Facts and Myths – Marketing Automation Demystified

B2B organizations value time, money and investing in the right resources. And that’s why they look for perfect technology to generate positive business outcomes.

Regardless of whether they’re small-sized businesses or large enterprises, all are tempted to have right share in the market through latest technologies.

As a marketer, you’re aware of one of the leading technologies – the marketing automation software. It is designed to meet your targets at right time. And if that’s not all, it gives you an edge over your competitors.

But just as they say nobody is perfect, technology or machines are imperfect sans human intervention. You couldn’t be carefree after integrating this marketing automation software and expect booming results in a short span.

The results vary due to innumerable reasons, while in some cases implementation process itself could prove challenging.

The below chart shows percentage of organizations that faced difficulties while implementing marketing automation:

Just as you could see here, almost 61% of the organizations found implementation a challenging process. So, would you say it’s not your cup of tea and give up? Certainly not!!

As a marketer, if you have access to the required data, you need to look for answers. The most crucial why the rest 39% didn’t find it challenging.

And if possible, could you have the same processes, aligned technologies, tactics and others to have a smooth implementation process?

Just as a quote by Bill Gates, famous American business magnate:

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”

It’s high time to quash off some myths about marketing automation that as a marketer you should be also aware of:

1. Performance would be same

Every organization has unique processes; it means the automation software would have disparate performance for all.

Let’s take a genuine example where a trainer provides training to different athletes but not all would perform same.

The trainer needs to customize his training, practice and others to bring out the best from each athlete.

As each organization follows different processes, procedures, you’d find automation giving varied results.

The bottom line is you need to make your process aligned and most suitable for the automation software to deliver optimized results.

In the below graph, you can check how organizations have rated effectiveness of automation for their businesses:

As you could see almost 32% of organizations stated that they aren’t using many features of marketing automation, with 21% stating that they are using some features, 14% using core features of automation, 14% using majority features, and 9% using all features and are optimizing it to get best results.

This shows that all organizations have different needs and use features as per the same. It could also mean they don’t have the platform to use all the features as it’s not feasible.

While a significant percentage of organizations are getting maximum results from the same marketing automation software.

Thus, it proves automation proves beneficial when the laid-out process aligns with its features.

Further, marketers could make changes in their structure, procedures, replace technologies to align with the marketing automation software. It would accentuate the benefits offered by software.

2. Large Enterprises Only use Automation

As automation software needs specific investment, the popular view is that large enterprises could only afford this technology.

This is a myth as mid-sized and small organizations could also use it and optimize to get impressive results from their campaigns. They could generate profits outweighing the investment in this technology.

As per a report, small and mid-sized businesses that integrated marketing automation increased sales share from existing customers to almost 50%. ~ Source: engagebay

This is a whopping percentage through which we understand marketing automation could bring about the right changes in organizational processes and finally the business results.

While cost might be the factor due to which fewer SMBs might not look forward to integrating this software. But considering the impressive results most are willing to try and see it for themselves.

3. Marketing Automation Emails Look Robotic

We all crave a human element in our interaction. Because once we know the other person is an automated chatbot or email, most lose interest.

Here automated emails have got the reputation of robotic emails with no warm welcome and others. This isn’t completely true; you could develop emails with a human element to send customers. Automation would just trigger and send emails at the right date and time.

First, you need to gather complete customer details to build up a personalized email. A cheerful greeting with the customer’s name and the message could strike the right chord and bring the right difference.

In the below example, you could see a personalized email that surely attracts the attention of the recipient:

In this email, the organization mentioned the date when they first started interacting with the customer, “We first met on January 13, 2018.”

It’s a huge step towards personalizing the email and the customer won’t feel that these emails are impersonal. And with that, you could see additional information such as “You’ve bought enough tea….”

It shows organization is making a special effort to make each communication useful with their customer through the right inputs.

The information such as what are customers’ needs, what they bought, how much they bought and so on, in email communication makes the recipient interested in email.

4. Marketing Automation Objective Achieved after Conversion

Businesses need sales and revenue and for that, they need increased conversions. And for this marketing automation helps you achieve the same. But does its job end here? If you heard so, it’s a myth.

Businesses do need sustainable growth with continuous engagement with their customer. For that, they need to send continuous emails to customers to be on top of their minds.

The stratagem for this is marketing automation. It facilitates the entire process to have a healthy relationship with customers.

An old or existing customer, with continuous interaction, has a better understanding of each product and service of the organization. Further, you could easily motivate them during upselling and cross-selling.

Find the below flowchart to understand how a simple email campaign works through marketing automation:

In this, you can see the promo email, where as a marketer, you could keep track of whether your email campaigns are successful or not.

After you know customer has visited your URL, you can give the lead score. Wait for two days, you can send message or tweet.

If they didn’t visit the URL, you can add a note to the same and look into this later. This entire process is to track who is interested in your promotional campaigns and outreach them to maintain relationships for future deals.

5. Marketing Automation Would Remove the Need for Planning

This is a big myth. While marketing automation significantly helps your campaigns, you can’t nullify the importance of marketing planning. Without proper planning, you can’t move ahead to execute your campaigns.

If anyone thinks that they can set the marketing automation software and get results, they are seriously mistaken.

You need to have a high-level strategy such as at which stage you need marketing automation, for which process you need etc.

And sometimes marketing automation also helps develop strategy like segmentation, develop right subject line among others.

So, What are the Marketing Processes that you Should Consider Automating?

You should always consider automating a process that is repetitive and needs to be executed at the right time. Email marketing fits in the automation process perfectly.

• Promotional emails: These emails help increase sales. But you should send it at the right time to catch recipients’ attention otherwise you could lose your customer to a competitor.
• Newsletter: These emails help nurture relationship with your prospect or existing customer. And later you could upsell or cross-sell your product or service to old customers. New prospects who have subscribed to your newsletter could also have a better understanding of your product and service.
• Cold emails: This is one of the tedious tasks if executed manually. So, for this, you should consider marketing automation. As you’re yet to develop relationship with this audience, these emails would make your task easier to disseminate information about your product or service to a broader audience segment.

Conclusion

As we understand marketing automation is the solution for your business process. But you can’t entirely depend on it to derive results.

You need to make the environment suitable so that it flourishes to lead you on the right path. Once you decide that you aren’t entirely dependent on technology and let the technology rule you, it would be used rightly for your benefit in the long run.

This blog presents some common myths that most readers have about marketing automation. It further helps you make the right changes in process.

And give deeper insights into using the technology rightly to connect with target audience. It doesn’t matter which organization are you, integrate it into your process whenever the need arises for the benefit of your organization as a whole.

About the Author!

With over 10 years of experience, Christina Milian is a successful B2B Marketing Manager at Prospect Wallet. Her B2B expertise has enriched Marketing processes in many organizations with increased Marketing ROI and Brand value.