Marketing automation is all about using software to automate marketing activities. Many marketing departments automate repetitive tasks such as email marketing, social media posting, and even ad campaigns — not just for the sake of efficiency, but so they can provide a more personalized experience for their customers. The technology of marketing automation makes these tasks easier.
Marketing automation is powerful, which also means to make it work, you must understand all its components and nuances. This page has compiled some of our top resources that will help you understand those nuances so you can make marketing automation work for your company.
The Reality
Because of the popularity of marketing automation, a misconception has grown that marketing automation software can be a salve for any slowdowns in marketing growth -- including the need to generate new leads. This misconception leaves many marketers with sophisticated tools to automate the middle of their funnel, but no solution for generating new leads to nurture in the first place. The consequence is that marketers begin buying lists of email addresses to nurture instead of generating inbound leads. While it seems like a quick fix, it's not a long-term solution, nor does it create the fertile ground for a healthy, long-term relationship with your customers.
The Ideal
At its best, marketing automation is a combination of software and strategy. It should allow you to nurture prospects with highly personalized, useful content that helps convert prospects to delighted customers. Think of effective marketing automation like growing a garden. You need fertile soil, ripe for growth. You need seeds to sow. And you need water and light to nurture those seeds into a lush, blooming plant. With good marketing automation, it's easier to nurture leads (the seedlings) well enough to produce paying customers (a lush, full-grown plant).But it doesn't end there. Customers are more than just the output of successful marketing automation
