Top 6 Benefits of Content Marketing Automation

Marketing automation offers substantial benefits for marketers, from lead generation to streamlining segmentation to customer retention, and a lot more. In today’s post, we’ll examine the top six benefits of this important marketing tool.

First, let’s get clear on what marketing automation is. HubSpot defines marketing automation as “the software that exists with the goal of automating marketing actions.” Marketing automation automates repetitive tasks, such as emails, social media and other website actions, with the goal of making these tasks easier. It can be used for all types of businesses, whether they’re B2C or B2B.

Now, on to the benefits of marketing automation:

1. Generate Better Quality Leads

The Annuitas Group recently reported that businesses using marketing automation to nurture prospects saw as much as a 451% increase in qualified leads. Marketing automation software increases your ability to generate more and better quality leads. How? It helps identify people with an interest in your products and services based on online action they’ve taken, such as by signing up for your email newsletter, browsing your site for long enough or downloading an eBook, and then sends targeted digital messages based on the action taken at the exact right time in the sales funnel. Because your messages are delivered at the right point in the funnel to a more targeted lead list, the leads you generate are higher quality and more likely to convert.

2. Nurture Potential Customers More Easily

Nurtured leads make larger purchases than leads that aren’t nurtured. However, nurturing leads can be very time-consuming, especially if your list is large. Luckily, marketing automation makes it easier with tools like drip email campaigns and email personalization technology. And because marketing automation helps you deliver targeted messages to potential customers at different points in the sales funnel, it makes it easier keep potential customers engaged, leading them to the point at which they’re ready to convert.

3. Convert Customers Faster

When you deliver compelling content at the right time, your leads are less likely to get distracted before they convert, leaving you with abandoned shopping carts and suspended product searches. Instead, your automated content has moved them down the sales funnel with the content they’ve needed and compelling calls to action to help them move to the next step and finally make a purchase or sign up for your service.

4. Improve Your Company’s Bottom Line

Marketing automation saves you time and money since it frees up valuable time that used to be spent manually sending out emails and social media posts. That paired with better leads and faster conversion, which help increase revenue, offers a great return on your investment. Plus, according to a recent report by Nucleus Research, marketing automation has been shown to drive a 14.5% increase in sales productivity and a 12.2% reduction in marketing overhead.

5. Gather Great Data for Optimizing Campaigns

Most marketing automation software can now integrate with your CRM platform to show you which of your marketing automation strategies are working and which aren’t. It will also track and score lead behavior so that you can learn how prospects react to different messages and websites. This information is key toward creating effective content experiences for your audience.

6. Focus on Strategy

With content marketing automation, tasks that used to take a long time to complete can now be automated, leaving more time for content marketers to focus on strategy, nurturing leads at the end of the funnel, optimizing campaigns and other important tasks.

Marketing automation has many benefits for today’s marketers. However, it’s not without its drawbacks, minor as they are. It does require research around which software is right for your business. Marketing automation also requires that you have a strategy in place that aligns with your business goals and your industry. Check back with us later this month as we explore effective marketing strategies for marketing automation.

Do you have experience working with content marketing automation? Please share the top benefits and pitfalls you’ve experienced in the comments section below.

Marketing automation is only a small piece of the content marketing mix. Compelling content is key, and Filament can help you get there. Get in touch with Filament today for help crafting the right content for your target audience.