Do I need a marketing automation tool? Keys and Advantages

All this is extremely important and a reality that reaches any sector of activity and company size. Those who do not adapt their operations to the requirements imposed by the digital reality will be, at least, in inferiority of conditions with respect to their more "digitized" competition, but what is the cause of this reality/need and why now?

The key is in the so-called "digital customer" and how their behavior of searching for information and buying trend has changed the classic processes of sales, attraction and customer loyalty. And all this can be summed up in one definitive fact: more than 50% of users make their purchasing decisions before contacting the company based on the information they receive through the Internet.

In order to verify it it is not necessary to go very far, all in greater or smaller measure we adopt that digital behavior, we want something and the first thing that we do is to search in Google, later between the pages better positioned we visit its Web and we select between all those that more confidence generate to us.

And why now, this pattern of user behaviour is neither new nor recent, the Internet has long since become a fundamental channel for product search, but it is true that it now seems somewhat critical (and it is). This derives from the fact that this behavior has become a universal pattern adopted by almost all age segments, and not only in online purchasing processes but also in the search and selection of services, suppliers, solutions, etc., making the Internet the first selection filter. In addition, these users are, we are, increasingly unfaithful to brands and seek something beyond experience and trajectory. The consequence is obvious, or we are prepared to convince that user who visits us via web and who is looking for our products and services or my competition will get it.

That's where the behavior-based marketing automation tools come in, which will allow me to have valuable information about each user that visits me and interact with them based on their profiles, tastes and preferences.

Here we leave some keys to identify if my brand needs a tool of these characteristics and what benefits it can bring me.

1- I have an online store with a large volume of traffic and contacts.
A marketing automation tool will allow me to configure it to learn from the tastes, preferences and behavior of users, to interact with them and make much more targeted and effective campaigns that generate greater conversion.

2- I have a high rate of users who drop out during the purchase process.

It will help us to program automatic processes to recover "abandoned carts" of a large percentage of users who do not complete the purchase in my online store and thus increase the volume of billing.

3- I have a CRM with information about my clients but I also want to know how they interact with my brand on the Internet.
I have an important volume of contacts in my CRM but I lack a global vision of their behavior in my web that provides me with more information to improve the impact of my campaigns.

4- My business is based on online booking processes: hotel reservations, flights/transportation, ticket sales, insurance, etc.
A marketing automation tool is going to allow me to boost the conversion of recruitment processes. According to the data that users are providing me I will be able to: avoid abandonment in the middle of the process, offer a dynamic content that enhances cross-selling based on the interest and profile of the user, and schedule campaigns with a high return and impact.

5- I need to orient my commercial/telemarketing team towards the users most interested in my products and services.
The tool gives each user who visits the site a scoring based on how they interact with my site and their profile, which allows you to identify those who are really interested in what you offer (because they visit the site recurrently, because they download a success story, etc.) and thus focus the business process to those who have more potential to be customers, reducing the time of the process and thus the cost of acquisition.

Only one of these needs justifies betting on a marketing automation tool, for the benefit it represents and the opportunities it offers to the marketing team in its communication with users.

In the following articles we will develop the most important functionalities of these tools and how they are helping many companies to improve the profitability and effectiveness of their online strategies.

In EFOR we are sure of the need and benefit of these tools for companies, and therefore we are the only certified partner in Spain of the tool SilverPop Engage IBM, a powerful marketing automation and behavioral marketing tool widely implemented in the U.S. and UK that is already being used by companies in all sectors of activity in their digital marketing strategies.