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What Does Marketing Automation Systems Entails

By Tammie Caldwell


When talking of marketing automation, one normally refers to software platforms and technologies that are geared towards assisting the marketing teams and the organizations at large increase their effectiveness in promoting their products in various online platforms. Products may be promoted by email, through websites and social media platforms. The platforms take over repetitive online functions from being operated by human beings. They require a command that triggers action when the required task is achieved online hence the importance of the Marketing Automation systems.

Your marketing team will define what outcome they need from the platforms. They then specify the route the task that will lead to the desired outcome. The software takes in the commands, interprets them and implements what is required. The software is very efficient unlike human effort. Recent developments have made the platforms even better in analyzing visitors behavior and how to influence them to reach marketing goals. These software are normally hosted on cloud and used as a service.

There are three categories of marketing automation. The first involves collecting relevant information to assist in realizing the marketing goals. This is called marketing intelligence. This platform makes use of tracking codes on webpages, social media, and emails to enable the marketing team track behaviors of visitors interested in the product or the service that the company is marketing. The team also gains a measure of intent.

A common scenario of such software in action is tracking and capturing the information of a client who clicks on an emailed link, checking which thread on forums is attracting more people or the social media group that has many followers. With the feedback, your team is able to develop better plans to target these areas of interest.

There are marketing automation platforms whose main aim is to move prospects down a retailing funnel. This turns prospects to hot prospects that are ready for sales proposals. The platforms score clients as they interact with the brand online and slowly create interest in the products until prospects become clients.

There are sales cycles used in the process. The most common ones include B2G (Business-to-government, B2B (Business-to-Business), and B2C (Business-to-Consumer). Marketers use these platforms to mix the traditional email retailing with a structured process of business. They do not have to chase customers that are not interested in a product, but keep in contact to those who are warming up to the products.

Some platforms are meant to ensure automation of internal retailing processes. These are referred to as workflow automation platforms. In most cases, the sales cycles are delay by the internal component that takes some time to be accomplished. Such processes include planning, budgeting, internal collaboration, development of retailing calendar among others. They check on anything that involves internal marketing process.

The rules that these programs follow are set by a CRM administrator. On their part, the platforms trigger other process to be implemented by other programs or by the sales team. These may be sending newsletter, emails, and uploading some marketing files. Marketing automation makes retailing faster and is less prone to human error.




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