What is marketing automation?

Marketing automation

Marketing automation helps the marketing department deliver the right content, to the right recipient, at the right time.

Matthijn Hoogenboom

By Matthijn Hoogenboom, Sales Director, MicroPartner

Marketing automation – what is it?

Marketing automation is a technological platform designed to help the marketing department communicate on several online channels (e.g., email, social media, landing pages), and automate routine tasks.

The purpose of marketing automation is to guide the recipient to a specific action, for example:

  • Book a meeting
  • Register for the seminar
  • Make a purchase

In short, marketing automation platforms should be for the marketing department what CRM systems are for the sales department.

A marketing automation platform typically lets you work with the following tools:

  • Email marketing

  • Campaign automation

  • Web forms

  • Event Management

  • Reporting and analysis

  • Surveys

  • Web tracking

  • Lead scoring

  • Landing pages

  • Social media marketing

What can you use marketing automation for?

A major benefit of marketing automation is the ability to collect data and respond to it. This may be, for example, data about what visitors viewed on your website, what they clicked on in e-mails, which events they have shown interest in / or participated in, and much more. All this information helps you gain knowledge about your customers / leads, allowing you to better target your communication, products, and campaigns.

Lead management

With the help of lead scoring, Marketing can forward the most qualified leads to Sales. Consequently, strengthening the collaboration between Sales and Marketing.

Customer journeys

Marketing automation can also be used to optimize different customer journeys. An example of this could be event management, where marketing automation can be used to:

  • Build and send invitations by email
  • Build a landing page with a registration form
  • Manage registration and unsubscribe
  • Send out reminders to recipients who have not yet signed up

The guest list can even be generated from previous guest lists, or based on preferences of leads. There are many possibilities for combining data and automating flows.

Example of campaign automation

Campaign Automation Animated, marketing automation

Value of marketing automation

Before implementing a marketing automation platform, you should consider the following:

  • Define how you want to help the customer towards the desired action?

    You need to consider your company’s different processes and optimize them, so that you remove all obstacles for the customer on his or her way to the desired action. For example, it could be reaching customers at the right time, based on their previous actions, and sending reminders. It may also be as simple as making the sign-up features easier to access. Analyze the data you already have and gain new information, for example through surveys.

  • Consider the type of data you need to collect, and how you want to process it

    You should set up requirements for lead scoring and when sales should follow up on a lead. But you should also consider, how you will use the insights you gain about emails clicks, website visits, participation / interest in events and much more.

    Consider the type of data you need to collect, and how you want to process it

  • Also, be realistic about maintenance and follow-up

    Marketing automation can be an excellent tool, but dedicated resources must be allocated to work with it. Otherwise, you will not get the value out of it that you want.

Marketing Automation platforms

There are many different marketing automation platforms on the market.

At MicroPartner, we work with three different: Dynamics 365 Marketing, ClickDimensions and Mailchimp. Data can either be forwarded to CRM or already be part of CRM, where Sales can access it. This means that all data about customers / leads lives in one place, namely in CRM and is maintained and updated in CRM.

Dynamics 365 Marketing gives you marketing automation and CRM in one unified system without integrations.

ClickDimensions and Mailchimp are so-called add-ons for Dynamics 365.

ClickDimensions is built directly for Dynamics 365 and the two systems really merge.

Mailchimp can work without Dynamics 365 as a stand-alone product and has also a mini-CRM built-in. If your needs are beyond or evolving beyond the mini version of CRM, Mailchimp can be easily integrated into Dynamics 365 and data will flow back and forth between Mailchimp and Dynamics 365.

Choose the right platform

There are usually many things to consider when choosing the right marketing automation platform. Elements such as price and need are important.

Do you want to know more? Contact us on +45 43450660.

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