Quick question: what’s the most valuable commodity in marketing? It’s not money, nor is it knowledge. It’s not customer loyalty or brand awareness.
It’s time – and no one ever seems to have enough of it.
In any effective marketing campaign, there’s a ton of busywork. A ton of repetitive, mundane tasks which are nevertheless critical to any marketing strategy’s success. The more time you and your team have to spend on such tasks, the less time you spend on what you’re actually good at.
On creative stuff that actually matters. There’s a reason the global marketing automation software market is predicted to reach nearly $8 billion by 2025. That the majority of top marketing professionals acknowledge its importance.
Automation is the future of marketing. By simplifying and streamlining the process behind common tasks, it allows marketing teams to focus more on strategy and creativity. They can put more of their effort into making your campaign shine rather than simply keeping it online.
Because your team will be spending fewer man-hours on repetitive tasks, you’ll be able to apply your budget where it really needs to go. By that same vein, automation enables a smaller marketing team to achieve a much greater level of scope, leaving a ton of room for growth and scalability. Moreover, many marketing platforms are built to allow for better interoperability between marketing and sales.
Finally – and perhaps most importantly – through automation, your team will also have increased visibility of their efforts across all platforms. This analytics data can be used not only to better focus your efforts but also as a measure of concrete ROI for the higher-ups. Platforms that incorporate machine learning only further empower your organization, with deeper customer insights and better forecasts.
Right. Now that we’ve hammered home the importance of automation, let’s talk a bit about how you can actually leverage it. That begins with know what, exactly, your business can automate.
In broad strokes, automation can be applied to the following areas.
- Creation and maintenance of email campaigns
- SMS blasts
- Social media scheduling
- Website content such as widgets
- Ad placements
- Analysis of market, customer, and sales data
- Scheduling and promotion of long-form content such as blog posts
At the very least, I’d recommend looking into a platform such as Hubspot or Agora Pulse, both of which allow for listening, scheduling, and sentiment analysis of multiple social feeds. It may also be worthwhile for your team to use a tool like MailChimp, ConvertKit, or Constant Contact if you plan to publish a newsletter. And lastly, look into a tool like Zoho Office or Hubspot for Customer Relationship Management.
The most valuable commodity in marketing is time. The more time you have, the more time you can spend on understanding your audience, developing creative, and designing a campaign that’s absolutely incredible. That’s precisely why automation is so powerful – because not only does it grant you more time, but it does so much more, too.