Why you should focus on Marketing Automation
We’ve already talked about the Digital trends for 2015 and one of those is Marketing Automation.
But what exactly is it? And how can it be really helpful for your business? To have a better understanding of it and how it works I talked to Raz Choudhury, CEO and Founder at LeaDNA. “LeaDNA was built from the ground up to allow organizations to scale their growth through innovative marketing automation software and demand based lead generation.”
Enjoy it!
Raz Choudhury, CEO and Founder- LeaDNA
1- Hi Raz, thanks for your time! First of all, what is Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation is a broad term and can mean many different things depending on the software and who is using it. In general a marketing automation platform is used for organizations to efficiently market across multiple channels (social media, email, websites, etc.).
The idea is that in order to keep up with trends in Big Data, market competition, and growing engagement with digital content, marketers have to be able to reach prospects across multiple touch points at the same time.
Marketing automation allows users to automate marketing tasks (such as social posts, direct mail, or email follow-ups) based on the specific rules entered. Marketers can then leverage this technology to nurture and reach leads at exactly the right moment in the sales cycle.
In-depth analytics and intel on lead behavior is a key factor in both the usability and applicability of a marketing automation platform (MAP). Really good software collects the right data into a single platform and empowers marketers and sales people to make more informed decisions based upon this information.
2- How can marketing automation cut on time and costs?
Good, marketing automation can save time and money in many ways. First off, automating menial tasks allows users to spend more of their work hours on “big picture” projects. For example, let’s imagine that a company gets around 15 people per day to click on their call to action and fill out a form.
Marketing automation can be used to reach out to those leads after they’ve filled out the form, in order to prompt them to move further along in the sales cycle towards conversion. The really cool thing is that the automated response for those 15 people can be set to have different triggers (meaning if John looked at pages X and Y before filling out the form, he could get a different email than Julie who only looked at page X before filling out the form).
What this means on a practical level is that now your marketing or sales people don’t have to spend 1- 2 hours drafting individual follow-up emails to these clients. The software will do it, and it will automatically import any relevant consumer behavior to inform its process. This means that the marketing professional has more time to work on demanding projects (such as content strategy).
It’s proven that marketing automation can lead to significantly shorter sales cycles, meaning that leads are converted into clients at a faster rate. Combine this with the fact that marketing automation can generate 50% more sales ready leads at less cost per lead, and the benefit in terms of ROI isn’t hard to see.
The other big way marketing automation saves time and wasted dollars is by dealing with human error. Work, sales calls, and the constant barrage of emails can really affect the performance of sales teams. With automation you don’t really have to worry about a typo, addressing the wrong person, or brand dilusion; everything is set up from the get-go. Human error is most often associated with menial, repetitive tasks, where people kind of zone-out mid-task. Our idea is to let the automation take care of the drudgery, taking the burden off the sales team and empowering them to close bigger and more deals.
With LeaDNA, automated lead touch point frequency and response monitoring cultivates leads effortlessly, increasing the chances of developing leads into clients. Data visualization actually shows you when leads are ready to convert, informing smarter business and marketing decisions.
3- What are the industries and businesses that could benefit most from it?
Honestly, for most any organization that does or wants to do its own marketing, and at the same time is interested in integrating some of their sales practices with a broader marketing agenda — marketing automation is hugely valuable.
That being said, from research, case studies, and our nearly 20 years of experience working in the tech industry, we’ve noticed how different industries and market interactions get different sorts of value out of marketing automation.
The software we provide, LeaDNA is specifically designed with a set of features and interface so that it works extremely well for channel marketing. What I mean by “channel marketing” in this sense is the ability for a company or organization to set overarching marketing rules for their clients – essentially streamlining sales cycles in different regions and the overall marketing message at the same time.
We really think this changes things. Because what it means is that company owners don’t have to worry if their regional Marketing Directors or contracted talent is up to par and staying consistent with the company’s brand message. Using software to give managers, owners, and other professionals the ability to automate high-level business and marketing activities — while at the same time empowering regional and local users to benefit from analytics and sales intelligence — we think this is game-changing.
LeaDNA’s UI design, fully integrated marketing platform, and lead generation engine make it so that many different user-types can gain essential analytics relative to their field and automate their marketing and sales activities based upon that information.
B2B, B2C, Marketing Agencies, as well as manufacturers and franchisors that sell through their channel partners — all of these groups can get a lot out of marketing automation.
4- How can LeaDNA help companies generate new leads?
While our marketing automation platform engages your clients and nurtures existing leads, the Lead Engine amplifies your online visibility to generate new leads and convert them into clients.
The Lead Engine allows you to switch on or off digital advertising campaigns on Search, Social, Display and Content Networks. To help convert newly generated leads, the Engine offers your sales team unparalleled insight and tools, including a full CRM.
5- According to your clients what is the most demanded need today for a marketer?
From the people we talk to and work with everyday, one of the biggest gaps marketers face is more detailed analytics on lead behavior. People tell us that they want to know more about how users interact or show interest in a product or service, in order to shape better marketing and business strategies as they move prospects through the pipeline.
LeaDNA includes a pixel tracking system, so this gives you really detailed data on how users interact with web marketing content. How long did they stay on this page before moving to another page? How many people opened this email, what were the differences like? What marketers want is to have all of this robust information available at their fingertips, nearly instantaneously, and in a sales-ready format. This is what our product offers.
We take it one step further though. We don’t only provide all the data marketers need, we provide the platform to apply this data into automation rules and create smart, omnichannel marketing campaigns.
Great Raz! Thanks for the chat!
If you want to discover more about Marketing Automation and LeaDNA download the FREE reports HERE
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