Friday, May 15, 2015

What Does Marketing Automation Systems Entails

By Tammie Caldwell


When talking of marketing automation, one normally refers to software platforms and technologies that are geared towards assisting the marketing teams and the organizations at large increase their effectiveness in promoting their products in various online platforms. Products may be promoted by email, through websites and social media platforms. The platforms take over repetitive online functions from being operated by human beings. They require a command that triggers action when the required task is achieved online hence the importance of the Marketing Automation systems.

The process starts when marking individuals or the department involved in marketing specifies what outcome they would like to have from any process or task that touches on marketing. The software picks up the commands, makes a quick interpretation, and implements them as needed. It is efficient and not prone to error as humans are. In the recent past, such systems have been used to analyze behavior online and its effect on overall results. Cloud hosting enables clients to use the platform as a service.

There are three distinct categories of the common Marketing Automation platforms. The commonest one does the work of collecting how the company is interacting with its online visitors. This function is called marketing Intelligence. Codes are set to track the behavior of visitors that interact with the products. They could have interacted with your firm on email, on social media or other online channel. The software goes further to measure the probability of buying the product.

Examples of tracking includes recording the link that was clicked in an email, search terms that visitors used to access a website, a forum thread that was followed or a social media group that has so many followers. Buyer behavior can be tracked by use of such links for a product x. This feedback helps the retailing team develop programs that are in line with the interests of the prospects.

There are marketing automation software that take over from the above. Its principle work is to guide the prospects down the funnel until they become hot prospects. Using set stages, they pick interested prospects and selectively gives them information until they get to warm up to the product. Prospects are scored by their behavior and the right mix given to nurture them.

There are sales cycles used in the process. The most common ones include B2G (Business-to-government, B2B (Business-to-Business), and B2C (Business-to-Consumer). Marketers use these platforms to mix the traditional email retailing with a structured process of business. They do not have to chase customers that are not interested in a product, but keep in contact to those who are warming up to the products.

There are workflow automation programs whose main work is to ensure that the internal retailing processes are automated. It is common feature to find internal sales processes delay goals that could have been achieved earlier. These processes may be internal collaboration, budgeting, planning, and coming up with the retailing calendar. The programs take charge of all internal marketing functions.

The rules that these programs follow are set by a CRM administrator. On their part, the platforms trigger other process to be implemented by other programs or by the sales team. These may be sending newsletter, emails, and uploading some marketing files. Marketing automation makes retailing faster and is less prone to human error.




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