Self-Reliance Is the Name of the Game: How Marketing Automation Empowers Marketers

In many companies, the almighty tech resource—be it an engineer, developer, or IT expert—is a revered character whose time and attention can be hard to come by. Even companies that have a dedicated engineer—or even an entire team of them—may not be all that keen to devote their valuable time to carrying out the daily operations of other teams, like marketing. As marketers, this proves to be a problem if your marketing organization is still implementing outdated marketing practices that demand too much attention from the tech side of the business.

How do you know whether your marketing needs to be revamped? Look for these red flags which signify archaic practices:

1. You have to enlist the help of engineering or IT to build and send an email campaign. Your “high-tech” campaigns cannot be 100% handled by marketing because you don’t have the right tools.
2. You habitually call on engineering or IT to help you pull lists of customers and their data. There is a technical learning curve for non-automated systems so your customer lists are not at your fingertips and you cannot segment them on your own.
3. You can’t automatically tie together marketing activities across channels. You require a tech specialist to help you carry your email campaign over to other channels, such as social media or your website.

But times they are a-changin’. With the emergence and dominance of automated marketing tools like marketing automation software, marketers are taking matters into their own hands—no longer having to rely on IT and engineering teams to help them build and monitor their campaigns.

Case in point: Marketing automation is the key to a self-sufficient marketing organization that can run sophisticated, personalized campaigns efficiently and flawlessly.

Marketing Automation is High-Tech, but Also Tech-Friendly

The irony of automated marketing tools is that even with their high level of sophistication, they actually don’t require a lot of in-house technology expertise to implement and run. In fact, the best marketing solutions are designed specifically to circumvent the need for a dedicated technical staff—either up front, during installation, or when it comes to ongoing maintenance.

What marketing automation tools do require in the way of technological can-do is a marketing leader with the digital chops to evaluate the right solution for your company. This decision-maker doesn’t have to be a genius technologist, but just someone who can prioritize your company’s marketing needs with a clear vantage of both current and future priorities.

With the right marketing automation tool, you’ll have the flexibility to easily implement marketing strategies in real time across different channels. Marketing automation transforms the everyday marketer into a modern marketing professional, allowing them to talk with their customers versus at them, a hallmark of a sound engagement marketing practice.

Core Features of Marketing Automation

Out with the old, in with the new! Marketing automation is a more modern approach and solution to the manual methods of the past. It allows you to revolutionize your campaigns with these features:

• Email marketing is easy to track and analyze, and has more sophistication than the rudimentary email-only solutions on the market today. Set triggered email campaigns that follow individual customers through their buying lifecycle. Create, measure, and adjust emails that trigger based on user behavior, all on your own.
• Personalize your website based on any segment you want to target, such as first-time visitors versus visitors who have already shared information with you.
• Create forms on your website, or on strategic landing pages that work with your social media campaign. Build landing pages right from within your marketing tool, without having to engage your design department or an outside web designer.

Most importantly, with the right solution, you’ll have the database of all your potential and existing customers at your fingertips, their behaviors across channels, the ability to create your own segments, and robust analytics.

You don’t have to throw your marketing dollars at tech resources in order to create a revolution with your marketing. You just need the right tools and marketing leadership with the vision to make it happen.

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Self-Reliance Is the Name of the Game: How Marketing Automation Empowers Marketers