A simple guide to Marketing Automation for eCommerce Business
Let’s take a look at how Marketing Automation Software can help your business.
Marketing Automation has been around for a while now. Some businesses have reaped benefits from it, while some still don’t think it’s a necessary part of their business.
The complexity of marketing automation has an overwhelming effect on many people. How does Marketing Automation benefit my business? Is Marketing Automation for eCommerce worth the cost?
These are some basic questions about Marketing Automation many business owners have. With the current pandemic and the lockdown that followed it, there is a need for businesses to get smart.
Real smart, real soon.
Marketing Automation can change the way things usually work for businesses, which can be crucial in the current make or break situation we are all in.
Marketing Automation can be a key-player in businesses, particularly the ones that haven’t implemented it yet.
When used correctly, Marketing Automation Tools can make the whole business process more effective and streamline your operations.
What is Marketing Automation?
What if you could address all your audience by their first name, making your emails a bit more personalized? What if you don’t have to worry about sending emails every-time you get a new subscriber or lead?
What if you could send pre-written drip campaigns to your audience without worrying about personalizing it every-time, and to every audience type?
What if you could segment your audience and into groups and deliver hyper-personalized content, product recommendations, and offers so that your campaign generates maximum engagement and ROI?
Marketing Automation does all this, and these are only some of the things a Marketing Automation Software can do, drastically changing the ecosystem of your business functioning. Mundane tasks are automated while you focus on more important things.
Delivering personalized content that can help you build a better relationship with your customers is vital in the long run. Not only does this help with a higher conversion rate, but it also increases your revenue.
Marketing Automation enables this while structuring your operations and also takes care of marketing elements like automated email marketing, social media marketing, Omnichannel marketing, delivering personalized content tailored to a specific audience, and even support(in the form of chatbots).
The Benefits of Marketing Automation
Efficiency
We will get to the other benefits of Marketing Automation in a minute, but efficiency is something Marketing Automation Software automatically brings to the business process.
Take email campaigns, for example. Sending out thousands of emails is a menial and repetitive task. An automated email campaign is a no brainer here.
You’re saving time, customizing content for your audience, and focusing your time into something more important that could use your input.
You can schedule when the emails need to go, who it needs to go to, and what it should say. It’s the same for Social Media as well. Schedule posts beforehand, and automation takes care of it.
Tailored content via personalization
Personalization goes well beyond just addressing your audience by their first name. Let’s take a simple example.
When you have a list of diverse customers, you can’t manually personalize the content of messages and address them personally with traditional broadcast mail.
Automated emails get 152% higher click rates compared to a standard email-myemma
With automated email marketing, you can do all the above, thus increasing your open rate, and eventually, conversion rate, which is one of the primary reasons businesses want to use Marketing Automation Software.
360-degree view of your customers and business
When it comes to Marketing Automation software, you have an option to use email automation or integrate all your channels like social media with your email and website.
Omnichannel Marketing enables this.
The benefits of integrating all your channels are immense, and the way to go in the long run.
How?
According to Google, 98% of Americans switch between devices every day.
We live in a world with a multitude of devices. Mobiles, laptops, tablets are all part of the buyers’ journey. Let’s take a small example of a customers’ buying journey.
You have a social media promotion for a product you’re selling, and a probable customer clicks on it. He’s just exploring and may buy later. Here’s how Omnichannel Marketing makes this process efficient for both business and the buyer.
The same customer can receive a reminder email for that product. Or a pop-up message on his cell phone. You can even send him a small discount for a good first impression.
One common factor is, the buyer is never outside your reach. He can use any channel, but you got it covered due to Omnichannel Marketing.
The customer gets an unparalleled buying experience, and businesses have a tightly knit funnel for the customer journey.
Lead Nurturing
The biggest challenge when it comes to leads is most of them aren’t ready to buy right away. For industries with a long sales cycle, this challenge gets worse. Keeping leads interested for a very long time is no easy task.
According to Gleanster Research, 50% of qualified leads are not ready to buy.
So how does Marketing Automation Software improve lead nurturing?
As discussed in the personalization section, Marketing Automation excels in understanding user behavior and sending only customized and highly relevant content to them. All thanks to the ground-breaking technology of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
The conventional lead needs to go from the awareness stage to consideration and then the decision stage. A traditional lead nurturing method is an exhaustive process.
Multiple leads in multiple stages make this even worse.
Automated lead nurturing helps you track qualified leads and understand what works for them. Want to track if your content is helping with lead engagement? Want to know if your campaign needs any tweaking?
All this is made possible, in real-time, with Automated lead nurturing.
Now, you can send only relevant content at the right time to your leads, irrespective of where they are in the buying cycle. Don’t miss opportunities due to human error.
Chatbots have revamped customer support
There is no shortage of negative experiences when it comes to customer support.
Humans function in a different method. They need to take breaks every once in a while, and often get tired and frustrated with the same questions and queries.
Chatbots have addressed most of these issues. Chatbots are active 24/7. They don’t get tired and are quick to respond. In a world dominated by phones, chatbots have become the norm. Consider chatbots as the first line of support.
Automated messages around the clock, visual search enabled by Artificial Intelligence, zero requirements of human involvement, the list goes on in favor of chatbots. You can even teach them to give better answers.
Consistent customer experience is delivered this way. You don’t miss conversations by accident, there are no typos, and the chatbot is always consistent with its tone.
Eliminates the need for multiple software for multiple tasks
A Marketing Automation Software that offers Omnichannel Marketing can help you dispose of the clutter that’s brought by multiple tools.
Email marketing campaigns, Social Media Posts, landing pages, SMS campaigns, push notifications, in-app notifications, all in one place.
One good Marketing Automation Software will streamline your business process. Without the need for multiple tools, you can also save a good deal on licensing costs.
Here’s a blog that talks about the challenges of using too many tools.
Some Marketing Automation myths
There are many myths about Marketing Automation. No Marketing Automation Software is perfect, but these myths are generally associated with the Marketing Automation Concept.
Myth 1 — Marketing Automation is a ‘once and done’ deal
The biggest myth, probably associated with Marketing Automation Software all the time. While Marketing Automation Software is efficient, some tasks require human intervention.
Be it crafting content-rich emails for your email campaign, setting triggers for your campaign, creating content for social media posts, and scheduling them. These are some of the activities a software can’t do.
Regular scrutiny is required if you plan to use Marketing Automation Software efficiently to benefit your business.
You will have to do things like tweaking your campaigns to get better engagement rates, A/B testing, writing subject-lines, and creating content that gets you higher open rates. Don’t forget a CTA that’ll get a response from a lot of people.
Myth 2- Marketing Automation is Email Automation
Automated email marketing is a part of marketing automation, but it’s not everything a Marketing Automation Software offers. Automated Email Marketing is not to be confused with the email blast campaigns that usually end up in the trash.
Email Automation can help deliver personalized content specific to different types of audiences, provided they are properly segmented.
Email marketing can help you with metrics like open rates and click rates. However, a full-fledged Marketing Automation Software can give you insights into your campaigns and inputs on where you can improve, or let you know where you’re doing a good job.
Conclusion
All said and done, the most important thing at the end of the day is to decide if Marketing Automation Software is necessary for your business.
There’s no clear cut answer to this. Some businesses can through just by using a minimalistic email marketing tool.
Some businesses can benefit by using a full-fledged Marketing Automation software that handles everything from your website traffic to the landing page, social media campaigns to email marketing, and Omnichannel marketing.
Businesses can sometimes dismiss Marketing Automation Software as a worthless investment. Marketing Automation can’t transform every business drastically, to see some results, Marketing Automation Software should be used to its full capacity.
Proper planning is also necessary if businesses have marketing automation software in place. The features and options of marketing automation tools can be overwhelming to an unsuspecting eye.
Trying out a couple of marketing automation tools beforehand is a viable option for small businesses that aren’t ready to pull the trigger. Maybe a Marketing Automation software for small business, something like this.
