Marketing automation

Say goodbye to generic newsletters and carousels of content on your homepage. When implemented correctly, marketing automation can deliver big things, more leads, more conversions and sales, all with less work.

You might have heard people talking about marketing automation – But what is it and how can it fit into your digital marketing strategy?

What is marketing automation?

Marketing automation is software or a system that takes a lot of the labouring work out of digital marketing. Don’t worry, it’s not just robots taking over marketers’ jobs. Marketing automation actually serves to make marketers look good and is a tool for marketers to leverage to work smarter. Systems are set up to organise and fulfil tasks in line with your marketing aims. 75% of marketers say they currently use at least one type of marketing automation tool. Having automation systems in place allows companies to increase their customer base without having to grow their employee base.

Digital marketers still need to use their skillset to drive traffic to websites. Where marketing automation really shines is generating leads from that traffic and converting those leads into customers.

Marketing automation works by collecting customer data like location, contact information and previous site interactions. It helps you understand your customers. This makes your interactions with them richer and more profitable. With this data, website content and email campaigns can be personalised with Sitecore personalisation to deliver engaging content and nurture leads through the entire customer journey. This way, marketers can stay top of the mind with their consumers as they guide them along the customer journey with highly personalised messaging.

Personalisation frequently drives customer loyalty with 44% of consumers stating that personalised interactions made them more likely to buy from the company again. Customers appreciate it when companies treat them as individuals and not faceless consumers. This makes personalisation a key remarketing tactic for marketing campaigns.

What are the benefits of marketing automation?

Sounds good so far, doesn’t it? Regardless of the industry or channel, marketing automation platforms can help companies build personalised and seamless customer journeys.

But what are the actual benefits of marketing automation? There are some key advantages:

• Generating more leads by giving users the most engaging content for their individual needs.
• Nurture leads with automated email campaigns, targeting users who are most likely to respond.
• Identify your quality leads based on what users do or don’t respond to, saving your organisation time and energy.
• Increase customer retention with targeted marketing based on purchase history.
• Up sell and cross sell to users based on their needs and interests.
• Measure the success of your campaigns. Track what users respond to so you know what’s working.
• Increase marketing team productivity with better prioritising and streamlining of tasks.

Marketing automation can help your business succeed. It’s a tool for improving your user experience by delivering the best content to quality leads. So, you won’t waste time and resources marketing to leads who may never be interested in becoming customers. Great digital marketing requires great digital tools.

More than that, marketing automation doesn’t just serve marketers. Ultimately, by streamlining your marketing tactics you can align with sales objectives faster. Understanding the customer’s needs will allow you to cross sell and up sell. So you generate more revenue. Everyone wins.

Sitecore makes marketing automation a breeze

85% of B2B marketers feel they’re not using their marketing automation systems to their full potential. It seems the biggest use of marketing automation is email marketing, at 95% some marketers admit they’re missing out on campaign effectiveness analytics, integration with other systems and content management. As well as many more key tools.

With Sitecore, marketing automation software is built right into the platform. Every aspect of your digital strategy can be automated and personalised using Sitecore systems or those which can be easily integrated with Sitecore.

Some key marketing automation features in Sitecore are:

• Cross-channel automation – the ability to manage content across multiple channels, synchronise content and responses, no matter what device your user approaches from.
• Email Experience Management – easily integrate the system with your Sitecore CMS. Use customer data to align email marketing with your campaigns. Personalise email marketing using customer data to increase conversion.
• Sitecore xDB– the possibilities are endless with the Experience Database. The database tracks customer interactions with your business across channels and devices to make the most of real-time data.
• Sitecore Analytics – use analytics to track the effectiveness of your campaign across every channel. Stay on top of your game and increase engagement.
• Sitecore integration – integrate a whole host of marketing automation systems into Sitecore with ease. Keep everything in one place for a clear view your campaigns and strategies.
• Sitecore content management system – making content creation and management easy. Reuse content and media across multiple sites and personalise every bit of it.

With the release of Sitecore 9.2 came a number of improvements to Sitecore’s marketing automation systems. Namely the Campaign Creator has seen improvements, making it easier for marketers to create and manage marketing campaigns. There’s also been some improvements made to Sitecore’s content testing and personalisation capabilities.

Is your organisation ready to benefit from marketing automation?

Sitecore is a leading digital experience platform used by organisations globally to create seamless customer experiences. We’re Kagool, a top tier Platinum Sitecore Partner, with decades of experience in helping organisations achieve their digital goals.

Finding the right digital partner is crucial, our marketing team is made up of digital marketers, copywriters, developers and SEO experts. That’s the sort of know-how we like to share with our customers. We understand the power Sitecore gives to marketers and we want you to get your hands on it.

If you want to know more about how Sitecore works, book a Sitecore demo or drop us a line, We’d love to hear from you.