We are only beginning to scratch the surface of what tools like automation can do for digital marketing. Automation has a very wide range of benefits to offer, from saving time on key tasks to incorporating essential personalisation. When the time comes to define your digital marketing strategy for the next 12 months, automation can improve and optimise efforts that you’re already making and help to ensure better results.

Removing the manual elements from your digital marketing

Automating repetitive manual tasks can take a significant administrative burden from any business. In a marketing context this not only enables processes to be made more streamlined but also provides the opportunity to set more ambitious goals for your digital marketing strategy. For most businesses, personalisation has already become a key objective. If this has long been a strategic objective but you just don’t have the resources to implement it manually then automation could make all the difference.

Optimising customer loyalty

Increasing sales or sign ups and generating more business will be a key component in most strategic objectives for digital marketing in 2018. Statistically, it’s much easier to achieve conversion from existing customers but they need to be nurtured. The time commitment required for the kind of communication that nurtures a one time customer to a loyal repeat customer can be much better managed with automation than individual manual effort.

A more transparent sales funnel

Understanding your customers, where they are in the process and how far they are in the lead to conversion story, provides a sound foundation for digital marketing planning. If you’re using automation then you will also have access to the lead scoring feature that is inbuilt into most automation programmes. This will show you where each customer is in the sales funnel and provide invaluable data on what needs to be done to move them to the next stage.

Picking up the pace of conversions

Conversion times can be a frustrating topic and are often targeted in digital marketing strategy. Speeding up those conversion times is simpler where automation is involved. Even those products that traditionally have a longer conversion cycle will see the benefit of applying automation to the process of looking to convert customers. This tends to be especially useful during the B2B buying cycle, which is longer than B2C and may involve team decision making, as opposed to a single individual consumer.

Improving marketing ROI

If you’re looking for ways to make your marketing more effective when it comes to delivering return on investment, automation has an increasingly significant part to play. Insights into past buyer behaviour and customer interactions, as well as the opportunity to personalise and tailor marketing messages to optimise their impact can have a direct effect on key metrics such as conversion and profit. In fact, businesses using automation tend to have 53% higher conversion rates overall.

If you’d like to find out more about marketing automation and what it could do for your business please get in touch with the Iconic Digital team today on 020 7100 0726.