Benefits of Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is “very important” to the overall success of marketing across channels according to 91% of the most successful, according to users in an Ascend2 study. While these marketers already recognize the benefits of marketing automation, some in the industry may be late to the game, which is why we prepared this overview of the many advantages.

First off, what is marketing automation

Marketing automation software helps prioritize and execute marketing activities more efficiently. Employing automation, marketing teams and agencies can get the most impact out of segmentation of users, attribution of goals, better reporting, optimization of content, lead scoring and management improvements, insights for thought-leadership, and mostly commonly the scheduling of email to specific buyer groups based on needs and interests. Marketing automation helps improve lead to sale conversion rates, and drive retention with existing customers. Explore more: What is marketing automation?

Exploiting automation’s full capabilities to send email, generate website forms, segment databases, and score and nurture leads positions marketers to land among top performers. Specifically, Aberdeen’s Best-in-Class companies with marketing automation saw higher average website conversion rates (6.7% versus 4.7%), higher conversion rates from raw lead to marketing-qualified lead (36% versus 18%) and a greater number of marketing-generated leads accepted by sales (53% versus 27%).

Benefits of Marketing Automation

There are many marketing automation software providers to choose from. Datazyne reports Hubspot is the leading choice with 29.4 marketshare in July 2016.

Image source: Datnyze

HubSpot is the most popular marketing automation provider with 29.4% of the industry.

Nevertheless, whomever the marketer partners with for automation software, there are several benefits.

Improving lead nurturing was the number one reason (82%) respondents in a 2015 Regalix survey employed marketing automation. Yet ten reasons scored with at least 37% of respondents as a reason for marketing automation.

Source: Regalix

Data and analysis clinched the top spot (33.97%) in an American Marketing Association survey of significant marketing challenges in 2016. No wonder marketers are looking to automation software for help. Benefits include:

• Deeper insight into audience segments, source referrals, conversion or click-through-rates and more all aggregated by campaign for each client
• Greater ability to determine ROI by understanding attribution
• Centralization of cross-channel data from different marketing platforms including email, SEO, CRM tools, and social media

Image source: Conductor

Content management was the second largest challenge named by AMA marketers (33.55%). Marketing automation has benefits there too:

• Lists help separate contacts into personas to better deliver improved relevancy with communications using personalization features
• Ability to nurture leads towards sales in a scalable way
• Automated workflow triggered by customer action better nurtures and educates to improve retention and up-sell opportunities
• Build trust and relevance with all relationships by delivering dynamic content at the right time

Business growth rounded out the top three challenges (33.33%) for AMA marketers. Unsurprisingly, equipping marketing teams with automation software can address that challenge as well. Benefits include:

• Progressive profiling to collect more information to build a stronger profile on prospects, leads, customers and partners.
• Integrate customer database with communication tools to better nurture relationships
• Access details needed for lead nurturing, scoring and monitoring to help improve sales outcomes

64% marketers say they saw the benefits of using marketing automation within the first 6 months of its implementation. — Regalix

Modeling human behavior is challenging, but marketing automation can help by providing the data required to make analysis-driven choices. The deeper knowledge of leads and enhanced efficiencies of marketing automation can also reduce marketing-to-close cycle time.

Related reading
Marketing Automation Benefits for Telecom Companies
CMO Guide to Marketing Automation
B2B Marketing Automation Best Practices

Benefits of Marketing Automation Sources:
Aberdeen Group (2014). State of Marketing Automation 2014: Processes that Produce. https://www.aberdeen.com/research/9575/RR-marketing-automation-platform.aspx/content.aspx

American Marketing Association. (2015, November). What Lies Ahead. 2016 AMA Marketing Pain Points Survey. ama.org

Ascend2 (2016, February). Marketing Automation Trends Survey Summary Report. https://ascend2.com/home/wp-content/uploads/Marketing-Automation-Trends-Survey-Summary-Report-160210.pdf

Datanyze. (2016, July). Marketing Automation market share in United States. https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/marketing-automation/United%20States

Regalix. (n.d.). State of B2B Marketing Automation 2015. https://www.regalix.com/by_regalix/research/reports/state-of-b2b-marketing-automation-2015/