Marketing Automation Guide for Beginners

Contents

1. What is Marketing Automation?
2. Marketing Automation Software
3. Which Feature is Easy-to-Use for Beginners
4. Preconception of Marketing Automation
5. Adopting Marketing Automation That Requires Precise Decision

1. What is Marketing Automation?

Difficult to Understand Marketing Automation

When people first hear the word marketing automation, they think of artificial intelligence or spam mail sent mechanically. However, marketing automation is a relatively recent concept, and it is hard to explain simply because the methodology continues to evolve.

The 11 Best Marketing Automation Software in 2019 (Image by Marketing Insiders)

Explain Marketing Automation in 100 Letters

In brief, today’s concept of marketing automation is recognized as a marketing methodology using efficient software to promote and manage leads effectively. It consists of features such as email, workflows, and social media tools. It builds effective lead generation and funnel based on a large Contact database.

Marketing Automation that Remains Abstruse

The word itself seems simple, but in the end, it is a software-based marketing methodology, so even if you want to explain email marketing automation separately, there are a lot of things to talk about, and it is hard to understand the mechanism in a few lines. While the concept and definition of marketing automation continue to change, the word marketing automation in use today is understood by the emphasis on the technical aspects of marketing automation solutions such as HubSpot Marketing Hub. It may seem strange, but if you learn more about the concepts, types, and expected effects of marketing automation in practice, you will become more familiar with it.

HubSpot Marketing Hub (Image by Hellodigital)

2. Marketing Automation Software

Marketing Automation, Understanding Software

The concept of marketing automation in practice is understood in terms of functionality based on automation software rather than abstract methodologies. By doing so, we want to automate many steps to making potential buyers into loyal customers. To understand marketing automation, you need to understand it based on marketing automation software's capabilities, not on abstract methodologies.

3. Which Feature is Easy-to-Use for Beginners

• Email Marketing

Marketing Automation currently has over 800 software, but it is common to use e-mail marketing, lead generation, and nurturing programs. Those of you who have been plagued by spam may wonder if email marketing is still a powerful marketing tool. However, email marketing is still an indispensable marketing tool.

No matter how popular social media is and how many users it is, email is an essential means of communication in most business environments. So Google is trying to integrate and leverage a variety of business solutions through the Gmail interface. In addition, email marketing is a direct way of contacting customers, but at little cost, so ROI(Return on Investment) is high. However, the fatigue from customers’ emails is also significant. As it was mentioned in the beginning, some people think of the word marketing automation as spam. In fact, one of the most practical features of marketing automation software is related to email marketing. Marketing automation software helps enable personalized email marketing effectively and in less time. You may have already heard of the feature called Email Sequence.

There are many ways to use marketing automation with email marketing:

• Welcome email 
• Email retargeting
• Reminder email
• Personalized recommendations 

There are many other ways to do this, and each method should consider potential customer behavior patterns and tendencies. The bottom line is that personalized email can generate far more revenue than so-called spam mail, while the time and cost spent are daunting. However, if a company adopts marketing automation here, it can secure both business productivity and email marketing efficiency.

Marketing Automation Fails (Image by Modgirl)

4. Preconception of Marketing Automation

The expected effects of marketing automation have been illustrated by e-mail marketing as an example, but people still have a prejudice against marketing automation. This is disproved by the low adoption rates in Korea compared to overseas. However, rapid increase in the adoption rates around the world is due to the fact that we haven’t heard and don’t know much about marketing automation. So what is the typical preconception of marketing automation?

• The Marketing Message is too Mechanical and Unfamiliar

The impression of the word automation seems mechanical and rigid, but in fact, building marketing automation well means sending personalized messages to customers. Because marketing automation software tries to send a personalized message to each customer after building their own lifecycle, purchase cycle, and other information into a database, marketing messages based on databases do not become mechanical or unfamiliar. It makes them feel like they are talking to the brand or the company itself. And it should be noted that adopting marketing automation does not mean you do not need a human touch, so it is recommended that marketing automation is used as an aid and therefore, marketers can focus more on creating content and strategizing.

• Marketing Automation Encourages Spam Marketing

• Once Marketing Automation has been Set Up, There is No Need for Human Intervention

This preconception comes from the false impression of the word automation. Marketing automation is after all  an auxiliary mechanism for improving work efficiency and productivity. Of course, it is ideal to pay a lot of attention and avoid frequent touch when setting up marketing automation for the first time, but the key is to reflect the changes and fix them if there is any improvement.

• Marketing Automation is just about Email Marketing

In this article, email marketing using marketing automation software is a representative example of marketing automation, but it is only an example to help beginners understand. Marketing automation software has endless capabilities, and in fact, when you run a marketing automation software service, you can sell differently by function. Also, if your organization gets bigger, you may have to adopt more expensive marketing automation software. It provides a more diverse and granular classification of customer needs and lists that are differentiated from regular email marketing programs and can be used to generate and nurture leads in a variety of ways. Therefore, marketing automation is essential to gain broad insights, and analyze complex customer data.

 HubSpot Marketing Hub topped the business software comparison site (Image by G2)

• Adopting Marketing Automation That Requires Precise Decision 

Functions offered by marketing automation software vary widely and have many things to be considered, from the customer to the complexity of whether it is their industry, size, B2B, or B2C. There is more than 800 marketing software on the market, but the reason for the low adoption rate of domestic marketing automation is that people don’t really know about it. Marketing automation has many benefits, but choosing any software is not a one-stop solution. In addition, time investment and training are essential for hands-on workers who are familiar with marketing activities to use marketing automation software. These are all things to consider before adopting marketing automation, even though most of them are not that difficult and time-consuming. The easiest way is to get consulting or look up related materials. Understand that marketing automation does not automate everything, and if you study more and pay extra attention to it, you may be able to enjoy greater expectation effects.