Who is using marketing automation software?

[LeadMaster]

Small companies are packing a punch when it comes to marketing automation. According to a study by Software Advice, 50% of marketing automation software buyers are companies with fewer than 50 employees. That's a large chunk of the pie.

[ryantc]

Marketing automation is a huge time saver. You can create multiple campaigns and posts ahead of time and schedule them for a time and date in the future. It allows you to reach each one of your unique customers. Rather than having to manually segments customers based on their needs and preferences, some marketing automation solutions allow you to simply create restrictions that will allow customers to be automatically separated.

[DigiWizi]

That's really cute. How do you intend to automate marketing? Spinning articles?

Marketing is not fully automated, it requires a human being. Sorry folks.

[Freelancier]

Mrs. Freelancier's company has some of the tools to do this, but as DigiWizi alluded to: it's not enough to have the tools, you also have to generate the compelling content to push out with those tools and you have to have an executable marketing plan tied to organizational sales goals. Without that, you've just got tools costing you money that won't return enough on your investment. My wife went with a company that offered to push 2 press releases a month, allow unlimited e-mail blasts, manage responses to those blasts, and to provide some marketing consulting to make sure the tools were getting used right. The problem is content... she can't generate it fast enough. So some months, one of my companies will issue a press release instead. Which works well for my companies, but isn't the best use of her company's marketing dollars.

Something to consider when someone tries to sell you "marketing automation tools".

[billbenson]

That's really cute. How do you intend to automate marketing? Spinning articles?

Marketing is not fully automated, it requires a human being. Sorry folks.

Sorry but that is BS. Everything I do is databased. I automate every function I need. If I need a new function automated, I write a new program. Takes time but a time saver in the end.

Kind of like putting a timer on a sprinkler. It goes off when it needs to. Of course sprinkler heads break and it needs to be fixed or improved from time to time. But automation saves incredible amounts of time and should not be discounted.

[DigiWizi]

@BillBenson

There are things you can do with automation such as sharing the same post via twitter over and over in specific intervals but automation will not design graphics, write an 800+ word compelling article using proper grammar or personally interact with users. If you send the same email blasts using automation I can guarantee you will find yourself blacklisted and your IP will be worth nothing.

Automation is nice for a select few things only.

[billbenson]

@BillBenson

There are things you can do with automation such as sharing the same post via twitter over and over in specific intervals but automation will not design graphics, write an 800+ word compelling article using proper grammar or personally interact with users. If you send the same email blasts using automation I can guarantee you will find yourself blacklisted and your IP will be worth nothing.

Automation is nice for a select few things only.

To be clear, I don't use social media for marketing as it is not appropriate for my product. Social media is a great thing for other types of products.

Automation when it works for your situation is a great time saver. Like the sprinkler analogy. If you can't see the value off it well...

[DigiWizi]

@BillBenson

If it works for your niche, who am I to argue?

[Brian Altenhofel]

That's really cute. How do you intend to automate marketing? Spinning articles?

Marketing is not fully automated, it requires a human being. Sorry folks.

"Spinning articles" is not part of marketing automation. Marketing automation is automating repetitive tasks such as social media posts, mailing lists, lead follow-up, etc.

Let's say I know it takes 3-6 months for someone to go from visiting my website to becoming a customer. They signup for a mailing list to download a free whitepaper (or some other means of getting them into the funnel). Perhaps a week after they sign up, I might want to follow up a bit about the services that my company offers. This follow-up email could also be tailored depending on how they got into the funnel or what other information they provided (such as ability to make final decisions).Then about 2-3 weeks later, if they haven't become a customer yet, I might want to follow up again with either another freebie or a reminder, with the content dependent on how they responded to the previous email. The process would repeat, with the content being tweaked based on response, for approximately 6 months. After that point, they can just go to the regular monthly mailing list and I can quit sending them extra sales emails trying to convert them because I know they are an extremely unlikely conversion after the 6-month mark. Every email costs money to send, of course.

In the end, such a strategy could have a cyclomatic complexity of well over 1000. It would be a waste of time and money to task someone with keeping track of who gets what email, who got what email, who read what email, who responded to what email, who responded how to what email, who responded when and how to what email, etc.

That's not even getting into keeping track of those leads. My salespeople need to know who is a qualified lead, why are they qualified, what has them interested, etc. The salespeople shouldn't have to go dig through email chains to learn about the lead that is nearing conversion - the system should tell them that information and maybe even assign a lead to a salesperson that has had previous success with similar customers.

And throughout the process, key performance indicators should be in place so that you don't have to work to find out why something isn't working.

[jrhodesbiz]

I use marketing automation...got our company on the INC 5000 and 832% growth in one year. Automation happens when behavior is tracked and responded to with pre-created content(kick ass emails, conversion assets like webinars, etc). Reaching outside the owner or team members personal capacity is possible with automation software.

We use Infusionsoft. It's not perfect, but it's now like our central nervous system:)

[DigiWizi]

Hmm, I see. I completely misunderstood what you meant by marketing automation.

Yes, of course the drip method is gold standard and actually predates internet marketing.