What is the biggest challenge that you face with marketing your business?  Is it that you are too busy with today to worry about tomorrow?  Or are you spending too much and not getting the return that you should?  The good news is that for either of these, that this is where marketing automation shines.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies that allow companies to streamline, automate, and measure marketing tasks and workflows across multiple channels (such as email, social media, websites, etc.), so you can increase operational efficiency and grow revenue faster.  In short, it is using technology to accelerate sales, while:

• saving time
• achieving more effective results

Marketing automation does this for you in two fundamental ways:  1) automated omni-channel content; and 2) automated sales funnels.

Automated Omni-Channel Content 

As you probably know, connecting with customers and trade allies in our increasingly digital age requires managing a portfolio of communication channels: email; social media; web BLOGs; and mobile.  What is common about all of these, is the importance of relevant content that is useful and meaningful to your prospects.

Sophisticated marketing automation platforms can use artificial intelligence (A.I.) to create content that is personalized to each target customer, based on their specific needs and situations.  This type of useful personalized content is much more likely to engage customers, than generalized content, which risks being viewed as spam.  In addition, engaging prospects with useful content helps to build trust and loyalty. The more engaged the prospect, the more receptive they will be to your advertising and promotions, plus it creates on-going opportunities for your business to connect with them.

Automated Sales Funnels 

Marketing automation can also save you time and improve your marketing performance by automating the process for moving prospects through sales funnels, by both increasing your sales conversion rates, as well as increasing the speed through your sales funnels.  By setting up intelligent 'event-filter-action' triggers, engaged prospects that are attracted by automated omni-channel content can be automatically nurtured towards making purchases and referrals.

In addition, good marketing automation will have tools that provide data analytics which enable creating targeted marketing campaigns that can focus on prospects that are the most engaged by your personalized omni-channel content.