(This article is a follow-up to the first part published here)

Before we continue with the many benefits of Marketing Automation, here is a graphical representation of the gains made with this tool.

Leads multiplied by five in number and value, and a still largely untapped potential largely explain the craze for this technology.

Let's review the functional and organizational benefits conferred by Marketing Automation.

13 - Reduce the time it takes to create a campaign

Most marketing automation tools, such as Hubspot, have a drag-and-drop interface that will allow you to create email campaigns, landing pages, and social media campaigns without the need for technical or graphic expertise.

By not having to spend time on creating the design for your campaigns, you can be more efficient in launching them (while saving your graphics team time).

14 - Recycle content to feed your prospects

If your company runs a blog, it's likely that after you post an article and then share it on social media, you haven't done anything with it.

With marketing automation, you can give this type of content a second life by setting up an automation to recommend content to your prospects and customers based on their marketing life cycle.

This is a great way to drive visitors back to your site and ensure that your premium content is useful and sustainable.

15 - Provide a better view of what works, and what doesn't

Working with data from your CRM system, your Marketing Automation software will not only tell you what campaign worked, but also what type of customer it attracted.

This accurate information will allow you to create in-depth reports and better understand where you should focus your efforts.

16 - Reward your most loyal customers with a referral program

If you use marketing automation tools like Infusionsoft ou Ontraport, you'll be able to set up a referral system that rewards your customers and affiliates when they promote one of your products.

How marketing automation benefits your sales

If you think marketing automation is only for the marketing team, think again: combining your CRM system with your lead data will also help your sales team.This will be especially true if you use your Marketing Automation in an Inbound approach.

17 - Clarify your prospect qualification

When you install your Marketing Automation software, you need to set up a series of rules and criteria (workflow) that will automatically score (scoring) your new leads based on the actions and information relating to that new lead.

In most tools, leads are scored from 1 to 5, and then categorized as either "Marketing Qualified Lead" (or MQL) or "Sales Qualified Lead" (or SQL). If a lead is categorized as MQL, it moves into the nurturing process, until it becomes an SQL.

This means that your company's sales team will only have to focus on the leads that are close to becoming SQL, without having to waste their time with the others.

18 - Prioritize your leads with their qualification

In addition to knowing whether your leads are qualified for sale or not, you'll also be able to prioritize them based on the likelihood of a quick conversion to SQL, or the importance of the deal.

If you've been using a CRM system for the past few years, this shouldn't seem revolutionary, but it's still very handy to make sure you're focusing your efforts on the best prospects at the time.

19 - Keeping your CRM data current

A CRM database is a valuable asset, but its value can quickly diminish if it is not regularly updated.

By connecting your CRM system to your marketing automation tool, you'll be able to retrieve more and more information about your prospects over time, while ensuring that the most important information remains valuable.

20 - Know exactly when to call

In addition to qualifying and prioritizing your prospects, you will also be able to know when they are considering consuming your products or the solutions you offer by being informed of their visits to your website.

You'll even be able to set up alerts to see what pages they are browsing in real time. This will allow you to pick up your phone at the exact moment your prospect is considering calling your company.

21 - Reduce the time it takes for your prospects to convert

By making your sales process more efficient, you reduce the amount of time it takes a prospect to become a customer.

After implementing Hubspot for its Marketing Automation, Thomson Reuters found that its lead conversion time was reduced by 72%, resulting in a 175% increase in its company's cash flow attributable to the platform.

22 - Automatically track leads

A few years ago, a study  from the Harvard Business Review showed that you are 60 times more likely to qualify a lead if you follow up within an hour than if you do so within 24 hours.

With automation, you can ensure that every qualified lead has an immediate return, whether it's 8 p.m. on a Friday night or 6 a.m., the automated system works even when your entire team is sleeping.

Thanks to Marketing Automation, Capterra managers realized that the SQL qualification rate of their leads jumped by 400% thanks to a combination of faster returns and a more efficient sales team since they were focused on the right leads.

23 - Never make a cold call again

With the amount of data compiled by automation tools, you'll have enough information  about your prospects, from their business interests to the pages of your site they've visited, to make the notion of cold calling disappear from your salespeople's vocabulary entirely.

They can't thank you enough for properly "warming up" their leads to allow for a smooth and enjoyable sales approach!

To summarize

The benefits of Marketing Automation are so numerous and documented that the choice to implement it in an organization seems a no-brainer.

This is not the case, as this solution has a non-negligible cost. For example, the monthly use of the best existing solution, Hubspot, comes to 740€ per month, excluding the cost of accompanying an agency (often indispensable). This is not nothing in a budget, even though the ROI of such a solution is assured in a disconcerting timeframe. 

If you'd like to get answers to your questions on this topic, as with all topics related to Inbound Marketing more broadly, we invite you to contact us directly for a totally free consultation !