No matter your industry, using digital marketing has proven to be one of the most reliable strategies businesses rely on to reach their target audience. Marketing automation is a component in digital marketing that involves using software to run marketing campaigns and automate the repetitive and tedious tasks involved in marketing. 

The invention of marketing automation is most likely one of the most important innovations for marketers in recent history. In today’s article, we shall discuss how marketing automation is empowering marketers today. 

But before we look at how marketing automation empowers marketers, let us first look at the signs that should make you rethink the way you do your marketing;

• Data from different marketing channels is scattered all over the place. If you realize that data from your social media campaigns, SMS, email marketing, and several other platforms are not organized in one place, then there is a need to revamp your marketing. 
• It requires a lot of time and skills to create marketing campaigns. If you realize you need help from your IT team to create and manage marketing campaigns on various platforms, you need to consider revamping your marketing.
• Your response time is miserable. If you realize it takes you long to respond to emails, DMs on social media, SMS, and other queries from customers, then there is a serious need to revamp your marketing. 
• Your customer support ratings are not good. When you notice that customers are not happy with how you handle their queries, a revamp in your marketing should be your next step. 

Integrating marketing automation into your marketing is one of the most effective ways to revamp your marketing to make it more effective. Here are some of the ways marketing automation is empowering marketers

1.  It deals with repetitive and tedious tasks.

No marketer would like to answer the same question asked by hundreds or thousands of customers; that’s boring and tedious. With marketing automation, such questions are handled by the software using the built-in auto-reply functionality. Marketing automation tools also have machine learning capabilities that can suggest the most asked questions to help you generate general answers for them. 

When these repetitive tasks are taken over by software, marketers will now focus on tasks that require creative thinking and making decisions that can’t be made by software. In the end, this makes the marketers more productive and efficient. Not having to do the boring tasks is also exciting and encourages marketers to take on more challenges. 

2.  Marketing automation is sophisticated tech but friendly to use

Despite simplifying a lot of complex tasks through technologies like AI and machine learning, marketing automation tools are very easy to use. Whether creating campaigns or analyzing customer behavior insights, these tools make all these tasks easier to do. For instance, most marketing automation tools have templates that marketers can use to create campaigns for different platforms without having to start from scratch. 

Such features make it a lot easier and much faster to create campaigns than having to do them manually. Most marketing automation tools also have a relatively shallow learning curve that makes it easier for anyone new to them to get started. They also don’t require high-tech skills like coding or using complicated excel formulas. Everything is done by clicking a few buttons and inputting very minimal texts. 

3.  Running more efficient and effective marketing campaigns. 

One of the core strengths of marketing automation is the ability to give marketers real-time and accurate feedback from their campaigns. Most marketing automation tools have features like lead scoring that marketers can use to know the leads that deserve most of their time. Giving more time to prospects that are most likely going to buy your product increases the campaign's effectiveness. 

Marketing automation tools can also suggest the most effective channels in terms of conversions and revenue. This information gives marketers an idea of which marketing channels to focus on the most, which leads to more effective future campaigns. 

4.  Better customer experience

The goal of any marketer out there is to give the best possible experience to their target customers. This could be through giving them prompt and accurate feedback when they contact your business inquiring about something. This is all possible because marketing automation tools have a feature that pools all customer queries from different platforms into one place, making it easier for the marketer to respond in time. 

A better experience is also created by assigning the different tickets to the most qualified support team member to handle them. Almost every marketing automation tool has the auto-assignment feature that assigns other customer queries based on the agent’s expertise. All this is possible thanks to technologies like AI and machine learning. 

Choosing the best marketing automation tools

Yes, marketing automation empowers marketers to be more effective and efficient. However, you need to choose the right tools to enjoy the benefits of marketing automation. Some of the factors you need to consider while choosing a marketing automation tool include; 

• Ease of use and the learning curve of a given tool
• Personalization capabilities 
• Integration with your other business applications 
• AI and automation capabilities 
• Pricing 
• Customer support

Some of the best marketing automation tools you can get started with include; HubSpot Omnisend, Marketo, Pardot, Active Campaign, Eloqua, and many more. 

Final thoughts 

Marketing automation tools are one of the best inventions that any marketer out there needs to take advantage of. These tools are designed to help marketers minimize the number of tasks they have to do hence giving them time and freedom to focus on a few tasks that require critical thinking and making crucial decisions.