What is the future for Marketing Automation?
Marketing is a broad subject and there’s constant development happening, the last couple of years it’s been going at a record pace. It’s not enough to put together a nice ad-copy and hope for the best, you need data to make sure your message reach the right audience at the right time.
Will all marketing be automated?
In the future marketing will become more and more data driven, but that doesn’t mean the role as marketer will disappear! Instead, to get more success in the future you’ll need to sharpen your knowledge about data driven marketing. The company or marketer that manages to collect and handle data the right way will also become the most successful.
In other words, to stay competitive and achieve amazing results, you’ll need to become an expert with the new data driven marketing tools you’ll have access to.
CRM systems creates better overview
As a marketer you’ll need access to a centralized source for all your data. The more marketing tools you use, the harder it becomes to keep track of all the data when it’s spread out across all systems. By using a CRM system as a centralized source for all your data, you’ll have an easier overview of all your data.
Do you want to know more about Lime CRM and how it handles data? Contact us for a personal demo!
Create more than just personal newsletters
When you receive a newsletter with a headline that reads “Hey XXX”, where XXX is your name, you’ve received a newsletter that’s been enriched with data. This kind of newsletter usually creates more engagement from the reader, which is the reason why it’s so popular to use among marketers. But it’s no longer enough to use this kind of personalization for newsletters.
Instead of just using the first name of the recipient, the Marketing Automation of the future demands that you make your newsletters even more personal. For instance, when your recipient has visited a landing page or added a product to their checkout but didn’t complete the purchase, you’ll need to tie the customers signal to your next newsletter. It might mean that you send a newsletter where you write about your pricing to motivate the cost of the product, maybe it’s ecological or recyclable? Or it’s enough that you include a 10% discount code for the product to nudge the customer to complete the purchase. Either way, you’re using a data signal from the customer to make the next newsletter they receive more personal and relevant to their behavior and needs.
By using data when creating newsletters, you’ll get more relevancy and strengthen your brand with your customers. Who wouldn’t like to receive newsletters that “get you”? Data driven insights like these will become bigger in the future, and it will require that you have control over your data.
AI and Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning has laid the foundation for using Marketing Automation on a bigger scale. Tools that help you write content with the help of AI already exists and helps you create content faster than ever before, and they keep getting better and better with time! You can use AI to generate ideas, create articles and content or to try out different kinds of headlines, the possibilities are endless!
Does that mean AI will replace you as a marketer? No, not right now at least. There’s still a need for a human marketer to proofread the content or enhance the texts. But with the help of AI you’ll be able to get a fast brief to rework and refine without the same effort you’d normally have to use. It makes it easier for you to scale up your marketing and reach more recipients faster and easier than ever before.
One-way communication is disappearing
One thing is certain, one-way communication towards customers will disappear more and more. It’s not enough to send out a message and hope for the best, instead you should invite your customers to have a conversation with your brand. By using chat tools on your website, you create an opportunity for visitors to have a conversation directly with your brand.
You can have a chatbot that handles the most frequently asked questions, where a human operator can take over once the questions become too complex or the customer shows interest in buying a product. A chatbot is already a great tool to start a conversation with your visitor. Don’t be afraid of creating a personality for your chatbot either, some of the worlds biggest companies use different personalities for their voice assistants to stand out in the crowd. By giving your chatbot a personality, you can use it to enhance the feeling of your brand when your customers are having their conversation with it. Just remember to be clear with your customers that they’re interacting with a chatbot and not a human, it doesn’t cost you anything to be honest! With this kind of solution in place you’ll be able to save money and time on customer support and open more ways for your customers to communicate with your brand.
With Lime Chat on your website, you’ll be able to integrate all data so it also flows back into your CRM and Marketing Automation system. Do you want to know more?
Marketing and Sales will have closer interaction
There’s a gap between the marketing department and the sales department at many companies. Both departments are working to capture the attention of potential customers, but they’re doing it in completely different ways. This kind of gap between marketing and sales can cause confusion with the communication and messaging your potential customers take part of. That’s why marketing and sales will have a closer interaction between themselves in the future, so they can use each other’s strengths for better results.
How does Marketing Automation help narrow the gap between departments? We will see more internal communication between departments being handled by a Marketing Automation system. With a Marketing Automation system, you can easily set up automated flows with internal communication. Instead of having emails being sent to marketing all the time, why not send it directly to the responsible person in sales depending on what action the customer takes during their customer journey? This would be possible with a Marketing Automation system.
When it comes to doing this kind of internal communication it’s of critical importance to also have a CRM system in place that collects all data in one spot. By integrating your CRM system with your Marketing Automation system, you’ll have access to all data at all the right moments, so you never loose focus on your customers during their customer journey.
With improved internal communication, it’s also important to increase the quality of the leads being sent to the different departments. By using Lead Scoring you’ll be able to assign leads a value and increase the quality of the MQLs that’s sent forward. In the future, both marketing and sales will agree on what criteria is most important for a qualified lead, and this is where Lead Scoring will become an important part.
Does it feel overwhelming?
One thing is for sure, it’s not as easy to have control over the customer journey as it used to be. By using a Marketing Automation tool such as Automated Flows combined with Lime CRM, you’ll get better control over your customers journey through your marketing channels.
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