— and the way we see it, a multi-layered approach (AKA, a mix between incredible team members and high-functioning marketing automation) is the best way to do it.
See, the best thing about marketing is that even a little bit of it can be effective — but when it’s part of a well-rounded strategy, it can absolutely transform the way you do business. By integrating together a robust marketing automation system alongside top-tier work from your team, you can create an unstoppable marketing force.
Here’s the thing, though: you can’t have one without the other, which brings us to a question we get a lot:
Short answer? Yes, do both. Long answer? Absolutely — and here’s why:
Your marketing team and your marketing automation software coexist beautifully together — but they need each other to work optimally. See, while your team creates on-brand marketing content and approaches your audience thoughtfully, your marketing automation software can capture leads, personalize your marketing capabilities, and nurture your audience strategically.
It can be easy to look at the term “automation” and think of robots doing all of the work for you, but that’s not true — instead, marketing automation allows your team to streamline, strategize, and segment your marketing. Whether it’s by setting up the marketing automation software to capture high-quality leads or building out a robust lead nurturing email campaign, your team decides what to automate — and your marketing automation software helps you do it, saving you time and money while also maximizing your marketing itself.
On the other hand, your marketing team gets to strategize, create content, and design things like marketing campaigns to grow your business’s impact and take advantage of the work your marketing automation software is putting in on the backend.
Think of it like this — say you run a business that builds cars. You have an automated assembly line that helps to do all of the tasks to build the actual car, like attach the doors and the engine, set up the steering wheel, and install the hydraulics. However, say you ONLY had an assembly line. You didn’t have engineers to properly design and structure the cars, you didn’t have quality control checking each car as it exited the assembly line, you didn’t have a marketing team to market the cars, and you didn’t have safety testers to verify the conditions of the cars in the first place.
Well, to be frank, you wouldn’t really have a car — you would have a chunk of metal (maybe on wheels, and maybe not) that was unsafe to drive, inconsistent, and wildly under its potential.
It’s the same when it comes to automation without a team, and it’s the same when it comes to a team without automation. They have to work in tandem with each other to truly maximize their impact and streamline the strategy — and you can’t expect the same results with just one piece of the puzzle.
Marketing automation involves using systems, platforms, and automation teams to target customers, generate and nurture leads, segment your audience, and market your business strategically and effectively. With marketing automation, you can set up behavioral and data-based systems to overhaul who you reach, who you sell to, and what you market to them with — and you can also use automation to implement things like personalized & targeted email nurture campaigns, social media marketing, segment advertisements, and more.
Marketing automation allows you to save time on repetitive tasks (like gathering leads from landing pages and sending out welcome sequences), and also allows your marketing team to work on the things they enjoy. You’ll also be able to fully nurture leads and take advantage of a much higher (and much more personalized) conversion ate into customers — as well as harness the power of lead and customer data to personalize their marketing journeys. This allows you to take a much more in-depth look at customer behavior and implement smart decisions from the top down, which gives you and your customers a significantly higher quality experience.
It’s simple, really — the goal of marketing is to convert more leads into customers. The right marketing automation is designed specifically to help you do this, and when implemented in conjunction with a high-performing, engaged marketing team, you’ve hit the absolute jackpot. According to research from the Annuitas Group, businesses using marketing automation to nurture prospects experience a whopping 451% increase in qualified leads. And, to add to that, those nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads.
That same Annuitas Group survey, provided by Carlos Hidalgo, also reports that the combination of process with marketing automation showed a 417% increase in revenue from the people surveyed — but only 36% of companies are using their platform to nurture leads. Imagine the huge white space of revenue and leads there, right?
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So, if it feels like it’s finally time to start navigating and approaching your marketing with strategy — and if it feels like it’s finally time to start capturing, marketing to, and converting high-quality leads, you’re in the right spot. Our team at The Automation Co is here to help you automate, strategize, and market with purpose.
Get in touch with us today.
