and web content. 

Marketers can also try creating custom triggers to help engage leads. For those unfamiliar, triggers are a set of actions that take place when certain conditions are met. 

For example: 

A user signing up for an account can be a condition that triggers the automation tool to send the lead a welcome email. 

Can you imagine having to manually send a welcome email to every user who signs up for your website? That’s not only time-consuming — it’s downright ridiculous. If these are the sort of tasks you need to do to nurture your leads, then you do need to get your hands on a marketing automation tool.

Should you use marketing automation?

Yes, you should use marketing automation if you can afford to do it.

Forget the fact that most automated marketing tasks are near impossible to accomplish manually. Not having to perform repetitive tasks is enough of a reason to invest in marketing automation.

Your marketing efforts will be more streamlined. Your marketing team’s attention can be redirected toward more meaningful tasks. Your sales process will be simplified. Your social media channels can look and feel more consistent. And your sales reps will have an easier time finding leads to pursue.

Staffing costs can also go down since your marketing overhead won’t be as high.

Automated digital marketing is definitely worth looking into at the very least.

Frequently asked questions

What is the meaning of marketing automation?

Marketing automation refers to the process of using software to perform repetitive tasks so that business owners and their employees can work more efficiently.

What is the goal of marketing automation?

The goal of marketing automation is to make work easier for businesses by taking monotonous or difficult tasks off their daily or weekly tasks.

What do you look for in a marketing automation tool?

Each marketing automation tool is different. You need to make sure that it can perform the tasks that you need it to do. Finding automation tools that are affordable is also a plus.

How is marketing automation implemented?

Most automation tools will require you to connect it to your website. How it does that will depend on the platform you selected. Most will come with instructions on how to do it. Some tools aren’t that complicated to use and can be configured within a couple of minutes. 

Why is automation the future of lead management?

By automating your lead generation process, you can gather more data and have clearer metrics. It also allows your marketing and sales teams to work more seamlessly together.

Final thoughts

In this day in age, there’s no good reason not to use marketing automation.

Back when automation first became a thing, marketing automation software was expensive and difficult to use.

But all of that’s changed.

Now, software is more affordable and easier to use. Some offer free plans. And some provide automation templates that you can activate & customize with a few clicks.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by automating your business.

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