Article

Kate Alsbury
Kate Alsbury 1 October 2019

Will Marketing Automation Increase ROI?

Marketing Automation Solutions (MAS) and Account Based Marketing (ABM) go hand-in-hand. They promise to help turn customer data into sales leads by targeting accounts with personalized campaigns. By sending emails automatically based on custom templates and workflows they can banish the need for repetitive tasks and reduce errors.

Marketing Automation Solutions (MAS) and Account Based Marketing (ABM) go hand-in-hand. They promise to help turn customer data into sales leads by targeting accounts with personalized campaigns. By sending emails automatically based on custom templates and workflows they can banish the need for repetitive tasks and reduce errors.

The demand for automation is expected to rise. Frost and Sullivan forecasts that the MAS market will hit $6.36 billion in 2025.

Thanks to advancements in AI and data analytics, a new, improved generation of chatbots and other advanced tools will be available with high-tech, software, and business services leading the market.

Vendors will focus on Asian markets like India, Japan, Singapore, and China to gain insight into cultural behaviors and selling points.

When To Use Automation

Marketing automation can fail when your inbound lead pool is too small. Consistently increasing the size of your database with quality leads is a must. Some marketers purchase lists or send out masses of untargeted emails. These tactics rarely increase ROI. That's why it usually makes more sense for large businesses and corporations vs. small startups.

Automation has to be well rounded to really increase ROI. Relying on simple analytics like open rates and click-through rates (CTR) isn’t always enough. To nurture leads in an effective way, you need to have enough context about your target to know what they are looking for and when. This means going beyond email. Having access to your lead’s social media and observing how they interact with your site are two essential elements of your strategy. Ensuring your content strategy is in line with your buyer’s journey is fundamental.

A while back, SiriusDecisions reported that only a fraction of marketers using automation, around 15%, felt they were using it to its fullest potential.

Like with so many things in life, organization is key. While MAS have a lot to offer, don’t invest those hard-won dollars until you have a solid foundation of leads in a clean database, free of bad records and outdated information, along with a clear content strategy for developing those leads. Larger databases can be harder to manage. And if you don’t take the time to analyze the data you are collecting, it won’t be doing much good in the long run. 

The best time for smaller businesses to use it is when they are bootstrapped. Feeling there are too many leads and posts to keep up with and not enough time. That’s when to consider whether it is more cost-effective to bring another person on your team, or shell out for automation.

Privacy is another thing to take into consideration. With new laws being put in place to protect user information, it is important to make respect part of your strategy as well.

Automation is a tool, not a magic wand. Don’t use it until you are prepared.

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