We have already explored its meaning as well as its importance for the success of a company that aims to evolve and, in order to do so, needs tools and a strategic plan focused on the objective. We are talking about marketing automation, a realm that involves not only the automation inherent in its nature but also, and above all, its communicative and content effectiveness. Because, as in all things, and especially in all marketing campaigns, a mind without a heart that beats has no reason to exist. Below, we explain why strategy is defined as the key asset of a marketing automation campaign.
Marketing automation campaign: the funnel
Every reputable marketing campaign must include the concept of the funnel. The marketing and sales funnel is generally represented by a funnel shape, which clearly illustrates the step-by-step process each prospect undergoes. The idea behind the funnel is that a large portion of those who enter it will not continue throughout the entire journey, therefore not completing the qualification phase. As a result, the leads moving toward the bottom of the funnel will become fewer, but more qualified. The true function of the funnel is, in fact, to profile and select only those contacts with the highest likelihood of converting and becoming customers.
The funnel thus represents the buyer’s journey, which is the path every user and prospect must take, from the moment they first learn about a product or brand to when they become a customer. That said, the use of automation is essential for anyone looking to lead the company to its set objectives, reducing the time and resources needed for such tasks. Similarly, the adoption of marketing automation campaigns capable of revolutionizing business outcomes is crucial. One of the main advantages of a marketing automation campaign is the ability to implement broader campaigns. This means gathering information from multiple touchpoints, including visits and downloads from the company website. Social media activities and direct marketing will then help qualify leads and assign them automatic priorities. All of this results in broader marketing automation campaigns, namely: Emails with optimized frequency to maintain high interest; Personalized emails; Messages via Facebook or Twitter, for example.
Marketing automation campaign: activities to develop in a marketing automation strategy
The human component remains and will always remain, in general, the fundamental component of everything related to marketing – Francesco Chiappini. Ecommerce entrepreneur Francesco Chiappini clearly emphasizes this: yes to automation, but always guided by humans and their ability to process data. And so, after defining the…
funnel And its importance in determining a strategy that fits the needs of the company, we want to focus not so much on the phases of creation and planning of a… marketing automation campaign, which do not change, but rather on the activities to be developed in a marketing automation strategy that necessarily requires an improvement-focused change called automation, which never presumes to replace humans but rather to facilitate and/or assist them in overcoming inherent limits in the species (mental – the limit related to counting large numbers – and/or physical). The success of a marketing automation campaign, therefore, can be found in the combination of three essential factors:
- Target audience – goal
- Channel – message combination
- Customer journey design
Once the logic of the funnel is understood, the next step is to meticulously follow all the activities in order to create a complete and successful marketing automation project:
- goal setting;
- Identification of buyer personas;
- Visibility and web traffic;
- lead generation;
- lead nurturing + lead scoring + lead tagging;
- conversion;
- Metrics and KPIs.
And here we are at the focal point: what are the reasons that drive companies to adopt a marketing automation campaign management system, and what are the benefits that come from it? Let’s find out together!
Marketing automation campaign: why adopt It and what benefits it offers
As mentioned earlier, an automated approach simplifies life. Indeed, in a world where everything moves at the speed of light and there’s almost no time left for reflection, easing the workload of tasks we could easily delegate to a machine would not only shorten the time spent on those tasks but also allow the mind to express itself freely and autonomously, suggesting innovative and improving solutions.
Earlier, we saw the fundamental steps for setting up a marketing automation campaign. Planning, executing, and monitoring the performance of a marketing campaign is an activity that requires meticulous precision and focus, leaving no room for improvisation. This is why automating processes allows you to:
- Reduce manual tasks and, consequently, human error;
- Continuously and meticulously monitor the campaign results;
- Plan simply with intuitive and shared tools;
- Keep costs always under control with the possibility of setting up alerts when the budget is running low.
Marketing Automation Campaign: What is meant by ‘automation’ and why it does not exclude humans
To better understand the importance of human work in the marketing automation process, we must begin by clearly defining the related terminology. Let’s start by saying that automation is an ancient process. Since ancient times, humans have continuously sought ways to simplify and speed up their activities, such as creating increasingly complex and efficient machines to ease movement and transportation. Consequently, automation evolves with human progress and is designed to exclude humans from certain tasks, but always to assist them in management. The role of humans in marketing automation, as well as in digital marketing, is far from automated. Technique, analysis, but also creativity and psychology—these are the elements that characterize it, and they all require an active role from people.
Marketing automation campaign: the importance of data
After analyzing what marketing automation represents and its characteristics in a campaign, as well as the origin of its terminology, today we want to focus on data and how automation has changed the transmission of information.
Specifically, data is defined as a fundamental primary energy source for any digital marketing automation activity. In particular, the main variables of data are 3:
1.Owned
Data is divided into two types of ownership: first-party, meaning your own data (such as email addresses of your customers obtained through form submissions or data collected from cookies), and third-party, meaning “rented” data (such as Facebook fans, purchased email lists, or Google AdWords keywords).
2.Content data
Data contains socio-demographic information such as gender, age, and other details, like interests and all those pieces of information that change slowly over time, which are useful for finding the right people for your business. There are also behavioral data (just to name a few, online and offline conversions or physical movements), which help to understand the right moment.
3. Availability data
Data can be available in various ways, for example, based on the time dimension, whether in real-time or delayed, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be available online, as it can also be found offline. To summarize: machines are responsible for acquiring and perfectly storing the data, while people are tasked with using it strategically.
In conclusion, we say to you…
One day, machines will be able to solve all problems, but never any of them will be able to pose one. (Albert Einstein) The statement of the greatest physicist of the 20th century clearly conveys a very important concept: the machine is important, but the human mind is essential. Asking questions and knowing how to find answers is the exclusive prerogative of humans and their analytical abilities. Humans, with their introspective capacity, study alternative ways to predict the future every day. No matter how complicated it may be, striving for perfection makes them inclined to innovation and endless change. All of this to reaffirm just one concept: managing and monitoring a marketing automation campaign requires everything that humans are born with: the ability to think and solve even the most complex situations. This is why strategy is, and will always be, the foundation of a successful marketing automation campaign, as well as digital marketing in general, which aims to engage the user in the long term. Keep following us, the journey into the world of marketing automation is ongoing and limitless, a journey full of growth opportunities and continuous improvement. See you next time!
FAQ
1.What is marketing automation and what are the benefits in campaign management?
Marketing automation is a set of strategies and processes to automate marketing campaigns across various channels (email, social media, website, online ads, and other tools) that allows for amplifying, personalizing, and automating communication and marketing positioning with various tools and techniques. Adopting marketing automation for campaigns allows you to…
- Reduce manual tasks and, consequently, human error;
- Continuously and meticulously monitor the campaign results;
- Plan simply with intuitive and shared tools;
- Keep costs always under control with the possibility of setting up alerts when the budget is running low.
2.It is often thought that the term automation excludes the human mind, leaving space for the machine. Is that really the case?
Since ancient history, humans have continuously sought ways to simplify and speed up their activities. As a result, automation evolves with human progress and is designed to exclude humans from certain tasks, but always to assist them in management. Technique, analysis, but also creativity and psychology. These are the elements that characterize marketing automation, and they all require an active and conscious role from humans.
