3 Ways Automated Marketing Services Can Save You Time

Automating routine marketing activities is the dream of directors and strategists around the globe. It sounds so good in theory! You set up a marketing automation system and then move on to activities that need human attention.

The problem with an automated marketing service is that the time needed to set them up can outweigh the value you get back. Add in a dash of discouraged tears and you have a colossal time and money-sink.

So, how can you use marketing automation to actually save time? Below are three types of marketing activities that definitely benefit from the cold, calculating touch of a robot. But remember… moderation is key to most things in life, including automated marketing services.

1. Automated Workflows

Automated workflows are fantastic for administrative marketing activities. You can use them to segment contacts, update prospect records, send internal notifications, update a CRM, and so much more.

Email blasts are one of the most common automated marketing services used. You can trigger drip campaigns based on a certain framework and never have to worry about pressing that “Send” button more than once. It’s simple and allows you to initiate campaigns based on the interactions of an individual, rather than a group.

Workflows really help you bring lead nurturing to the next level. If you want to increase administrative output with minimal effort, automated workflows are the way to go.

2. Lead Prioritization

This is a big one. Pre-qualifying leads can save your marketing team a lot of time. You can segment these new leads to appropriate lists and then send them down separate workflows. No manual tagging required!

The biggest benefactor is your sales team. They’re the ones who will be enjoying it the most. Regularly receiving clean batches of prioritized leads is a huge leg up. The appended information about a contact’s interactions is the icing on the cake…

Now when your sales team starts their communications they will have plenty of data to draw from. It also slashes handoff time between marketing and sales. So, if you like plucking low hanging fruit and promoting harmony between teams, then lead prioritization should be a huge plus for you.

3. Contact Reporting

An automated marketing solution is all about moving individuals towards your goal(s). It’s important to remember that. It’s all too easy to get lost in a tangled mess of branches and forget about the whole forest.

Contact reporting is one way to keep things straight and extract some real insights. An automated marketing system can append information about an individual’s website interactions to a contacts record. From there, you can quickly splice together comprehensive reports based on interactions leading to goals and trace the individual paths backwards. This can help you identify the heart of a marketing campaign and figure out how to iterate.

Remember that it’s people that drive your marketing activities. Seeing the entirety of a person’s interactions is far more powerful than each anonymized part.

Tying It All Together

Automated marketing services opens up all kinds of opportunities. Some of these opportunities can save you time, some can amplify efforts, and (hopefully) most of them do a little bit of both.

Just make sure that you are setting your expectations correctly. Marketing automation can do all kinds of great things. It can also make you pull your hair out. Understanding that it should only apply to activities best suited for a robot will help you quickly get the most out of it. And know, like anything, marketing automation is best in moderation.

If you’re interested in learning more about a marketing automation system or need some consulting help, let us know. We’re HubSpot certified partners but we’re also familiar with other marketing automation systems.