Marketing automation is one of the latest buzzwords that’s being thrown around constantly from executive to executive. Marketing automation provides value to companies and brands, but there is still some confusion about what it is and is not. Honestly, that’s to be expected when talking about technology that has become popular only in the past few years.
There are a number of common misconceptions surrounding marketing automation, so if your brand is considering implementing a marketing automation solution, it’s crucial you are able to separate fact from fiction. This will help you get the most out of your software and not waste time and money trying to accomplish tasks that marketing automation isn’t capable of accomplishing. Here are some of the leading marketing automation myths:
1. It Does Everything For You Automatically
Though the term “automation” is included in the phrase; that doesn’t mean a business can simply buy the software, kick back and expect it’s products and services to market themselves. There is no question about it, marketing automation provides a lot of benefits and makes many facets of promoting a brand easier, but it requires companies to put forth some effort to make the best use of it.
Marketing automation essentially consolidates a company’s data, channels and processes and makes it easier for them to develop and distribute relevant campaigns. Successful initiatives still require an active staff of marketers that can create strategies, craft content, and guide initiatives. In other words, marketing automation is a tool, it isn’t solution that does everything itself.
2. Automation Isn’t Personal
When you hear the word “automation,” the first thing you likely think of is a robot. Robots are impersonal – whether it’s an evil robot from a sci-fi movie or a simple spam bot, few companies want automatons engaging prospects and making the first impressions.
Marketing automation doesn’t make communications less personal. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Marketing automation solutions allow companies to make interactions relevant to a wide swath of consumers – it just helps you do it more quickly and effectively.
“Just because you’re automating a lot of your marketing processes doesn’t mean you can’t personalize your messages,” adds marketing blog CMO.com. “Marketing automation gives you the opportunity to add more personal touches to your campaigns, like personalized emails that come directly from specific members of your sales team, even if they’re automatically generated.”
3. It’s Only for Marketers
Marketing automation has a variety of uses, and it isn’t specifically made to benefit a single department. Marketers can use these tools to create and establish brand messages and pre-approved content. Yet sales teams can leverage marketing automation too, particularly they can use digital asset management to engage specific clients with meaningful, relevant collateral.
Sales and marketing are united by a single goal – to help their companies convert prospects to customers and generate more revenue. To that end, marketing automation is a resource that helps companies bring in that additional revenue. The sales and marketing departments may be the people making the most frequent use of marketing automation solutions, but in reality, they are tools that help the company as a whole prosper, grow, and increase its customer base.
Marketing automation provides tremendous value to the marketing and sales operations at any brand. However, to best utilize any tool, companies need to understand how to use it. Knowing what marketing automation isn’t can be the first step of this process.