by Anees Mueller
February 3, 2020Marketing to a New Generation of Consumers. It sounds like something fancy for big companies, but it’s really a valuable tool for companies of all sizes that want to drive leads while improving efficiency.
It may be most critical for small businesses, where a team is often spinning a lot of plates and wondering how they’ll ever get a moment to develop an email campaign or hop on social media.
Companies report impressive results from marketing automation, with 91% indicating that marketing automation is “very important” in the execution of a successful marketing strategy.
Defining Marketing Automation
Marketing automation is a software solution that automatically generates emails, social media posts, and other marketing activities, without any manual effort on your part.
It’s important to note that while marketing automation is often confused with customer relationship management (CRM), these are actually unique tools that make advantageous partners. CRM helps manage the progression from lead to customer and ongoing service, as marketing automation simultaneously fuels that process with content and contact with the potential customer.
Marketing automation also sheds light on where the contact is in the sales funnel, which marketing activities are most successful at leading to a conversion, and which resources your leads prefer.
There are several key benefits companies can expect from their marketing automation investment:
