With all this talk about marketing automation (also commonly referred to as customer relationship management, or CRM, tools), let’s look a little more closely at what this is and how it can help you grow your business. Marketing automation is basically a software or app tool that’s used to keep track of your customers: not only serving as a database for contact information and other general details, but also tracking your interactions with those customers. What this gives you is a wealth of data, yielding greater insight into the needs of your customers and enabling you to develop targeted strategies to better engage (and retain) them in the future. Marketing automation/CRM tools also offer other conveniences such as online scheduling and outbound marketing tools (enabling you to manage e-mail and SMS campaigns, and the like).
Market research and industry analyst Techaisle has released an insightful new infographic detailing the results of its most recent study looking at the trends and habits of SMBs operating across the globe. Specifically, this infographic focuses on the growing trend of marketing automation among SMBs, analyses the reasons behind this trend, and demonstrates the benefits of this marketing approach currently being realized by both SMBs and mid-market businesses.
Relevant Takeaways
- Marketing automation is something to be paying attention to right now! In fact, 56 percent of SMBs rank marketing automation among the top ten relevant technologies in the business world, with a reported US$2 billion being spent on email marketing automation.
- Marketing automation has been shown to be highly effective in the areas of customer acquisition (with 69 percent of those surveyed reporting an increase in identifying new customers and 43 percent seeing better management of demand generation).
- SMBs are also seeing improvement in customer cross sell (with 54 percent surveyed generating more from existing customers and 34 percent seeing impact from customer specific marketing message).
- Marketing automation yields more effective marketing monitoring (with 20 percent seeing improvements in social media monitoring and 10 percent in tracking marketing ROI).
- A surprising 44 percent of SMBs find the marketing automation technology too complex, indicating that many companies may be interested in outsourcing this aspect of marketing management by investing in a platform solution.
The bottom line is, marketing automation is a booming technology and for good reason. Investing in a customer engagement/marketing automation platform solution can help you expand your customer list and maximize outreach efforts, while ensuring the highest quality of customer service and engagement. Check out this infographic and see for yourself how this marketing technology can really help boost your business success.
