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.

How can businesses overcome the challenges of data mining to unlock the hidden potential of raw data and convert them into meaningful insights?

Organizational discipline is the key to workflow management. Decluttering and sorting through the data we work with streamlines our operations and boosts productivity.

To play chess, the pieces must be staged in a specific way and move strategically. We consider all the positions on the board before making a move against the opponent.

Managing the heaps of data is one of the most complex tasks. Our business objective should be improving our management skills to curate a smart business strategy. The more sorted the data is, the higher the possibility that it’s manageable, accessible, and easier to understand.

Data is omnipresent but how we interact with and study it remains different. We streamline these ways by engaging and understanding it through data analysis software.

Businesses require such tools for swift and comprehensive analytics to drive growth.

Each department in an organization understands and presents the relevant data differently to condense the condition of the business.

Significant BI tools for workflow management

Business intelligent platforms are crucial tools for workflow management.

These platforms combine software and additional services transforming raw data from multiple channels into actionable insights.

Business intelligence platforms work as catalysts, converting raw data into meaningful information, i.e., declutter and sort. These platforms collect, manage, organize, and analyze large quantities of data to make informed business decisions.

Additionally, it is through their functioning that data becomes accessible. They help businesses retrieve the latest, past, in-house, third-party data, etc., to help evaluate the performance. BI platforms allow the IT and other departments to work with and understand each other beyond making assumptions.

The nervous system of your organization

The right business intelligence platform works as the nervous system of your organization.

Business intelligence software integrated with visualization tools, advanced analytics, and data mining technologies offers a centralized platform.

By providing accessible insights, this software propels your business to become data-driven, and gain a competitive edge by helping simplify customer behavior.

In this fast-paced juncture where everyone requires a kickstart, business intelligence tools help you stay ahead of the curve.

How do these tools help us do that?

In practical terms, the standard BI tool helps identify the snags and address them accurately to streamline workflow operations. Additionally, it has become an efficient tool to optimize overall operations and track key metrics introducing cost-effective solutions into the business structure.

Business intelligence solutions are integral in administering your organization as data-driven.

Automation is the vehicle unleashing its potential to become one.

Use of automation in the fast-paced digital world

Across the business intelligence landscape, automation is crucial to maintaining a competitive edge in the fast-paced digital world.

Automation in business intelligence helps streamline, optimize, process, and analyze the collected data by boosting the capability to save time. Equipped with automation tools, business intelligence platforms underscore strategic and recurrent business decisions and tasks.

Have you heard of the terms, technologically-challenged or technophobe?

This is what you are labeled as if you manually attempt to collect and enter data into the system.

Introducing automation in business intelligence platforms helps save time and effort. Certain automated processes help avoid manual data entry or processing, increasing employee productivity by allowing them to focus on other strategic tasks.

Automation also helps negate other human mistakes. It reduces and corrects any errors in reports, ensuring the business maintains updated, precise, reliable, and accurate data.

In simpler terms, there are specific components of automation through which business intelligence platforms cater to your data processing and management preferences:

Data collection

Data collection is the first and most basic step of data processing.

In this step, raw and unstructured data is collected from different sources (internal and external systems), segregated to find clean authentic data, and structured uniformly for comprehensive data analysis.

Clean data is a requirement for accurate, to-the-point insights. Hence, the automation highlights and eliminates any inconsistencies, duplicates, or discrepancies.

Data Analysis

After collecting, cleaning, and integrating data, the next step is inspecting and transforming data i.e., data analysis.

Automation helps in the reliable data description, modeling, and interpretation to make data-driven decision-making using advanced analytics. In this stage, the tools help identify patterns and trends to establish correlations between data sets.

After finding a correlation, it becomes much simpler to extract meaningful insights, accentuate important information, and draw conclusions to plan a roadmap for the future.

Monitor and Track

After swift data analysis, automated processes leverage the easy access to big data to monitor and track the workflow performance.

It simplifies report generation through customizable dashboards for a clear visual representation of data and automated reporting tools.

By creating and sharing detailed and accurate reports across a user-friendly interface, stakeholders can easily access important business information.

Automation in business intelligence platforms can manage and organize large heaps of data. As the business gradually expands, it is needless to expend additional costs and resources as the automation tools have scaling-up capabilities.

The overall function of business intelligence platforms is catering to real-time insights for organizations without slowing down, such that resources and time are freed up for more significant tasks.

Understanding market trends with business intelligence tools

But the major question is – are they reliable?

Each organization has distinguishable business requirements. Choosing the perfect business intelligence software depends on the department’s needs and the volume of data.

With the data mountains inherently present within, how do businesses harness their power? Through BI systems.

However, before finalizing the right tool, your business has to consider particular specifications –

• Ease of access and use: The BI platform should be easily accessible by all employees, i.e., from tech-savvies to technophobes. It should confidently allow the user to configure the data, process natural language, and provide required setup assistance.
• Automation capabilities: Automation is the principal foundation of business intelligence platforms. The chosen BI platform should then seamlessly integrate automation, and support natural language insights and visual report creation with one click.
• Does it support AI? With the onset of AI, we aim to look past data. To establish simpler customer service structures within the business, the software should allow chatbot assistance and other interactive and conversational AI services.
• Seamless Integration: To elevate operational management and seamless integration of processes, is the BI platform part of an ecosystem of apps? This enables an organization-wide improvement in productivity. Does the BI software allow integration with multiple data sources?

Broadly, your chosen business intelligence tools should be adept at data management. It should assist data warehousing, allow easy data mining, and aid in data modeling processes.

Top services to manage your workflow

The ideal tools and services for your business can transform your workflow and instill productivity.

Here are the 5 best business intelligence platforms of 2024:

QlikSense by Qlik

Qlik is available for Web, iOS, and Android.

QlikSense comprises a diverse range of visualization and data reporting features offering versatile options.

Image source: https://www.qlik.com/us/products/qlik-sense#:~:text=Qlik%20Sense%20is%20a%20complete,to%20fully%20customize%20analytics%20solutions

QlikSense is a complete, fully customized analytics solution.

Sample data is already available within QlikSense which saves you the importing time. This BI platform works efficiently with one dataset or hundreds, enabling comprehensive visuals detailing the sales numbers.

These are structured into customizable graphs and provide an overview of the dataset(s). After the platform completes uploading and visualizing your data, its built-in AI-powered Insight Advisor allows you to ask questions regarding natural language, insights, summaries, and predictive analysis across different data sources.

One of the best features of this platform is its accessibility. Available across different devices, you can access your reports and graphs to make edits anytime and anywhere – all-in-one-functionality.

Microsoft Power BI by Microsoft

Microsoft Power BI is available for Web, iOS, and Android.

Power BI is one of the most widely used business intelligence platforms.

Image source: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/products/power-bi

It allows effortless integration with other Microsoft products to quickly track any edits/changes made to the available data. One of its most supportive features is access to Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams with a click.

Microsoft Power BI, a web-based business analytics suite, highlights real-time trends and offers valuable insights through comprehensive data visualization. This BI tool seamlessly integrates and is highly intuitive. If two datasets are connected, it can recognize the correlation, and changes to one are visible in the other dataset as well.

Zoho Analytics by Zoho

Zoho Analytics is available for Web, iOS, and Android.

Zoho Analytics is a self-service business intelligence software.

Image source: https://www.zoho.com/analytics/whats-new.html tm_source=Ent_analytics_campaign&utm_medium=Ent_BI-banner

Zoho Analytics offers in-depth analysis and reports using automatic data syncing, scheduled periodically. This BI tool is one of the straightforward platforms to navigate and learn through a free on-premise plan.

It has built-in AI-powered features such as conversational AI, unlimited detailed reports, and predictive analytics and allows third-party integrations.

Zoho Analytics is designed to help solo entrepreneurs manage and analyze big data, even for the novices.

If you do not understand its functionalities, it offers demo videos with a user-friendly interface with walk-throughs.

Zoho Analytics leverages visual data representation to signify data flow from one end of the pipeline to another. It offers geo maps, i.e., map layering that unearths multiple data layers and identifies the hidden dimensions.

One of its most fascinating features? Immersive report viewing between different tabs, widgets, and an upgraded dashboard builder.

Domo Data Experience Platform by Domo

Domo is available for Web, iOS, and Android.

With cloud computing taking over the internet for flexible resource sharing and economic scaling, Domo is one of the best business intelligence tools for optimizing your workflow.

Image source: https://images.app.goo.gl/4us1wVgUzPZSKNKu9

Domo allows seamless data integration from multiple sources such as databases, spreadsheets, social media, etc. It is entirely cloud-based with a faster load speed, making it easier for multinationals and small businesses.

Imagine it as a data library that connects, supporting over 1000 pre-built ones. Once the data is connected, managing it is as easy as a pie.

Additionally, it helps prepare your data, identify relationships, automate, and filter without any prior SQL knowledge. The Domo app hosts APIs, data management, and manipulation tools for all your data management preferences. It can also make the required data calculations with the Beast Mode available in the app.

Tableau by Salesforce

Tableau is available only on the web.

Tableau is one of the dynamic data visualization builders that allows diverse sharing options for team collaboration.

Image source: https://www.tableau.com/products/tableau

Tableau is one of the top-rated BI tools for team collaboration. It specializes in data visualization and discovery and its collaborative capabilities.

Using this, you can share dashboards and workbooks with your teammates. They can leave the necessary comments on the work and collaborate on the data analysis process to streamline workflow.

Tableau supports data integration from multiple platforms such as SalesForce, Google Analytics, and MS Excel and has in-built workbooks, known as Accelerators, to support the imported data. Tableau offers different products depending on your business needs, such as Tableau Server for organizations, Tableau Desktop for the general audience, and Tableau Online for hosted analytics.

What’s next for the business intelligence market?

The Business Intelligence market, valued at $33.34 billion, is expected to grow by $61.86 billion by 2029.

Making important business decisions in the minimum amount of time is the need of the hour.

Business intelligence platforms rely on technological advancements to analyze data and help employees and high-level executives make significant decisions.

The business intelligence platforms help administrators extract, monitor, and enhance data from internal and external systems while producing reports and dashboards easily accessible to stakeholders and decision-makers.

Graphs, infographics, and scorecards are increasingly necessary to develop these reports.

The BI platforms offer a helping hand in Zoho analytics, data mining, modeling, and statistical analytics to harness insightful conclusions and curate these embedded graphics smoothly.

Data is the backbone of every industry.

Business intelligence platforms offer a structure to this heap by organizing and attributing meaning to them.

With the focus on automation in recent years, the demand for BI software will increase significantly for all businesses as they rush to propel their decision-making processes with confidence that their data is accurate and trustworthy.

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.

Personalization offers a tailored experience, and automation technology speeds up the procedure, improving the entire customer journey. How do you strike the right balance?

Every business should put the best customer experience first, and there have never been more options for engagement. The desire to shift towards a totally automated customer service model exists, but it might not be in the best interest of the consumer given how essential ROI is. The entire customer experience can be improved by adding automation and personalization to your customer support system. Technology that automates processes speeds up the process, while personalization offers a customized experience. However, it’s crucial for brands to maintain the proper mix of personalization and automation in order to meet the needs of both businesses and consumers.

Organizations that prioritize extreme automation may eventually become distant and general, while those that place an excessive emphasis on consumer personalization may come off as annoying and unwanted. Well, marketers can provide relevant and informative content, respect customer privacy, improve the customer experience, and establish the ideal blend of technology and human touch to maintain a good balance between personalization and automation.

Does Marketing Automation Limit Personalization?

The primary concern that most people have about automation is that it undermines personalization. Many people worry that marketing efforts that use automation may become monotonous or send incorrect information. A lot of businesses are also concerned that if they outsource tasks like email marketing to automation, they will lose control of their business. Those who have used automation, however, readily realize how useful it is and how it saves corporate time to concentrate on more crucial business elements and client requirements.

Personalization is not eliminated by marketing automation. Marketers are not required to use cold, impersonal, and generic information when addressing their customers. Automation provides a platform for you to strategically reach a larger audience. As a result of the time you save, you can devote more effort to creating engaging content that connects with and makes each customer feel valuable. Automation encompasses more than just generic, robotic communication. It allows you to preserve that personal touch and engage with your audience meaningfully. While it functions well on its own, marketers can maximize its effectiveness by combining it with customization.

How Do You Strike the Balance?

Automated customer support doesn’t necessarily have to be cold or depressing. In fact, combining automation and personalization is a very effective business strategy. While maintaining a balance between the two aspects can be challenging, it supports continuous customer satisfaction and long-term company growth.

The best customer service practices combine the advantages of automation and personalization while minimizing their drawbacks. Personalization brings vitality to the service when automation feels impersonal and cold. Automation can also assist in streamlining procedures where personalization is ineffective. Automation can really aid in developing a personalized experience.

Wrapping Up

It’s critical to strike a balance between automation and personalization if either is to be successful. When automated too much, brand messages may come across as irrelevant and robotic. Similarly, being overly personal can overwhelm customers. The appropriate mix is ultimately what makes the relationship between consumers and brands successful. To provide the best CX, automation and personalization in marketing must work together. Which one is more significant has no clear answer. Instead, the correct question to ask is, what is the right balance between automation and personalization? The solution is to develop methods that keep your customers on top of your mind at all times.