Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation Platforms
Marketing automation platforms, like HubSpot, SharpSpring, and Pardot,  provide an automated method of delivering content to association members and a means of capturing important business intelligence for association staff. Website visitors are no longer simply a number on a monthly traffic report. As people engage with your content you will know the name of the person,  what content they read, how long they watched your video, etc. Marketing automation platforms allow your website to be a 24/7 employee.

workflow

Automated Workflow

Another feature of marketing automation platforms is that they handle the work of many a la carte systems that one must cobble together to achieve even a portion of the same results. And they provide the true ROI of a marketing time or cost investment by providing  closed loop reporting.

Marketing automation platforms allow you to segment visitors by their interests. That means you can customize  the information they see rather than provide ineffective generic content. The real value of marketing automation platforms is that they automate the process of nurturing your prospects through their buyer’s journey; through the marketing funnel and into the sales funnel. Once you collect the name and email of the prospect the system stores that information and when a prospect revisits the website the system knows it doesn’t need to ask for that information. This allows you to ask for new information in exchange for providing valuable content.


Over time the automation system will create a profile of the visitor,  and their interactions with your website. This information is valuable to you and your team.

Inbound marketing is an effective way to acquire and retain clients, and marketing automation platforms are a tool that helps to deliver marketing tactics as efficiently as possible.

Marketing automation platforms are available via a subscription, typically with a minimum term. 

Nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20% increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads.

 

Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing

Inbound marketing aims to create a connection with the target audience and solve the prospects’ problems. However, outbound marketing doesn’t have a specific target. Instead, it pushes content the audience may not be interested in, with the primary goal of making sales.

Below are the other differences between inbound marketing and outbound marketing:

  • Inbound marketing only targets an interested audience, while outbound marketing pushes a sales message to everyone.
  • Inbound marketing addresses the customers’ pain points and seeks to solve their problems, while outbound marketing focuses on selling services.
  • Inbound marketing is interactive and creates a unique customer experience (UX) at every stage. However, outbound marketing is more of one-way communication. 
  • With inbound marketing, the content is helpful, and the audience easily converts to leads, while outbound marketing is disruptive and often a nuisance, e.g., social media ads.

Below is how inbound marketing can be aligned with the buyer’s journey to turn the targeted audience into loyal and long term customers.

  • Attract prospects – Target audience with value-rich content and conversation that establishes you as an authority in the field. This will set you as a trusted advisor, and your audience will have an easy time believing whatever you’ll tell them next. This process can turn your prospects into leads.
  • Engage them – Give your leads some valuable insights and solutions on how you can solve their problems. Engaging your leads builds trust. You can also create robust buyer personas to strengthen your lead engagement and quickly convert them into customers.
  • Delight your customers – Give them support and empower them to find success after making a purchase.

With the three steps above, you can turn strangers into prospects and prospects into customers, then customers into brand loyalists and promoters.

 

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