Marketing automation is the process of using technology to improve communication and activities, and increase their effectiveness. Marketing automation is based on the possibilities of AI and machine learning. The potential of modern technologies enables effective generation, segmentation and use of various types of data about customers, allowing you to understand their needs and preferences better.
By tracking and analysing user behaviour online, marketing automation software helps create personalised shopping journeys across multiple channels that add up to a unified customer experience. This improves sales funnel efficiency, quickly turning your existing lead base into satisfied and loyal customers.
Does such an optimistic scenario always come true? Unfortunately, no. There are issues that may block you from achieving the effects of using this tool to its full potential.
When using marketing automation tools, you need to systematically and methodically work on configuration, build workflows, and optimise processes. Howevern, how can you deeply engage in these activities when you’re mostly “putting out fires,” your e-mail inbox is overflowing, and your schedule is maxed out with tasks to complete?
Just understand that you don’t have to and actually you shouldn’t do everything yourself. The best marketing automation service providers relieve their clients from tedious installation, analytical or even strategic work by equipping their tools with intuitive modules for statistics, tutorials, ready‑made e-mail templates or automations for a specific type of campaign or stage of the sales funnel. In this case, understanding the tool and its configuration will take much less time. If you can see that the system you are currently using does not have any of the above-mentioned functions, it is worth considering re-researching marketing automation tools available on the market.
Although marketing automation tools usually have a rich portfolio of functionalities, in practice, it may turn out that the business you run needs an individualised approach. So, when choosing a marketing automation system, you have to verify its capabilities and confront them with the needs of your e-business carefully. For example, it may turn out that the system does not offer integration with your CMS or other programs that you use and from which you aggregate data essential for your company.
Marketing automation software is often implemented in companies due to the prevailing market trend or promises made by the system provider about generating profits and facilitating the management of the sales process. However, software installation or licence purchase alone will not help in the practical implementation of marketing automation.
What is needed is a person with knowledge and experience who knows the company’s business goals and is aware of the possibilities offered by marketing automation. Equally important here is support from the system provider, who will point out scenarios worth implementing, solving business problems and targeting the needs of a specific group. Before changing a tool, check whether your target tool provider offers consultation, technical support or access to an extensive knowledge base with technical instructions and know-how advice.
Another of the reasons why marketing automation doesn’t work is that it is often perceived only as sending mailings to a given group of recipients. Meanwhile, no company has one typical customer with specific shopping preferences or consumption patterns who prefers only a particular communication channel.
It’s important to remember that marketing automation combines technologies and tactics that provide a 360° view of the customer. If you don’t take advantage of all the benefits of the system, you are wasting most of your money. Functionalities such as behavioural and RFM segmentation, lead nurturing using dedicated communication scenarios, chatbots or user engagement tracking on the website allows you to show your store offer exactly where your customers are, at appropriate time in their purchasing cycle, with clear goals and in a manner oriented towards solving a given problem or encouraging them to perform a specific action.
Automation does not include the concept of personalisation. While marketing automation tools have many crucial functionalities, we often find that their users don’t always understand the potential of segmenting customers and targeting them with personalised messages. This makes it easy, despite automated processes, to target the wrong message to a portion of your customers and, for example, offer a promotional offer for anti-wrinkle creams to a group of young women.
So, make sure you collect data that allows you to deliver valuable content that people are most interested in and meets their needs. Also, tailor the tone and form of your communications to your target audience. For example, use language that your customers understand and remember that you create content for people, not search engines.
The marketing automation problems identified above are, contrary to appearances, quite common and concern a large part of users of this type of systems. Most of them are usually associated with not using the full potential of the tool and not understanding the function – and it’s not always the user’s fault. If you feel that any of these points apply to you, it’s time to focus on the topic again.
A solution that may turn out to be a helping hand for you is the CDXP platform, which is already a class higher than the standalone Marketing Automation tool. It uses the full potential of customer data thanks to additional functionalities belonging to the categories of CRM, Account Management and sales automation.
Thanks to CDXP, it is possible to, among others:
From your point of view, it is also extremely important that you get everything from one provider, the tools are integrated with each other and allow a multidimensional approach to automation.
We encourage you to make an appointment today for a free consultation, during which we will take your marketing automation problems apart. You will learn how to make marketing automation work in practice and what tools are worth choosing to bring tangible benefits to your business.
