The stats don’t lie – marketing automation is becoming more popular than coffee in the marketing department.
On average, 49% of all companies are currently using marketing automation, and more than half of B2B companies (55%) are adopting the technology, according to EmailMonday’s “The Ultimate Marketing Automation stats.”
In fact, there were nearly 11 times more B2B organizations using marketing automation in 2014 than in 2011, with the numbers going up every day.
The million-dollar question, of course, is “why?” Why is automation becoming the marketing software of choice for experienced digital marketers at a time when email and ESPs are still great for generating ROI?
Here are three reasons why marketing automation software is becoming so popular.
Lead Nurturing Is the New Email Blast
Best-in-class companies are more than 2x more likely to use lead nurturing than less successful companies (68% vs. 27%), according to EmailMonday.
This is because careful lead nurturing through automated marketing is more effective than spamming people with an email blast and hoping to get some conversions. The best marketing automation campaigns send out emails that engage leads in a more natural way, by appealing to their interests, industries, and buying power.
In addition to this, email servers are making it harder and harder for emails to get to the inbox, with only the most relevant and personalized emails making it to their intended recipients.
Marketing automation software like SharpSpring offers lead nurturing and sales automation as part of the package, helping digital marketers get into the inbox and engage their leads.
With Data Comes Power
Trying to sell to someone you have no idea about is like trying to convince your parents that you’re really happy living with your 17 cats. You can try, but it’s not going to work.
The information age has given marketers a huge amount of data that they can use to create accurate and relevant marketing communications for their leads. Marketing automation tools offer the easiest way to gain access to the kind of data marketers need to make the sale.
Here are a few of the things marketers can discover from their leads by using a marketing automation solution:
- A lead’s location
- What products a lead is interested in
- Which pages a lead visits on your site
- Email marketing statistics
- Call tracking data
The above points are just a taste of the absurd amount of data that marketing automation tools offer the modern marketer. Agencies and businesses are catching onto the fact that if they want to turn their databases into gold mines, marketing automation is the premier tool to achieve that goal.
It’s More Effective
Agencies and businesses that use marketing automation are able to manage their time and staff more effectively.
By automating repetitive tasks such as sending out nurture communications, monitoring prospects, leads and sales, and identifying which leads are ready to buy and which aren’t, marketing automation allows users to focus on important tasks that can’t be automated.
In addition to this, with marketing automation you have more control over your marketers’ time. Since many tasks are now automated, you can get your marketers to focus more time in areas where they shine, like creating content or developing new lead generation strategies.
Your marketers can take on larger campaigns and bring more customers in through targeted campaigns – because let’s face it, people hate feeling like a number, but with marketing automation they don’t have to.
Find Out What It’s All About
Isn’t it time you found out what all the fuss is about? Sign up for a free demo of our marketing automation solution, or subscribe to our blog to find out more.