More than 80 percent of initial B2B perceptions take place online: Providers, products, services and their areas of application as well as evaluations by third parties are the first contact points from organic or paid search results. 70 percent of the sales process in online campaigns is already completed before a personal contact is established. A rising number of channels a part of the online marketing strategy and have to be managed: websites, blogs, landing pages, social media, ads, newsletters and more.
The form of addressing varies considerably in terms of tonality and depth of information between the channels and is closely connected to the requirements of the customer journey. Accordingly, more content is provided for the marketing channels and target groups.
Efficient methods for the creation of content for digital campaigns, their monitoring and opportunities for a simple and meaningful B2B-segmentation of contacts in CRM offer new chances in marketing to increase the volume of work exponentially. Bill Gates once said: "The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency."
Marketing automation solutions such as HubSpot, Mautic or Eloqua combine the channels, tools and systems required for strategic marketing in a centrally controlled system. Previously isolated marketing tools and measures to reach marketing objectives are bundled in a single system. In addition, different campaigns for customers and lead nurturing can be carried out all at once and their performance can be displayed transparently in real time. For employees, the effort required to launch several campaigns at the same time is diminishing to minimal. The tool performs a number of routine tasks such as compiling and cleaning recipient lists and sending follow-up mailings. It is now possible to create personalized customer experiences because the customer data that provides the information is stored directly in the system. According to the House of Marketing Yearly Marketing Survey (2019), 48 percent of companies now use marketing automation tools to create personalized customer experiences. The increasing granularity of the customer approach is offset by relevant monthly time savings. There is more time for strategy and creative work.
Fig. 1: Monthly time savings through Marketing automation
Asked for the main advantages of marketing tools with automation, 68.5 percent of respondents stated improved targeting of the messages In a survey carried out by liana technologies (2017).
Read ten examples of how you can make your marketing more efficient in the future. Your employees will be up to the challenges of the coming years and at the same time will be supported massively in their core tasks in online marketing. How Marketing automation with AI (Machine Learning) enables intelligent segmentation can also be found in the white paper "How to boost efficiency in Marketing".