Marketing automation is the secret weapon of fast-moving marketing and sales teams.
For large teams that acquire hundreds of leads through myriad channels, automation acts as a necessary filter to help sales engage with the right leads. For marketing, it acts as a savior from mundane tasks such as going through a database of leads and choosing the best ones.
Besides helping close sales deals, marketing automation is also an essential piece of the customer relationship management (CRM) process. It helps teams better recommend products and services based on the interests and needs of customers. It also helps customer service teams have more informed interactions.
In this article, we’ll delve into the history of marketing automation, where it stands today, and future trends that marketers should watch out for.
Ready to learn more? Let’s get down to business.
How Marketing Automation Started
Marketing automation is the result of the different marketing channels that we have access to today.
As economies moved from manufacturing and manual labor-focused to technology and software-focused, the channels marketers used to reach customers became more sophisticated too.
Three major marketing channels led to a surge in the amount of customer data marketers had access to, and therefore needed marketing automation software to handle.
Let’s take a look at how these channels evolved over time:
● Email marketing
On July 4, 1996, Hotmail launched and provided free access to email service to anyone with an internet connection.
Prior to Hotmail, email service was paid and thus, not accessible to everyone. Soon, email became a primary way for brands to communicate with customers. This gave rise to email marketing software and automated emails.
● Search engine marketing
Yahoo search was launched in 1995, but it didn’t have the intuitive nature of Google search results. It showed results in alphabetical order, thus not making it very useful for marketers.
The launch of Google in 1997 changed the face of marketing. Results were displayed on the basis of their relevance to a search query. Marketers were in a frenzy to produce keyword-targeted content. Search engine optimization software saw the light of the day.
In 2005, Google came up with personalized search results based on past search history. This offered even more data and opportunities for marketers.
By 2010, Google was taking strict actions towards search results and also eliminated over-optimization. Websites were forced to move over keyword stuffing and organize content to be crawled by Google. As a result, SEO software became more robust too. SEO brought in leads, which further triggered the creation of marketing automation.
● Social media
In 1997, the first instant messenger was launched, followed by Yahoo messenger, which launched in 1999.
In 2004, Facebook launched, followed by many famous social media sites like Youtube (2005), Twitter (2006), Tumblr (2007), Instagram (2010), and Snapchat (2011). All of these social media websites produced an unprecedented amount of customer data. At this point, marketing automation software not just allowed marketers to capture this data but also use it to drive customers to their products.
Facebook ads, nurture emails, personalized website greetings are some examples of marketing automation in action.
What Marketing Automation Looks Like Now
Present-day marketing automation is all about using technology to deliver personalized customer experiences throughout their journey.
Right from the time a customer lands on your website or visits your store, marketing automation helps you present them with the right content, products, and information to help further engage with your brand.
Let’s take a look at some critical components of marketing automation in today’s day and age:
● Personalized customer interactions
Each interaction a customer has with your brand, be it sales, marketing, or customer service, is tailored to reflect their needs and past experiences. For example, using data of content a lead has viewed in the past, sales executives can have more informed conversations with leads. Or in another instance, customer service representatives can see at a glance all the activities a customer has performed within your product, to recommend a relevant course of action.
● Artificial intelligence
Commonly known as AI, artificial intelligence is the ability of a computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with human beings.
For marketing teams, AI presents itself in the form of chatbots. Customers can chat with these bots regarding issues, complaints, and simple requests such as sending a receipt for their purchase. Chatbots also guide and help customers based on a predefined set of rules.
● Cloud computing and big data
If there’s one thing that defines today’s marketing interactions, it’s data. Data empowers marketers to deliver tailored experiences and delight customers all the way.
Modern marketing software is able to store large volumes of data that would be impossible to do manually. It’s not just a safe and reliable way to store information about customers, but also an accurate source of information for both marketing and sales.
● Internet of Things
IoT or the internet of things allows you to add smart computing capabilities to various devices.
While your phone and computers were the first official smart devices, today, IoT allows regular devices to be equipped with internet superpowers. Some of these include your watch, your alarm clock, your heating and cooling devices, and even your television.
Together, each of these devices produces a ton of data that is then used by marketers to further tailor and shape your experience. Picture this: you connect your smartwatch to your fitness app, which tracks how many calories you burn in a day. This tells the app about your eating preferences and fitness goals. It then pushes relevant offers for weight loss plans and fitness gear for you to buy.
Marketing Automation Trends For 2021 and Beyond
Expect marketing automation to become more robust than ever in the next year.
Here are some trends to watch out for:
● Growth of cloud computing
Cloud computing provides data centers to businesses on the internet. As more data points get generated than ever, expect more companies to invest in cloud computing centers like Amazon Web Services rather than use homegrown data centers.
● Increase in competition
As marketing automation software becomes more affordable, more companies will use it to deliver personalized and tailored experiences to their customers. This means brands will have to work harder to stand out rather than simply sending generic, one-size-fits-all marketing messages.
● Rise of chatbots
More and more brands will use chatbots to deliver seamless personalized experiences to customers. Whether customer communication comes through email, social media, or the company website, chatbots will automatically be able to answer their questions. They will also be able to recommend the best products for customers based on their feedback, reviews, ratings, and past complaints.
● More personalized experiences
With the help of AI, more brands will identify customer behavior and trends. This will help them tailor experiences across the entire buying journey, right from awareness, to purchase to after-sales.
While these trends bring a lot of exciting news for marketers, it’s important to remember automation software is only as good as the way you use it.
Don’t think of marketing automation tools as a replacement for the human element in your marketing. Instead, think of it as a supplement to your marketing efforts – a way to deliver unforgettable customer experiences. Once you start looking at software through this lens, you’ll find even more ways to delight customers, no matter how they interact with your brand.