How Marketing Automation Platforms Are Changing the Sales Process

Harnessing the power of marketing automation can have serious benefits for your sales process and your business as a whole. Marketing automation platforms help you reach new leads and nurture a purchase decision in their heads, all without having to have a single sales interaction. When your lead eventually does start the person-to-person sales process, both sides know more about what the other wants.

This potential — to cultivate new leads that are educated and excited about the services you offer  — allows your company to reach so many more people than before. It also creates a system that helps guide people along the buying process, going from curiosity to purchase intent through their own research journey.

These advantages are proven, too. Over a quarter of all business-to-business Fortune 500 companies used marketing automation in 2016, and that number has likely only grown since then. So jump onboard and take your sales process to the next level using the massive potential marketing automation platforms provide.

What Is a Marketing Automation Platform?

For those who don’t know or aren’t sure about marketing automation, here is a brief explanation:

Marketing automation uses digital channels like email, video, display advertising, and sometimes social media to get people interested in a brand through engaging content. As they begin to interact with this content, the marketing automation platform can track their activity. The system learns from their behavior and offers up more content through email or targeted advertising to get them further down the sales pipeline, all without a human having to oversee the process.

An Example of Marketing Automation in Action

A hot tub dealer posts a YouTube pre-roll video about how Jacuzzi massage functions help ease back pain. If a person clicks on the video ad, they can read a blog post or watch a longer video on the topic. They may also submit their email address at the bottom of the page to learn more.

A marketing automation software tool captures the email address and automates the sending of a few messages through the next coming weeks. Since that particular lead was interested in therapeutic benefits of hot tubs, the system takes note.

Emails sent can include:

• Thanks for signing up! Learn more about Jacuzzi therapy
• Read 7 tips on how to save money buying a hot tub.
• Got back pain? Try these four exercises
• Get $100 off install when you buy a Jacuzzi this weekend!

Eventually, the recipient will click on some of these emails to indicate what type of interest they have in a product based on the model, price range, features, and other criteria. If they download a brochure on a particular model, they may receive an automated email saying “Get a $500 instant rebate when you buy a J-480 this month!”

Now they have a strong incentive to contact a sales associate, and they know which model of tub interests them. Even if they change their mind about the model after talking to sales, they have a frame of reference to comparison-shop. If the lead still doesn’t buy, the system will automatically send more content and offers to further nurture them.

How Video Content Makes Marketing Automation Click

Email is the most commonly discussed channel for marketing automation, but video has a power unto its own. Half of millennials only use their mobile phone to watch video content, and Wistia reports that including a video in email boosts CTR by 300 percent.

Learn how to set up your marketing automation system and how to incorporate video within it using Optimum Production’s video content marketing and consultation services. We can produce engaging video content for your campaigns and help guide you to the marketing automation solutions that are most effective.

Contact us to get started today!