When we review these stats, why isn’t everyone using marketing automation?
- 80% of marketing automation users increased their leads, and 77% increased their conversions with automation, according to VentureBeat Insight.
- 73% of marketers say the biggest benefit of automation is saving time, according to Statista.
So I did some digging. Turns out, most people said they don’t even know what it is!
But it’s actually pretty simple to get started with marketing automation. Are you ready to?
Below, you’ll learn all about marketing automation, and why it’s a vital tool for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Consider this your definitive guide.
So…What is marketing automation?
Marketing automation refers to platforms that help businesses more effectively market on multiple online channels (such as email, social media, websites, etc.) and automate repetitive tasks.
Think about a marketing task you manually tackle over and over again each month or week. For example, sending an email to your new customers. Or, sharing your most popular blog post to your social channels.
These tasks might take 10 minutes or they might take an hour. But they add up. Soon enough, you might find you’re working late into the night or into the early hours of the morning to finish them all.
There’s a better way. Instead of doing this manually, marketing automation allows you to set it up once. Then, like clockwork, automation delivers that marketing message for you. It’s truly amazing. And a priceless tool for time-strapped businesses.
Imagine a world where your best marketing content is delivered automatically to your audience at the perfect time. You watch revenue flow into your bank account. Your business grows. You optimize your automation. More revenue flows into your bank account each month. Now, you’re saving hours and making more money … and it’s automatic.
That’s the power of marketing automation.
This sounds absolutely amazing, right? But, I need to be honest with you. There’s a drawback. Marketing automation can be expensive, overwhelming, difficult to use, and frankly, scary to implement.
In fact, 50% of marketers think it’s difficult to implement marketing automation, according to the market research firms Three Deep and Ascend 2. And those are professional marketers! I can only imagine how overwhelming it must be for a small business or entrepreneur.
However, there’s one part of marketing automation that’s easy to start, affordable, and, when done well, brings in a ton of revenue. Email marketing!
Why is email marketing the most important part of automation?
Email automation is the heart of marketing automation. Simply put, it’s when you set up a series of emails to send automatically to subscribers at a specific time.
With it, you can connect with a person at every stage of their buyer journey –– from lead to a customer to brand advocate. You can build a relationship with an individual over the long term. And the best part? It runs on autopilot, creating connections and increasing revenue for you.
Without email marketing, marketing automation would be rather useless. Email does the heavy lifting –– converting your lead into a customer and keeping those customers happy. The stats prove this as well:
- Email marketing has an ROI of 4,300%, according to the Direct Marketing Association.
- Automated email messages average 70.5% higher open rates and 152% higher click-through rates than other marketing messages, according to Epsilon Email Institute.
- Email is 40 times more effective at acquiring customers than Facebook and Twitter combined, McKinsey & Company found.
Now that you know the facts get started already! And, as always, if you need help to get started with automation, given us an email using the form below.
