What Is Marketing Automation And Why Does It Matter?

Marketing automation is an essential strategy for SMEs looking to operate more efficiently and derive a stronger ROI from their marketing budget. In this article, we explain what marketing automation is and how it can benefit your business. Simply put, marketing automation is the process of using software to streamline, automate, improve, and measure various marketing workflows and tasks, saving you time, reducing your expenses, and improving overall performance.

So, How Does Marketing Automation Work?

Marketing automation platforms use ‘triggers’, actions, and customer decisions to execute tasks across various platforms and channels. For instance, when a new prospect fills out a form on your website, a marketing automation platform (e.g. HubSpot) might automatically add them to your CRM or send them an automated follow-up email with a welcome message. The platform could also notify your sales team if the lead takes a specific action, such as requesting a lead magnet e-book or visiting your services page.

This is valuable for businesses because instead of needing an employee to manually complete each step, marketing automation works quietly in the background and handles these workflows automatically, saving your team valuable time and resources.

What Are The Benefits To You?

Marketing automation addresses the three biggest scarcity challenges faced by SME business owners – time, resources, and scalability. Here’s how:

1. Saves You Time

Automation streamlines or eliminates repetitive manual tasks, allowing you and your team to focus on more value-driven and big-picture strategies. For example, instead of spending hours manually scheduling social media posts, you can use an automated tool to plan weeks’ worth of content in just an hour.

2. Improves Personalisation:

Automation benefits your customers as much as it does your own team. Tools like automated segmentation and triggered workflows allow more personalised and targeted communication. Making use of behavioural data, marketing automation platforms can personalise email messages based on a customer’s genuine interest and interactions, to improve conversions and satisfaction. A personalised and targeted email campaign, for example, usually has significantly higher engagement rates compared to a more generic campaign.

3. Streamlines Lead Management:

Marketing automation platforms can track, score, and nurture your leads, helping you identify the prospects that are most ready to buy and which need more guidance through the sales funnel. This helps your sales and marketing teams to focus their efforts on the most promising leads, improving productivity and boosting conversions.

4. Improved Consistency Across Your Marketing Channels:

One of the biggest challenges in delivering a digital marketing campaign is brand consistency. Marketing automation tools support cross-channel consistency over time by making it easier to deliver cohesive messages within your social media updates, website platforms, blog, and email campaigns. This strengthens your brand, improves memorability, and gives your customers a more unified and compelling experience.

5. Turns Data Into An Asset For Your Business

Automation platforms generate a large volume of data that can be used to inform you of what campaigns are working well and which ones aren’t. Using analytics and reporting capabilities, these enable you and your senior team to make more data-driven decisions to maximise your marketing ROI.

What Next?

If you would like to find out more about marketing automation and how to get started, please download a free copy of our HubSpot Marketing Automation Guide today by clicking here.