23 January 2023 857 words, 4 min. read

Marketing automation: definition, advantages, and platforms [Guide 2023]

By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab PhD in marketing, director of IntoTheMinds
Marketing automation simplifies the life of brands. Its ability to relieve and strengthen companies’ marketing and sales teams makes this process a must in sales prospecting. You need to use the right marketing automation platforms to implement it properly. MailChimp […]

Marketing automation simplifies the life of brands. Its ability to relieve and strengthen companies’ marketing and sales teams makes this process a must in sales prospecting. You need to use the right marketing automation platforms to implement it properly. MailChimp and GetResponse are two good examples. This article aims to define the boundaries of the concept before explaining its 3 main advantages.

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Summary


What is marketing automation all about?

Marketing automation allows you to streamline and measure the tasks and workflows of your teams. It includes different processes, such as trigger marketing. These tactics serve several purposes, among which we find:

Among other things, this article aims to deconstruct many misconceptions about marketing automation. Indeed, any automatic action, such as scheduling posts on social media, is considered marketing automation.

In reality, it is about understanding and personalizing interactions with potential customers across different online channels in a scalable way. It’s about understanding their interests and buying stage and providing them with relevant information at the right time, all in an automated way.


 

What are the 3 advantages of marketing automation?

As mentioned in our definition of marketing automation, we are dealing with a business tactic with many benefits. Apart from the personalization of customer interaction, we detect 3 other major advantages:

  • good lead management
  • better understanding of customer needs
  • refinement of target marketing

 


Good lead management

Marketing automation streamlines and simplifies customer conversion. To do so, it proposes more information to generate leads faster. In addition, brands can use it to keep in touch with prospects far from buying. Ultimately, this marketing process strengthens relationships with prospects and customers. Automation allows for an effective and effortless relationship.

But that’s not all; this marketing strategy proposes to qualify prospects while improving internal collaboration between marketing and sales teams. To implement it, brands can opt for dynamic and multi-channel content marketing. For email marketing, timing and personalization are key success factors. In doing so, it helps companies to connect with their prospects and customers more deeply.


Better understanding of customers

Secondly, marketing automation helps to understand its customers better. It tracks their behavior and demographic data to establish the personas of typical customers. In the end, brands model the preferences of their audience. As a result, customer satisfaction and loyalty are enhanced.

In addition, it smoothes the progression of prospects through the conversion funnel. Customers now want brands to see them as individuals, not as a group of consumers. So, marketing automation helps companies meet these needs without overloading work. In addition, companies gain a deeper understanding of the market.


Improving target marketing

Finally, let’s look at targeting. Targeted campaigns are becoming the norm for companies that use marketing automation. We are talking about one of the main strengths of marketing automation. It allows brands to improve their targeting thanks to efficient and correct audience segmentation. This increases the possibilities for communication and business development tenfold.

This process must be used wisely, which is why effective automation platforms are used. These platforms are based on autonomous technologies to:

  • track data in real-time
  • monitor prospect and customer engagement and behaviors
  • ensure a consistent return on investment
  • consolidate strong customer loyalty

plateforms marketing automation


The top 2 marketing automation platforms in 2023

Many platforms allow you to apply the precepts of automation correctly. We have selected 2 of them, both known for their ease of use and numerous features. Here is a quick presentation of MailChimp and GetResponse.


marketing automation MailChimp

MailChimp

User-friendly and complete, MailChimp is one of the best-known marketing automation platforms on the market. Its best asset remains its ability to set up automated campaigns. Here are some examples of marketing actions made possible by MailChimp tools:

  • Automation of emailing campaigns
  • Creation of more personalized content
  • Finer audience segmentation

Thus, it offers many advantages specific to automation! Moreover, it simplifies the work of marketing teams thanks to fun and optimized reporting. Also, the platform integrates perfectly well with the following:

  • customer relationship management (or CRM) systems
  • social networks
  • and e-commerce platforms.

As a result, companies connect more easily with their customers. They also automate their operations with ease. For small companies, MailChimp offers a free plan and an extensive pricing schedule for medium to large companies.


marketing automation GetResponse

GetResponse simplifies automation for newbies

With GetResponse, the possibilities for configuring marketing automation are numerous and transparent. This way, brands can start emailing and content creation from scratch! Also, they save precious time thanks to the automation of:

  • landing pages for their domain
  • webinars
  • forms
  • and so on

GetResponse stands out from the competition because of its attractive, easy-to-implement, and modern visuals. Effectively, the platform has many pre-made templates and automated set-up methods. In other words, brands that are new to the field can launch their campaigns more quickly. In addition, the website is compatible with a wide range of CRM systems, just like MailChimp. To sum up, GetResponse also proposes various pricing plans for small and large structures.

 



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