Businesses often underplay marketing’s role. It’s time to unravel the unspoken myths and spotlight the reality.

Marketing has always been thought of as a creative field. But by alluding to it merely as a creative space, we often forsake its technicalities and the value it brings. Fair to say, it all depends on the perspective.

Marketing is neither easy nor a one-way street in today’s buying dynamics. The level of complexity it involves can even unnerve industry experts.

For instance, a CMO might understand marketing’s role differently than a CEO. Even its external functionalities are perceived differently from the minute internal operations. Often perceived as a means to build a brand, it’s also the wheel driving an organization’s revenue.

Even being a marketer itself is not just a mundane task. It requires market knowledge and expertise of the entire customer lifecycle journey, systems, and understanding of broader business objectives. The human aspect, i.e., the team possesses such elaborate skills – one cannot highlight any single facet.

From curating strategies, outlining ICPs, and understanding stakeholders’ vision to identifying gaps, implementing campaigns, and measuring performance – marketing entails it all. The intangible definition of marketing to its tangible characteristics is dynamic and ever-transforming.

At the crux, it’s a complex landscape to define.

Marketing is technical but also experimental. It assumes tangible and intangible elements of a business. And its stunted understanding can influence the direction of an organization. Because marketing plays a pivotal role in market expansion and without full awareness of its significance, the business can take a huge plunge into the ocean. And get lost in the market noise to lose its footing.

To ensure this doesn’t happen, brands need to question their misconceptions regarding marketing. This includes stakeholders’ and other decision-maker’s misbeliefs with respect to how marketing can maximize their profitability.

Without debunking common myths concerning marketing, how does one develop effective strategies?

Unraveling Marketing Myths, Decision-makers Hold

Marketing misconceptions can prove detrimental to small businesses and start-ups. There are common misperceptions high-level executives hold that influence and create bias in their decision-making process.

And when the upper management doesn’t hold accurate information, how can the team develop the right strategies? This is a conundrum. But there’s a solution to this – break apart these fallacies and spotlight the correct stance.

Marketing is More Than Ads

Marketing is rainbows (multicolor designs) and sunshine (catchy one-liners).

Yes, marketing is indeed a creative endeavor. It consists of advertising campaigns with bright colors and catchy one-liners. But what about the uninteresting parts?

The final content might be engaging and compelling, but the process is extensive. It requires hours of research and several drafts before the final product comes through. Let’s admit that even designing and content writing might entail significant moments where the process is fun.

There’s an entirely different side – developing campaigns, strategizing, and report-making that are part-and-parcel of repetitive tasks one finds tasking. But, these facets of marketing are what drive the steering wheel to ensure actual numerical outcomes.

The other side of the story plays out differently. It attributes PR and advertising as significant aspects of marketing. However, the truth is quite different.

PR and advertising are entirely different elements of marketing. PR helps maintain and build relationships, and advertising is construed to influence prospect decisions. These are before and after – what about the middle?

This area is also what marketing takes care of. It’s more than about ads, especially traditional means and methods. The focus is actually brand building and understanding what could be the most effective ways to increase the performance of multiple marketing channels.

Long-term trust and loyalty link a brand and its clients. And marketing works as the bridge. From discovery to client support, maintaining a consistent flow of revenue takes more than traditional advertising.

Small businesses and start-ups don’t need marketing teams.

Small businesses might rely on regular customers. Consider cafes – many local cafes depend on regular coffee drinkers for consistent revenue. It’s something we are all aware of.

But this isn’t the case all the time. Different industrial domains hold varied demands – the expectations are widely different. Imagine a tech start-up. The market continuously witnesses the rise of new businesses, and it’s easy to get lost amidst all the noise.

Marketing can be a key resource to change this. It helps expand efficiently and retain a strong customer base.

Word-of-mouth marketing can only help businesses to an extent, especially in close-knit circles. It can displace the clients’ attention to another brand if a better product enters the market. New competition can get ahead of the race at any given time.

However, marketing strategies can offer a consistent means to reduce customer churn rates and expand seamlessly into new territories. Moreover, it’s challenging to forge partnerships without a proper marketing plan.

And in the long run, it may halt or disrupt the brand expansion, subtracting its recognition and reputation in the existing and new markets. It might become exhausting for small businesses, but with the ideal help, marketing can bring modest value to the brand, helping it grow gradually.

Marketing strategies only work on new buyers, not existing ones.

Having regular customers doesn’t mean they won’t pack up their interests and gravitate towards a brand with appealing offerings. That’s why the priority is establishing customer loyalty.

Remarketing to existing clients is a crucial step in marketing that most businesses skip. But it shouldn’t be the case.

Cross-selling and up-selling to existing customers helps retain them for a long time. Because once they have bought from a brand, it doesn’t mean there aren’t any doubts and challenges later on. Remarketing to them helps address their pain points and allows the brand to be on top of their mind.

These are why lifetime loyalty and retention are crucial for businesses to thrive.

Customer’s loyalty towards a brand should match the businesses’ trust in their regular ones. Not attending consistently to the clients can prove detrimental to the company, damaging the market-wide reputation.

When word-of-mouth marketing works wonders, it may affect the brand negatively, also making them lose out on new clients.

The cornerstone here is that retaining clients is not easy. So, it’s crucial to note that marketing efforts shouldn’t merely hope to engage new buyers but also continue targeting existing ones.

Social media doesn’t work for the brand or it’s everything for them.

See, social media is comparatively a new channel for marketing. Traditional methodologies didn’t consider this a major part of their functionalities. But with growing digitization, it’s necessary to sway a little to where the wind blows – to find a delicate balance between keeping up with the trends and finding what fits the brand.

Social media has become an effective and affordable tool for marketers to remain in the rat race. They leverage the consumer’s thirst for snackable and scrollable content by offering them compelling content and ads.

These are the platforms where the customers are most likely to notice the brands.

The diversity in social media users is also transforming. Beforehand, younger generations were more active, but numerous adults have also started using Instagram and Facebook. These are people who earn and have decision-making capabilities.

They are also a principal part of the consumer market, offering brands an advantage – a new audience segment to target and increase their customer base.

It can be resourceful for businesses with a meticulously planned strategy. But just because it’s been gaining traction and entails millions of users doesn’t mean brands should saturate their budgets into just one channel. It might not offer them returns as significantly as they think.

Social media with the right balance can function as a tool for marketing and advertising alongside its own embedded shoppable features.

Good quality products and services can sell themselves. Who requires marketing, right?

This misconception is rampant in the market.

It’s not a complex notion to debunk and also quite self-explanatory. Yes, the brand entails high-quality offerings and a positive buyer experience.

But what if no one knows about it?

Moreover, imagine there is excessive competition, and with access to advanced tech, how difficult is it to come up with solutions of comparable value? With the right resources and time, it’s possible. Not as if the products or services can become the talk of the town by leveraging marketing, but they grab significant attention to make the market realize – Oh hey, I’m new here and would like to make acquaintance with what I have to offer.

There are so many layers that marketing adds to the brand’s perception that it narrows down the prospective buyer’s vision to believe – this solution is curated only with them in mind. This adds a significant edge to businesses that might seem small against the industry giants.

Marketing is a catalyst. It creates awareness regarding the brand’s existence and attracts the right audience to kickstart the revenue wheel. Beyond this, it also highlights the crucial details – from what the brand does to how the solutions can help the prospect.

These steps are unskippable if one of the key objectives is to grow consistently and expand into new markets.

Traditional tools entail no influence in modern marketing.

Marketing, traditionally, is understood as a means to grab attention. And the conventional marketing tactics kept this in focus. Even if this is what most believe in, it’s false.

While modern marketing has unearthed several more complexities and dynamic buyer behaviors, traditional marketing tools still play a pivotal role.

Leveraging traditional marketing channels is a holistic approach. While automation and AI might take the front seat today, TV, radio, and newspapers still hold space in targeting a particular demographic. Or the local audience.

Technically, development and execution decide a lot of things here.

Marketers also believe that email marketing is dead. But to be frank, it’s in between traditional and digital roadways. It plays a significant part in personalizing communication with new and existing buyers. Meanwhile, it also adds a dash of sophistication and professionalism to the entire process.

On the other hand, even the radio is not dead. Podcasts can be said to be the new radio. While podcast advertising does indulge loyal listeners, radio targets the general audience. It actually boosted the reach by penetrating diverse audience segments.

The reality is marketers still leverage these channels and continue to seek effective results.

There are multiple and varying faces to marketing.

Marketing is not just one thing. For different individuals and industrial domains, it can heed varied faces. For a buyer, the perspective might differ compared to a seller. And even within the organization, marketing might mean something different to the CMO and the CEO.

While market conditioning can instill biases into decision-makers, marketers, and prospective buyers, it’s important to never negate its vitality. It’s the first and foremost rule.

Once a marketing team is hired and attributed responsibilities, they develop and execute strategies. If this leads to significant profitability, then who’s to say marketing is faux?

The answer is present within the numbers itself.

Preconceived notions can only harm the brand itself and stunt its growth. But understanding marketing will debunk this thinking.

And there’s more to learn. Especially with the emerging tech-changing society, marketing has also been majorly impacted. It will keep on morphing into something one doesn’t understand.

Rather than consuming misleading conceptions and assuming aspects of marketing, it’s necessary to take a step ahead and educate ourselves. Investigate the minute details and underline the truth.

Product events are tedious and difficult to manage. Can product event marketing automation simplify the process and negate the need for multiple hands?

Time and content are the components threading together brand and consumers. The right content delivered to the audience at the right time holds more impact than deemed possible. For example, when we have a time-sensitive query, all we do is input and receive the solution in a single search.

Marketing is majorly leveraging these two factors with a streamlined purpose. And it quite rightly works. In a market where competition is stiff and has minimal opportunities, leading the race is a dream. But businesses continuously churn out modernized means to engage the audience.

As the proverb goes – necessity is the mother of invention. And so, brands harness standard methodologies in their unique but convenient ways.

With the influx of marketing automation tools revolutionizing the market, businesses are seeking out convenient ways to minimize errors. At the forefront of this transformation is the introduction of AI, machine learning, and NLP, which has made automation perform tasks better.

Consumer behavior has always remained dynamic, often influenced by psychological, market, and other factors. To engage prospective buyers and maximize profitability, brands integrate modern tech with traditional methods, improving automation processes.

This resulted in a shift in the basis of B2B and B2C campaigns, influencing the marketing landscape to an extent. The general objective is driving value by concretizing positive brand perception and generating revenue. Focusing on customer preferences is a huge element here. This professional relationship goes beyond selling services and focuses on offering real value to the clients.

There is no single handbook for mapping successful marketing strategies. But optimizing one’s processes, from operations to management, lends a helping hand. Marketing automation has ensured that the focus is on priority tasks rather than routine ones.

Instead of offering only convenience, it becomes a means of betterment.

In the age of fast-paced digital marketing, it’s tough to stand out, especially when marketers leverage the same software and techniques. So, where should the focus be?

Take promotional events, product launches, or demos, for example. They are not difficult to organize and practically follow the same format. But something’s got to give. The essence of the event is to target each attendee and offer them personalized interactive experiences.

Marketing automation leveraged for product events construes a simple roadmap. It allows organizers to track attendee engagement and behavior before, during, and after the event, enabling them to measure its performance.

Why has marketing automation become vital?

It’s straightforward. It frees up resources and time to prioritize critical tasks. Through this, marketing and sales teams are able to enhance lead-generation strategies and foster positive customer experiences. Moreover, it’s quite a cost-effective solution to manage repetitive tasks.

While illustrating how marketers are driving value, marketing automation has helped reduce as much friction as possible. While automated processes focus on daily manual tasks, employees can personalize and have time to construct a strong relationship with their prospects that could possibly convert into high-value customers.

It’s not easy juggling different tasks. Especially sending numerous email reminders and SMSs to prospects once they demonstrate any form of engagement across the brand website or outreach content. It can also be tedious to send emails to multiple prospects who interact with a brand’s offerings.

Hence, the reason why automation is a crucial player in email marketing. It’s all about increasing as well as simplifying a brand’s engagement across the market. Marketing automation is the appropriate solution to manage these. For example, when a potential buyer subscribes to the brand’s newsletter, they might get an automated email regarding an event regarding the product/service(s) offered by the said brand.

Technically, marketing automation enables marketers to send automated responses to specific triggers. This is a streamlined methodology for sending multiple reminders for significant events. Automated outreach messages are popular and used by numerous organizations to simplify and enhance prospect engagement.

In other words, it’s quite the virtual support system for marketers. Not only does product event marketing automation make their jobs efficient, but also enhances customer interaction.

What is product event marketing automation used for?

Generally? Promotional events. By leveraging automation, marketing campaigns have become seamless, streamlining communication with potential buyers. Isn’t this at the crux of business deals – ensure a healthy and positive bridge with prospective customers?

Developing a relationship with prospects requires consistent engagement and nurturing. It’s not a one-time interaction. If the customers don’t feel a sense of belonging amidst the plethora of the brand’s loyal customers, they might churn or drop off beforehand.

However, involving them in product events such as trade shows and webinars can showcase their importance and remind them of the brand. Marketing automation is certainly a useful tool here, as it targets multiple social channels for advertisement by increasing visibility.

Marketing automation software assists brands in designing targeted marketing campaigns to elevate their reach effectively. Emails and messages are tailored according to the various audience segments to ensure the right content is delivered at a specific time.

Product event marketing automation also considers administration duties along with maximizing the number of attendees, collating guest information, and offering insights based on the aforementioned.

The utilization of marketing automation in product events is extensive. The end requirement is a smooth and streamlined event experience for organizers and participants alike.

Before the event:

This stage critically involves promotion and management.

During the promotional phase, businesses leverage automation to initially collect attendee data, segment audiences, focus on ad placements, and consequently schedule posts relating to registrations, confirmations, event date/time reminders, and any last-minute check-ins.

The gathered information can be used later to track campaign performance and highlight the areas of maximum interest to improve future events.

At this stage, most automated processes focus on increasing the number of registrations and keeping them from dropping off. Automation software in the pre-event stage quickens the registration processes and keeps them updated without additional administrative involvement.

During the event:

Using automation during the event/sessions can seamlessly facilitate real-time connections. The goal here is to keep the attendees engaged and informed. Most wait times between sessions can be tedious and unnecessarily long. However, continuously sending push notifications and updates can help them know vital information concerning delays or cancellations.

Additionally, communicating consistently with the audience will keep them engaged even during breaks.

Post-event:

After the event, one of the major tasks is mapping the attendee experience to gauge its performance or success. This comprises follow-ups, “thank you for attending” messages, feedback surveys, and customized offers to further engage with potential clients.

Automation software at this stage after the event is necessary to nurture leads’ interests and convert them into long-term buyers.

How does product event marketing automation ensure these tasks are proactively carried out?

The automated processes work through a trigger or prompt that activates a response to a specific prospect interaction. For example, if an attendee registers for the event or signs up for the brand’s newsletter, the system will periodically send them promotional offers relating to their preferences.

Constructing a seamless and interactive product event for attendees is vital. So, marketing implements automated processes cued with software platforms, integrating various marketing channels. These platforms often initiate multiple features:

Product Events & Email Marketing Automation:

Email marketing is a significant tool in ensuring a packed house for product events, whether virtual or real. However, managing email campaigns alongside event planning can be daunting.

This is where marketing automation platforms such as Zapier become your savior. It frees up much-needed time while ensuring the brand messages reach the right audiences. One of the biggest advantages of email marketing for product events is its direct line to the attendees – whether to create excitement or share session details.

But this is not the only benefit. Automating email marketing ensures that the attendees are hooked even when the organizers are off the clock.

Email marketing automation fosters a successful product event by focusing on the following:

• Personalized and resonating messages that focus on targeted communication by segmenting the attendees according to their demographic, interests, and aforementioned preferences.
• Exclusive content through scheduled reminders and session updates to keep the attendees informed as well as engaged.
• Automated emails with event sneak peeks can generate interest and boost registrations. The email content can also aim towards answering common queries and encourage newsletter sign-ups.
• Are your attendees satisfied? Include review sections or feedback scrolls in thank-you emails to illustrate that the brand seeks to improve itself.

Now, the simple question is – how does email marketing automation for product events work?

It’s straightforward.

Primarily, the focus is curating a solid strategy. Using the data collected beforehand during the pre-event promotional stage can help build a specific framework. Developing this will assist in selecting the appropriate platforms with flexible integration capabilities.

An application such as Zapier helps the brand connect the event platform with the email marketing software. This will now enable triggers on specific actions based on the event keyed in on the chosen event platform.

For example, AEvent is the event platform, and ActiveCampaign is the email marketing software.

After signing up on Zapier, create a new automated workflow or a new Zap and connect both accounts, as shown in the above image. AEvent is the trigger app here, whereas ActiveCampaign is the action app. A new attendee registration will trigger an action, i.e., create a new campaign.

Every new email campaign created requires you to input the contact list. Now, it’s time to create email design and content and choose the segment of contacts. While ActiveCampaign also hosts a drag-and-drop feature to make choosing emails easier, remember inputting the contact list will help effectively segment the contacts based on diverse preferences.

Automated email marketing software utilizes autoresponders – emails triggered due to the user’s actions. All you have to do is outline an email sequence after deciding on a robust copy.

While marketers know how to curate a personalized email copy, what about email sequencing? Mapping it out will highlight who the specific email copies are sent to and when.

To consider:

• Registration confirmation and calendar invite should be forwarded immediately after the registration form is filled.
• Specific details regarding the session speakers can be sent a week before the event, especially their background and topics they might cover.
• The exact schedule and reminders regarding the benefits of attending the event could be sequenced a day prior.
• One or two hours before, a critical reminder can be sent with the venue or sitting details, online links, start time, duration, Q&A session, etc.
• Checking in on the attendees and their experiences immediately after can be useful as the content might be fresh in their memories. Sending review and feedback forms can help pinpoint the concern for their experience.
• After a few days, send key takeaways and summaries of all the sessions along with resources for no-shows.
• Lastly, after a week and depending on the engagement behavior of the attendees, sending email copies with customized offers can help spark their memory.

Using email marketing automation drastically improves attendee engagement and establishes trust. Diverse and personalized email sequences guide users from A to B, i.e., the overall event lifecycle.

Social Media Automation

With social media gaining momentum, leveraging the platforms is quickly becoming a B2B norm. But managing it can be quite a grueling task. It’s more than merely curating content and being an influencer.

Posting regularly, elevating engagement, and monitoring different social media channels should be at the forefront. Curating an engaging social media presence is every business’ goal.

Social media automation tools lend a helping hand here. They allow brands to automate social media tasks that are quite repetitive, such as engaging with posts.

Automated actions enable an active and interactive presence, which is fruitful for product events.

How is social media automation beneficial for product events?

Social media automation can assist in one of the most significant tasks in the promotional stage of a product event – scheduling posts. It helps organizers map out the most ideal time to post and then automatically publishes it when the audience is most likely to engage with it.

Automation to optimize and streamline a content calendar works wonders for planning concrete social media campaigns. Several social media automation applications, such as Hootsuite, help analyze thousands of social media posts and highlight the optimal time – this considers all the different social platforms.

Which other factors have to be kept in mind? Content management and appealing to the audience’s tastes. While social media automation tools can help do the former, curating content requires a human touch. However, automating other tasks such as bid adjustments, ad scheduling, and targeting audiences can open up a window to focus on creative pursuits.

Taking note of these will foster content visibility along with attendee engagement. Most product events can leverage social media ads to promote themselves.

And this can elevate the reach, given the hype around social media networks. Ad campaigns are also difficult to manage, but using the right social media automation tool can be a huge savior.

When the platform is leveraged effectively, one can use ad performance analytics and reports to gauge attendee registrations. Measuring ad performance data doesn’t merely impact campaign results but also influences attendee registration.

Further, social media automation also has a way to enhance user experience. What if, after seeing a product event ad, the prospect has queries? Social media platforms may implement customer service bots, such as Botsify or Flow XO, to place virtual agents who cater to responses regarding the company and its offerings on social media.

A/B Testing in Product Event Marketing Automation

Additionally, marketing automation can help optimize the brand’s A/B testing methods for the product event. This is not isolated from email marketing and social media automation but works synergistically.

The concept behind A/B testing is known by every marketer and is quite simple. And in the case of product events, it can prove to be a huge asset in regard to marketing emails and social posts.

Small businesses that wish to organize product events might not have a huge marketing budget like Google or Apple. This is where A/B testing can help streamline the in-hand marketing channels and improve their workability.

The most beneficial aspect here is that this test can be run from fonts to subject lines to the placement of the sign-up form or button. What if its positioning is deterring potential attendees from signing up?

Before the event, the marketing team can test different placements with maximum visibility and click rates.

There’s so much that can be evaluated in reference to marketing campaigns for product events – from email campaigns to paid ads to social media content.

CRM Marketing Automation

Automating CRM systems enables one to efficiently manage and personalize marketing campaigns. For product events, CRM automation will allow businesses to leverage attendee data for targeted communication and lead nurturing even after the event lifecycle.

The organizers can identify high-value leads to nurture them through the sales funnel by tracking different attendee engagement and interaction levels at the event.

For product events, CRM systems help:

• Directly Registering attendees helps store their data and facilitates seamless segmentation.
• Follow attendee activity, i.e., session attendance and networking behavior.
• Send personalized email post-event.

In simple marketing terms, CRM marketing automation for product events can boost attendance, improve lead generation strategies, elevate attendee experience, and offer data-driven insights into attendee behavior.

Benefits of Product Event Marketing Automation

Leveraging product event marketing automation can yield several benefits. Mentioned below are some of the compelling ones.

Integrating the afore-discussed automation processes can work wonders to elevate campaigns for product events. But this is not the end of the road. It carries significant benefits for the marketing and sales teams as well.

But in what ways?

1. Prompt engagement for positive interaction and boosted conversion rates
2. Outreach automation streamlines communication and helps nurture prospect relationships
3. Tailored communication sequences for marketing and sales to align their needs with the prospects
4. Manage different event marketing campaigns by curating outlines for engaging agendas and implementing multi-channel promotions

Even if the benefits of product event marketing automation are crucial for automating event campaigns, is it as easy as it sounds? Not quite.

How do we harness the maximum potential of marketing automation to revamp product events?

The brands have to keep particular attributes in mind:

1. Selecting the appropriate software
2. Develop a strategy with concrete workflows
3. Consider the frequency of attendee communication
4. Appoint admin for automated workflows to manage technical tasks
5. Filter guest and attendee lists
6. Leverage AI chatbot software for improved support
7. Segment audiences for targeted invitations and outreach content
8. Evaluate promotion strategies
9. Track event performance using automated reports
10. Test the workflows across multiple applications

In product event marketing automation, remember precision is the steering wheel.

Based on the goals of the marketing campaigns for an event, the triggers should be as specific as possible. The automated processes have to take into account every mentioned step in the customer journey and incorporate it.

Once it’s clear how the triggers and the specific stages of the customer lifecycle are related, marketing and sales will deem it effortless to align their strategies with overall expectations. To streamline marketing automation across channels, applications, such as Zapier, leverage webhooks to help brands ensure no valuable leads slip through the cracks.

This remains the promise of automation when used correctly.

While AI has drastically transformed marketing and sales campaigns, the integration of modern tech with automation will only improve its effectiveness. Transforming the shape of marketing in the future that is yet to come.

AI and automation have created tension. Jobs are under the threat of being replaced, and our intrinsic value is at risk. But is that true?

Everyone has been afraid of AI disrupting their survival. One industry at the forefront of this onslaught is marketing or, rather, content marketing.

Creatives in the field are terrified and excited about what this technology will do. Will it transform how we consume content and deliver it to the user?

But let us present a hopeful future—one that shows that AI cannot replace the value of creativity.

Look at the screenshot above—we call it a gem. It was found through human experience. While the search volume and KD ratio can be automated, finding the keyword that might attract the right audience needs lived experience.

Marketing, especially SEO, is full of these gems. It can be found by understanding that people of all backgrounds are curious about topics, especially ones that intrigue or scare them.

Human beings want to know the answers immediately and are equipped with an encyclopedia in their pockets to answer queries, doubts, or fears, usually in the form of content.

We look for answers in the stories of others, hoping one would match our circumstances and provide an answer.

The answer to end uncertainty.

AI and Content Marketing

HBR wrote a piece on the three priorities of a CMO. In it, they declare that the principal role of a CMO has always been to be a great storyteller.

We can say it is a fact.

Great marketing is born out of stories. In technical terms, it is positioning yourself.

What perspective are you bringing, and what value does it provide? The CMO then directs their team to work towards that single goal. Sure, there are pivots along the way. Maybe a campaign does not meet its goal, or there are not enough qualified leads, but the story continues in a new iteration. Perhaps it’s rewritten.

But for a CMO— talented individuals who bring their vision to life is vital. Yet, they are still human and prone to errors. Writers may take time to write the content, or designers may create designs that are not on-brand. Maybe someone important on your team is on maternity leave.

Everyday problems disrupt businesses. After all, we are not machines that can work 24/7.

But now, there is one that can! AI.

It can write content that is informational, helpful, and in-depth— depending on the prompt, of course.

It can tell an expert story for you. Sounds great. Though, there is one hiccup.

The content will no longer be that of someone with similar experiences. Why? Because, as far as we know, the intelligent machine does not have any experience.

Content quality and prompts

This conversation with Anthropic’s Claude reveals something profound. And for now, this is the definite way of how AI works.

They provide a reflection for the questions you ask. What you input will be the output, and everything that follows will be a refinement of your thought processes. To get something unique out of the AI systems, you will need to spend time and dig deeper into your own experiences to ask the right questions.

AI is the extension of all accumulated human knowledge. It is the natural evolution of our desire to inquire and reflect on the answers provided to us.

The type of content you produce will depend on the accuracy of your prompts and the subject matters involved. If the process were fully automatic, there is a chance AI could hallucinate the information and feed an incorrect story to your prospects.

That’s why AI machines can be prompt hacked. They cannot be perfect because the data they are trained on is inherently biased.

Marketing Teams and the lived experience

With strategies like demand generation and brand awareness campaigns, marketing teams stir the natural curiosity of the human mind. The prospect is identified, and their pain points are tackled.

But we are quickly hitting a saturation point. Products, solutions, and the content surrounding it have surpassed the limits of production. Ahref reports 96.55% of content does not get traffic from Google.

Imagine, that is almost millions of pages. A lot of good businesses with good content probably fall under that spectrum. Why is that? It is because the whole of the web is inundated with outdated content, and now we have AI-made content in the mix. Marketing messages are just not working as effectively as they used to.

However, there is one thing that works like no other: Out-of-the-box-thinking.

Every successful campaign follows this. Either it simplifies things or creates a novel way of experiencing. These are created through understanding the present condition of the market, by relating to the pain points of the target segment, and by providing an experience that delights them and makes them feel understood. Automated systems cannot do that.

But your teams can. They can craft strategies that are in relation to prospects’ life experiences.

You can create ICPs based on data that AI can analyze and create content around, but actual understanding needs a lived experience.

Why content strategy cannot be automated.

Strategy sounds elusive. Because it is not planning, it is trying to create an intended outcome by hypothesizing the needs of the market. And yet, marketing teams and business leaders know that strategy is what brings success.

It offers tangible outcomes in uncertainty. However, there are a lot of inherent risks in playing a strategy.

1. It might fail
2. There will be a monetary loss
3. Time invested in the strategy will go to waste.

Money and time cannot be recovered when it is gone. Competition will not wait for your strategies to succeed, and failure can threaten your position in the market. These are real concerns that leaders have to gripe through.

So, it becomes easier to rely on AI that is perceived as more concrete. Think about it— automated systems make fewer errors. Machines are tight-bound by laws and rules that human beings are not. The question, then, is: Why not automate strategies and make them definite?

Strategic Choices for Certainty

Roger Martin, one of the most prominent business strategists alive today, says that there are five choices a business must undertake to ensure strategic success. It is called the Strategy Choice Cascade.

They are: –

1. What is our winning aspiration?
2. Where will we play?
3. How will we win where we have chosen to play?
4. What capabilities must be in place to win?
5. What management systems are required to ensure the capabilities are in place?

If this is all it takes, an AI system created solely for this task might use this logic and craft strategies—content marketing and business— for wild profits. It might even generate something novel and creative. Viola, there’s success.

Strategy is strangely human.

But as we know, AI and automation are based on rules and logic. It does not account for the changing dynamics of human behavior. Our models have trouble predicting long-term behaviors—we cannot even accurately predict weather beyond 10 days.

That’s because our models are incomplete for analyzing small details imperceptible to them. They are created by people, and we cannot account for everything. Changes happen on a minute scale, and they cascade rapidly, making it difficult to predict the future.

You must use these methods, data sets, and tools to enhance human intuition. For some reason, strategy is strangely human.

There is one trait common among good leaders: An imperceptible eye or “good taste”. Successful CMOs have developed an instinct for what resonates with their market because they have in-depth knowledge of their audiences and buyers.

The CMO, marketer, and writer who understands this will craft a creative content strategy that resonates with its intended audience. And that is how successful brands thrive.

We call it intuition, but it is pattern recognition that happens quickly and without thought. It follows the same logic as understanding what your spouse or friend will like as a gift.

This accumulated pattern recognition is not happening through mathematic models, and for now, it cannot be automated by a machine. Strategy is finding relatable experiences and bringing them to a market segment that will appreciate them.

Content strategy automation is unlikely because…

There are two examples that illustrate why content strategies cannot be automated. Do you remember the above screenshot? It was found through searching for a topic.

Our team found it while discovering topics for our newsletter. It came through discovery and a deep understanding of our SEO team’s understanding of our core audience’s needs. Through this, we can find such gems.

Another is this that we found by capitalizing on trends.

This is another gem. The keyword Claude 3.5 V.S. GPT 4o is relevant and has a low KD of 33%. Making it possible for teams to talk about a relevant and timeless topic (Machine vs Machine), helping brands rank. Through such unique activities, we were able to find and create strategies that helped us identify keywords to rank for.

This process of discovery is difficult for a machine to do because it cannot, as of yet, self-direct itself and self-reflect.

Two metrics of effective content creation that urge its readers and move them.

Now, Let us talk about the second one.

Staying on trend is essential.

Sensory marketing is picking up steam. It is essentially the ability to make your potential buyers feel the product or what it does. The above post is one of the hundreds that talk about a makeup brand called Rhode by Hailey Bieber.

This example may seem very B2C or better for tangible products. But it can be used in B2B contexts. Through design, teams can give the illusion of software tangibility.

The question is: How can you and your teams leverage your unique propositions to create this new experience? And what will be the context for it?

Automating your content strategy might be an option. But it is not the correct one.

Content marketing will always be about conversations and relationships with the ideal buyer. They will need their risks mitigated and experiences validated.

Marketing teams, through ingenuity, must show them that you understand the value of their problem and have a solution. The strategy you take differentiates you from the competition.

But as AI becomes accessible and you rely on the same tools as your competition, you will need free-thinkers and creatives who think in novel ways and create experiences. CMOs are asked to do less with more and operate on a lean model. Stakeholders and C-exes must ensure that the CMO is free to tell the story of your product.

Automation and AI are an extension of your teams’ creativity, but they must not be conflated with the certainty you seek.

B2B companies are swiftly adopting marketing automation for its array of benefits. But how do you decide which tool is ideal for your brand?

Automation is no longer a buzzword. It is ruling the marketing domain, simplifying everything from social media ads to email campaigns, scheduling, and publishing content. Marketing automation software finds its application in every business component, streamlining processes and operations.

These platforms automate repetitive tasks in a marketing plan, from lead generation to email marketing. Some of the tasks that marketers can automate using this software include email responses, delivery of personalized messages, social media posting, SEO keyword research, CRM updates, lead qualification/scoring, and contact management.

There are countless automation tools to level up your marketing strategy. The compatibility of the software with your business will depend on several factors, such as business goals, features you are seeking, and available resources. To help you make the right decision, we have compiled a list of marketing automation tools to enhance your campaigns.

Key Benefits

Let’s take a look at the advantages of integrating marketing automation tools to scale up your marketing operation.

Increase prospect funnel

Lead generation is an essential step in marketing automation, involving several steps. Automating leaves more time to focus on the overall marketing strategy and nurture leads. More prospects means more customers. With this software, you can get detailed insights into consumer behavior patterns through tracking methods like following a user’s path through site visits.

Personalizing the buyer’s journey

77% of buyers prefer tailored content targeted at every stage of their research. With marketing automation tools, you can streamline the process of creating target-specific content and schedule them for a timely launch. It also helps you to extract data from the content you generate, giving a clear picture of customer engagement. How are your social media channels performing? Is your website getting frequent visits? Marketing automation software helps get answers to such questions relevant to your content marketing strategy.

Big data for better decisions

Although big data is gaining importance, not all businesses know how to use it to their advantage. With marketing automation, you can seamlessly embrace big data, acquiring valuable information at scale. These tools are the best solution for measuring campaign performance and predicting consumer behavior. You get a comprehensive overview of prospects with much ease.

Sales & Marketing Alignment

It’s not surprising that integrating sales and marketing teams can seem like being on the edge for some businesses. But it’s an important component of successful marketing. With more and more innovations introduced, the buying cycle also transforms. This emphasizes the need for sales and marketing teams to grow closer, fostering efficient collaboration. In case these departments are not aligned, it can affect process quality and outcomes of deliverables. Marketing automation can improve the lead quality for your brand.

Criteria for selecting the best marketing automation tool

Here’s a list of criteria to help you find the best marketing automation software.

Automation capabilities

Most tools automate at least two channels: emails, ads, and social media. You can check the automation capability, ranking, and workflow.

Integration

Find out whether it helps with content management, customer relationship management, pipeline management, etc. Make sure you check if it aligns with the tasks you’d like to automate. The marketing automation software that integrates with these tools ensures smooth workflow.

Price to value

The price of these platforms ranges from free to high costs. When you research this feature, you will be able to perform a value comparison of the various options out there.

Reporting & Analytics

An efficient marketing tool must have this feature of reports and analysis. The top platforms offer reports with which you can apply metrics and visualize data for future strategy.

Marketing Automation Tools: Top 10 picks

Let’s walk through the best tools for scaling up your marketing operation.

ActiveCampaign

With this platform, you can integrate working automation into real human processes. It is based on the concept of adding features, such as notification emails, empowering marketing and sales teams, and not replacing them. ActiveCampaign collates email marketing, automation, sales automation, and CRM tools in a single channel. This comprehensive platform is ideal for managing customer relationships and driving brand growth.

Sender

It’s an affordable tool specific for helping with email and SMS marketing automation. This software is your perfect go-to for expanding your business without exceeding your budget. Sender provides a series of features, such as intelligent automation, segmented lists, and a pop-up builder. With this, you can grow your subscriber lists, increase customer engagement, and accelerate the ROI cycle.

Omnisend

The functionality of this channel distinguishes it from the other platforms. When you choose Omnisend, you can easily add multiple channels, such as emails, push notifications, and social media, to the same automation software. You can launch an immersive experience for your customers, by delivering messages automatically through their preferred channels.

Marketo

This platform works for any channel and engagement. It is compatible with several operational tasks, from digital advertising to social media management. The flexibility Marketo offers makes it a perfect choice for large-scale marketing operations.

HubSpot

A popular marketing automation tool, its focus on inbound marketing makes it stand out among other platforms. It offers the additional benefits of CRM, Sales, and Service Hubs, allowing teams to work in synergy across different departments. With Hubspot, you can showcase your brand expertise on different channels. It enables you to launch campaigns designed to succeed by streamlining the marketing activities. You can access several benefits, from leveraging the power of workflows, chatbots, and email triggers to increasing audience reach. Hubspot offers data-driven insights that promote the optimization of your overall marketing plan.

Pardot

It is a perfect choice if you are looking to manage account-based marketing. A collaboration of Pardot with Salesforce allows to foster sales and marketing alignment. This is a robust tool to help brands get more high-value leads, accelerate the sales pipeline, and get an insight into the overall marketing performance. It simplifies market segmentation and categorizes customers into groups. You can find a variety of templates for emails, landing pages, and forms on this platform.

Customer.io

This marketing automation software works well with various channels. When you select this, you can customize messages along with automation. It helps brands adhere to customer-centricity while automating operations. You can automate multiple channels, from email to SMS, push notifications, and apps. One of the features that stand out is its A/B testing capabilities, allowing you to test up to 8 variations of a newsletter. The detailed analysis gives you an idea about what’s working and what isn’t. A highlighting feature of this platform is its prompt customer support. With Customer.io, you can take email marketing to the next level, knowing that the right content is delivered at the right time.

Orrto

The features that make Orrto worth choosing are its extensive user activity tracking and reporting. It is among the premium automation solutions, automating SMS and email campaigns while being user-friendly. The bright interface also adds to its appeal, and its workflow builder comes with a revision history. If you make an error, you can easily restore the previous version. Additionally, Orrto also offers an effective reporting/analytics feature. You can track the behavior of nearly every user by keeping tabs on email open rates, reactions, and subscriptions.

Brevo

The best part about this marketing automation tool is it is free! With this, you can automate more than four channels. And it offers more than a marketing workflow— Brevo is also a CRM and meeting scheduling platform. This all-in-one tool benefits users by offering a toolkit to enhance customer relationship management. Bravo’s AI integration makes it easy for you to craft impactful email subject lines and manage email marketing.

Mailchimp

The marketing tool has expanded from an email marketing tool to a well-established automation solution. You can go for this to deliver robust and user-friendly email automation. It is integrated with several features to promote the prospects funnel and customer retention. This is the ideal fit for your business if you have established customer reach and have a lead-nurturing strategy in place. Its customizable templates are a highlighting feature. Mailchimp is integrated with audience segmentation and A/B testing, helping brands launch target-specific campaigns aligning with customer pain points.

Wrapping it up

Businesses have to deal with various processes, each requiring precision and being time-bound. However, companies often struggle with managing these routine tasks. Marketing automation is your go-to solution for streamlining workflow operations.  The selection of the best tools is crucial for effectively launching marketing strategies and enhancing customer experience. You can leverage the features of these platforms to propel a well-designed marketing plan. Identifying the distinct requirements of your brand will help you select the relevant marketing automation software. With the right tools, you can transform data-driven insights into impeccable execution on a large scale.

Marketing automation reshapes customer engagement by streamlining your efforts. How can the 2025 trends help you stay ahead of the curve and empower your brand?

Marketing automation uses software and advanced technology that enable brands to automate daily repetitive tasks. These include email campaigns, social media management, and more, leaving time to focus on strategy and planning. As a result, certain aspects of businesses are resembling systems running on autopilot, more simplified and effective.

The recent years have witnessed the marketing automation market expand and grow to over USD 9.5 billion by 2027. It has completely transformed how businesses increase customer engagement. In 2025, the marketing automation landscape has evolved, streamlining workflows and offering innovative approaches.

We have compiled a list of the eight best trends for you to choose from.

Top Marketing Automation Trends for 2025

The whirlwind of digitization has witnessed different innovations to revolutionize B2B companies. And marketing automation is no exception.  Let’s look at the trending techs in this arena.

AI-Driven Personalization

AI integration for delivering personalized communication is a topmost trend in 2025. When you integrate artificial intelligence, you adopt its ability to process vast amounts of data for tailoring marketing strategies. This transition is also applicable to email marketing. AI-driven personalization curates content based on real-time interactions. If customers receive messages resonating with their pain points and interests, it increases the likelihood of enhanced performance engagement.

Predictive Analytics

When you analyze historical data and trends using predictive analytics, you can anticipate future customer needs, facilitating you to tailor the marketing plans. This can increase the conversion rates and offer better customer satisfaction. Coupled with AI, predictive analysis gives a forecast of future consumer behavior. You can curate solutions based on the past data of customers, thus delivering a targeted campaign.

Omnichannel Integration

This year has seen marketing automation span across multiple touchpoints through omnichannel campaigns. You can have a seamless and consistent experience for customers across different channels. Omnichannel campaigns allow you to implement strategies that improve brand visibility. Marketing on multiple platforms remains a crucial marketing automation trend of 2025. With automation tools, you can experience seamless marketing integration into different platforms, such as emails, social media channels, and the web. Omnichannel integration improves customer engagement and streamlines their journey, leading to high retention and conversion rates.

Social media marketing

Social media platforms have become a frequent channel for boosting customer interactions and understanding the buyer’s journey. Responding to customer inquiries and comments can be exhausting. And if managed manually, it may lead to delays or errors. Marketing automation software takes care of that for you. It automates repetitive tasks such as maintaining the social media account, interacting with customers, etc. Integrating social media channels with marketing automation tools helps you publish content, increase performance engagement, and track it across different platforms. Automation software lets you plan, schedule, and measure the performance of social media accounts. In this way, the technology increases productivity and ROI generation.

Chatbots & Conversational marketing

Personalized conversation with customers helps to build trust in your brand. Conversational marketing is the trend in direct marketing, demonstrating that you understand the customer’s pain points. Chatbots foster tailored conversation with the audience and the best part is— you do not have to be around. Whether it’s answering common questions, kickstarting a conversation, or resolving simple issues- chatbots are a go-to approach. Unlike human agents, AI-fuelled chatbots can manage multiple customer requests simultaneously. They also come with a language processing feature that delivers natural and conversational communication with customers.

Sales and Workflow Automation

Sales teams work relentlessly to acquire clients and fulfill targets. A range of tasks must be managed, from daily content to emailing qualified leads. This is where marketing automation works wonders. With sales and workflow automation, you can perform these tasks seamlessly, saving time from start to finish. It simplifies the mapping of customer journeys, analyzing consumer behavior and streamlining processes, which results in an improved sales cycle.

Data Privacy & Security

Data theft is real and when it comes to businesses, all information stored or exchanged is critical. Any leak can have severe impacts on the functioning and finances. That is why, data security and privacy are gaining increasing importance in 2025. And with this, marketing automation systems have prioritized stepping up data privacy. The future of marketing automation will need to address these concerns by implementing robust security measures and ensuring compliance with data protection regulations. This marketing automation trend is more about building trust with the audience and developing brand credibility.

Lead scoring and lead management.

Acquiring leads and sifting through all that data can be exhausting. While generating leads is a crucial component of a marketing plan, it is not of much help if prospects do not convert into paying accounts. Lead tracking is critical in identifying the audience interested in your products or services. The good news is—marketing automation software enables you to seamlessly track all leads and categorize them as per the domain.

When you integrate automation into CRM software, it provides valuable insights into leads generated via emails, clicks, and so on. Additionally, you can also get an overview of customer profiles.  As AI and machine learning are advancing, lead scoring is evolving into a more sophisticated form. In 2025, businesses have implemented lead-scoring models based on a broad range of consumer behavior and interactions, thus improving customer engagement.

Final Thoughts

B2B brands have become more dynamic with new technologies being introduced day in and day out. When it comes to launching marketing initiatives, several components need to be looked after. Marketing automation streamlines your efforts and helps you deliver campaigns that promote better customer experience at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

Staying informed about the marketing automation trends listed here will enable you to make the most of tech-influenced tactics. In 2025, a major focus is to amp up campaign performance, improve workflow management, and increase overall productivity and performance engagement. A lot of planning and execution goes into launching a campaign in the marketing automation market. Leveraging these trends will help you deliver successful campaigns and give you a cutting-edge in the competition.

If you’re investing more time in technology than it’s freeing up for you- is it an investment or a mere liability?

We’ve all had our fair share of experiences with complicated technologies that make most of us want to pull our hair out. It’s frustrating, to say the least.

We’ve also had experiences that are the polar opposite- they make life easy. These platforms and technologies are smooth and intuitive. You get what you need without racking your brains too hard.

Simplicity wins in the digital world. Your customers want seamless experiences with the products and services they interact with; brands that provide ease and convenience with a solid backbone of technology will continue to leapfrog their counterparts that don’t. Because complicated doesn’t always mean intelligent.

The stacks

If your tech stack is causing your team more problems than it solves, you might be going about building it all wrong. Tech leaders must bring transparency at all levels to break down organizational silos and ensure no team or department is sitting on data it doesn’t share across the business.

If you want to keep your customer, keep it simple- the entire customer experience with tech, processes, and people.

There’s a massive opportunity in simplifying your tech stack. Start with not building any process in isolation- bring it all together. As leaders, it’s imperative to gauge how the dots connect. Ask your team some crucial questions related to the tech stack- which technology acquisition made sense and which didn’t in terms of usage, training, and ROI. Prioritize the processes you want to automate first without jumping on the bandwagon.

Not every fad becomes a trend, and not every product is worth your investment.

What’s it getting you

Every business unit will face complications, but it’s the difference between complicated and byzantine that matters. If you’re investing more time in technology than it’s freeing up for you- is it an investment or a mere liability?

Have a customer-centric mindset when you buy, manage, or scrap technologies. What makes the end goal easier? New technologies keep emerging in the market with added features; this has also led to tech leaders choosing the best-of-the-breed approach rather than relying on a single vendor.

Modern organizations need specialized, more focused solutions that align with the overall business objectives.

Tech complexity has implications on team composition too. The kind of tools we need and build today rely on different skill sets and constant collaboration; cross-functional teams are the new competitive advantage.

The Editor’s Note

The tech industry works on the premise of adaptive learning, but it’s crucial to gauge the value of technology before you decide to invest in it. Each technology adoption comes with opportunities and risks, and it’s up to the leader to weigh the pros and cons to interpret what makes the most sense for the business requisites and customer satisfaction.

It’s time tech leaders manage change with a result-driven approach because technical debt doesn’t look good on anyone.