Integrating marketing automation into your strategy is one of the most effective ways to increase the productivity and effectiveness of your strategy, learn how to do it with one of the most recognized platforms in the industry.
When we start a digital marketing strategy, we must take into account all the tools, techniques, processes and variations that exist in the world of digital advertising; one of the most popular in the last few years is marketing automation, as it allows us to reduce the efforts that must be made to achieve each objective.
Thanks to this tool it is possible to connect in a more personalized way with each potential client, and by integrating it with Inbound Marketing tactics, quality content is provided to the client depending on the moment of the buyer’s journey in which they are. But, what is automation in digital marketing?
Automation in digital marketing is a methodology that allows us to use specialized software to, as its name suggests, automate processes such as customer segmentation, campaign management, sending mass communications, among other procedures from the general digital marketing strategy.
The main objective of automation is to simplify processes so that companies execute digital marketing tactics efficiently and thus achieve each objective. Additionally, thanks to the implementation of this methodology it is possible to lead the buyer persona through a buyer’s journey that leads them to become a customer effectively.
What is HubSpot and why is it recognized?
HubSpot is a software developer focused on providing marketing solutions for businesses. In the case of automation, the platform allows to organize contacts and leads to interact with them through different channels (mailing, sms, chatbots, etc.), and it also enables customer segmentation allowing a strategic approach according to the buyer’s journey.
There are three areas in which HubSpot intervenes to create automatic processes: marketing, sales and customer service.
Automation in the marketing area
Automating processes within a digital marketing strategy allows the company to efficiently approach each customer, and thanks to this, it is possible to collect lead data, do lead nurturing by understanding where the buyer persona is and delight them with personal campaigns.
It also allows you to integrate the social networks of a business to the process, and due to the high level of users that are usually found in these, improve the achievement of objectives.
Additionally, by automating a digital marketing strategy it is possible to create an optimized database and from there develop communication tactics focused on each user.
Starting an automation process should not be done without thinking on the objectives, and neither should be believed that EVERYTHING must be automatic. It is fundamental to understand the main aspects to automate and analyze whether it is necessary within the general strategy to make this investment.
The first aspect, and one of the most important, is communication with prospects. Thanks to automation, it is easier to send and monitor e-mails analyzing the actions, preferences and characteristics of each user. Along with this analysis, the platform studies the right moment to send an e-mail depending on the location and opening rate of the user.
Another aspect of automation in the marketing area is the development of intelligent content, which perfectly complements an inbound marketing strategy, as it can analyze the interactions of users with the content to understand what type of content has a better engagement. Thanks to these metrics you can create content that has a greater impact.
Performing A/B testing integrating HubSpot automation becomes a fairly simple process because by doing so, the platform adapts the content to the most accurate version, eliminating the time invested in making changes suggested by the test.
Automation also allows us to create lead nurturing flows, in which contact is maintained with a lead and personalized information is sent according to the moment where they are located in an intelligent way, since campaigns are created based on statistics that specifically impact the target audience.
Sales automation
An automation strategy applied to marketing results in an increase in the acquisition of leads, therefore it is essential that the sales processes are aligned to continue with a coherent commercial flow.
It is vital to have a CRM that allows to integrate an automation strategy in which the sales process is efficient and the administration of the database is facilitated.
But, what sales process activities can be managed? In the first place, there is the possibility to optimally collect data on leads that allows to know them in a deeper way to execute the adequate approach.
Additionally, an automated CRM allows each lead to be added to a workflow to maintain communication with them and adapt it to the purchase moment in which they are.
Automation applied to customer service
Thanks to each technological advance, customer service evolves daily; however, it is important to understand that the human factor is vital to give each client the attention they deserve. Therefore, when talking about automation and customer service, we must seek a balance between technology and humanity.
Customers today, when looking for help to solve questions or solve a problem, expect to have a human contact that focuses on their particular problem, so leaving everything in the hands of a bot is not appropriate; but it is possible to automate certain stages of the customer service.
And since we mentioned bots, this is one of the first aspects that can be automated to a certain extent: thanks to these the client can obtain an immediate solution depending on the complexity of the situation, but in many cases the client wants to obtain personalized attention.
In these specific cases, the use of a bot does not work as a problem solver, but rather as a source of information in which useful details are found to provide an adequate response.
Another aspect that can be automated is social listening, since it is possible to “schedule” reviews of online mentions and in this way respond to user comments, thus strengthening the brands image
Automation in digital marketing is an aspect that evolves and grows each day. Until 2020 a 74% of marketers in Latin America had incorporated this methodology within their strategy according to numbers from the State of Marketing Report of HubSpot.
For this reason, it is essential to open a space for automation within your strategy, but you must always keep in mind that even if there are mechanized processes, the human factor will always be necessary.
Automation depends on the human factor to exist, and a balance must be created between these two to integrate it effectively and take advantage of all the benefits it can bring to the company.
