Marketing Automation: Auto What? Episode 1

Welcome to a new series about marketing automation! Now that we are a Pardot partner, we can no longer keep our knowledge to ourselves. So, this series is to share best practices, tips, and inspiring stories about marketing automation.

Marketing automation is still a fairly new subject for some businesses, but it is being adopted as a necessary tool. We aren’t implying a bandwagon paradigm; just pointing out the growing trend of marketing automation.

Before, marketing automation was only for big business. Partly because they were expensive to buy, complicated to implement, and required a team to manage. In some cases, that is still true today, but with new solutions that entered the marketplace to simplify marketing automation, small and medium businesses can now utilize them more efficiently without breaking the bank.

But what is Marketing Automation?

According to TrustRadius, a leading business software review site, marketing automation consists of:

  • Email Management
  • Landing Pages
  • Triggered Email
  • Forms
  • Dynamic Content
  • Mobile

Source: http://www.trustradius.com/static/art-marketing-automation-features

Check out TrustRadius’s comparison of marketing automation platforms!

For example, the average modern company will often have a separate platform for each platform. Of course many platforms will say they integrate will with another platform, but if you have any experience integrating platforms, you can guess that the definition of “integration” is a gray area. With a marketing automation system, you will be able to consolidate much of the marketing needs into one platform.

It has also become a great sales tool for scaling the pre-qualification and lead nurturing process. If your sales team has trouble managing communication with leads to keep them engaged or forgets to follow up with prospects, learn more about marketing automation on how you can align your marketing and sales teams. Additionally, if your nurtured leads end up leaving the sales funnel, marketing automation tools can easily recapture them once they come back to your site.

Here is a typical scenario for marketing automation:

1. Prospect comes to your site and fills out a form to sign up for a webinar about your product.

2. This triggers an email campaign that sends the prospect an email every week about different features about your product.

3. Prospect clicks on a few of the emails.

4. Sales team is notified about the prospect engaging with the emails and viewing web pages.

5. Prospect is automatically assigned to a sales person to follow up.

Key takeaways

  • Many tools exist to speed up the qualification and lead nurturing processes.
  • It will help you re-engage with leads that have dropped off.
  • Marketing automation is a great tool to align sales and marketing.
  • With many solutions available, there is a solution for each size and type of business.

Need some help or have questions?
Learn more about marketing automation and how we can help.

Read the other episodes:

Episode 1: Auto What?
Episode 2: Salesforce.com + Marketing Automation
Episode 3: Pardot + Gmail
Episode 4: How to Nurture Leads

With the rapid evolution of technology, Salesforce solutions are ever-changing and improving features. Contact our team for up-to-date information.

Published On: August 1, 2014

About the Author: Redpath Team

Our team at Redpath is a unique group of talented professionals who are passionate about leveraging Salesforce to help businesses simplify, accelerate, and transform what’s possible for their future.