Laptop showcasing B2B marketing automation

What is Business to Business (B2B) Marketing Automation?

In business, marketing automation can be one of the most useful tools when it comes to advertising one’s products and services to a target audience. This is by virtue of the automation process itself and how it can help speed up getting a message across.

When we think of marketing automation, one of the first examples that come to mind is email marketing. This is because nowadays, B2B marketing automation tools allow us to easily email a large number of people with a simple click of a button. There is also the option of sending out a mass email at a scheduled time, which is another form of automation. As a marketer, having a program that does this for you, as well as allows for the creation of customized messages, saves time, and prevents the hassle of having to manually email potential leads one by one.

Marketing automation is growing more and more common among marketers as well. In fact, according to HubSpot’s marketing statistics, 79% of the top-performing companies have used marketing automation tools for three or more years. In addition, companies that decided to use automation in order to manage leads see a 10% increase in revenue in 6 to 9 months’ time. As for marketers who nurture leads through marketing automation, they make “50% more sales at a cost 33% less than non-nurtured prospects.”

 

Sales versus cost benefits of marketing automation

Incorporating automation into one’s business clearly has its benefits, and such tools do not only pertain to email marketing. For example, businesses can automate their social media pages through management platforms such as Hootsuite and TweetDeck.

In the case of Hootsuite, it allows B2B marketers to create content for websites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Users can then put their posts in a queue and have them automatically get published on a chosen date and time to maximize audience reach and lead generation. What is very useful with Hootsuite is that it allows users to create a spreadsheet of their posts, upload it, and allow for the management platform itself to automatically schedule each row. Operationally, this means savings your team hundreds of hours.

Another useful automation tool that businesses find useful is WordPress. As a CMS system, it allows people who aren’t traditionally trained as web developers to make changes on the fly, WordPress can save your team countless hours. This is especially the case when it comes to blogs and articles for a website. For instance, WordPress users can simply write their content into a blog post and schedule for it to be published on a later date. The time of the publication can also be chosen in order to ensure better performance and post traffic.

 

For B2B marketers who may be showcasing a new product that generates a lot of buzz and questions, they can take the FAQ section of their company’s website to the next level through an automated chat feature. This way, a business can save time and increase productivity by not requiring a customer service representative to constantly watch a live chat feed.

An example of chat automation would be Facebook’s chatbots. This tool allows potential leads to get their questions answered as quickly as possible through a simple string of ask commands. For instance, a potential lead can ask about a business’ location, hours of operation, as well as what to do in terms of the next steps if they are interested in a product or a service. The chatbot offers answers to frequently asked questions in a friendly way and ultimately saves time for both the business and potential lead.

And for those who are inclined to look into more advanced automation techniques, there are companies like Zapier that help offset the cost of operating a full development team. A lot of automation software has integration capabilities, but often, there are one or two parts of your techstack that don’t communicate. This is where Zapier comes in, as they specialize in small, one-time connections between each software when there isn’t a native connection available.

 

In order to not get left behind in a world where technology is always evolving, business marketers should really consider investing in and getting a better understanding of B2B marketing automation tools. The Find Your Audience team are industry leaders when it comes to making businesses run as smoothly and efficiently as possible. For an in-depth consultation, give the team a call at 647-479-0688 or send them an email at hi@findyouraudience.online.

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