Marketing Automation is the use of technology to automate the management of marketing processes across several platforms concurrently. Utilizing custom workflows, companies can target customers with a series of web, email, text, and social media communications filtered through consumer preferences and previous data. Marketing automation platforms address sales and marketing strategies and can produce customized experiences to enhance the business's customer relationships.
Marketing automation tools can manage and automate repetitive tasks, such as new customer email campaigns, ongoing drip campaigns that nurture leads, and scheduled social media posts across several platforms. Marketing automation software uses triggered actions to set off automated marketing tasks such as email marketing and lead generation. For example, a prospect's click of a "learn more" button on one of several landing pages can initiate a series of nurture emails and scheduled touchpoints. Marketing teams can create workflows across multiple channels to personalize which marketing campaigns consumers will see and when.
Automation software can reduce the amount of time employees spend on repetitive tasks, thus freeing them to work on innovative marketing plans and improved strategies. Automation reduces employee errors, which is invaluable when qualifying and nurturing a lead. Marketing automation also allows for data collection and analytics. Once marketing data, such as campaign emails opened, clicks on a webpage, or online forms completed, is collected and analyzed, marketing automation can then create custom workflows based on that behavior.
Previously, marketing campaigns have been difficult to measure and appropriately track. With the advancement of digital technologies, marketing efforts can now be traced from the initial point of contact through the nurture period, the sale, and all continued interactions with the brand.