What you need to know before investing in a marketing automation platform

by Janice Allen
0 comments

Founder and digital strategist at Alystic Marketing.

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, marketing automation platforms have emerged as valuable tools for businesses looking to streamline operations, increase efficiency, and maximize revenue. These platforms can provide a wide range of benefits that impact bottom line, including preventing missed opportunities, reducing operational costs, and increasing revenue through automated nurturing.

As a partner of several marketing platforms, my company has helped multiple organizations implement and maximize their marketing automation investments. I’ve seen firsthand the potential of these platforms, as well as the challenges and best practices brands need to keep in mind to leverage them effectively and find the solution that fits their needs.

Automation in marketing

1. Preventing Missed Opportunities: Every lead and potential customer is valuable, and not taking advantage of these opportunities can be costly for any business. Automation can help companies maintain a comprehensive view of the company’s entire database and implement strategies to track, timestamp, label and score leads as they enter the system. Automated processes can also be put in place to notify team members if a valuable lead has not been addressed within a desired time frame.

2. Reduce Operational Costs: Creating and executing marketing campaigns typically requires extensive collaboration and consumes significant resources. Marketing automation can help companies improve the efficiency and scalability of their marketing efforts by streamlining processes, eliminating repetitive tasks, and enabling teams to achieve more with fewer resources.

3. Increase revenue through automated nurturing: For business-to-business ecommerce companies, implementing effective nurture campaigns is critical to maximizing customer lifetime value and driving repeat purchases. While one-off campaigns have their place, automated and targeted efforts based on customer behavior, such as past purchases or number of orders, can help with scaling and monetization. By automating some of these efforts, companies can deliver personalized content and offers to customers at the right time, moving them through the sales funnel and increasing the likelihood of conversions.

Challenges to consider

Adopting an automated marketing platform for the first time can present its own set of challenges. Here are some of the challenges businesses may face and some tips for overcoming them.

1. Expensive Upfront Investment: Deploying a marketing automation platform can require a significant upfront investment, including the cost of the platform itself, training, and integration with existing systems. This financial commitment may discourage some companies from embracing automation. To meet this challenge, make sure you identify goals and bottlenecks early on, ideally before you implement your new investment. This ensures faster profits and a quicker payback period.

2. Learning Curve and Change Management: Adopting new technology comes with a learning curve, and some will initially resist change. To promote faster buy-in and accelerate the learning curve, communicate clearly and show how the platform can solve pain points for business users. Training your team to use the marketing automation platform effectively is critical to success. In addition, engage key stakeholders early in the goal-setting process to promote a smoother transition. Teams that are not aligned greatly slow down the process and delay the enjoyment of the fruits of your investment.

Choosing the right platform for your business

Here are two tips to help businesses choose the type of marketing automation platform that best suits their needs.

1. Define your objectives and requirements. Before selecting a marketing automation platform, clearly define your objectives and the specific functionality you need. Ask yourself questions like: What are your primary marketing goals? Which processes do you want to automate? Having a clear understanding of your requirements will help you narrow down your options and choose a platform that aligns with your business objectives.

2. Evaluate scalability and customization. Consider your company’s growth trajectory and the scalability of the marketing automation platform. Will the platform be able to meet your growing needs and evolving strategies in the future? In addition, assess the level of customization of the platform. Determine if it offers the flexibility to customize automation workflows and reporting for your specific business needs.

Ultimately, marketing automation platforms can be a strategic investment for companies looking to optimize their marketing efforts. By avoiding missed opportunities, reducing operational costs and increasing revenue through automated nurturing, these platforms can prove to be very valuable assets. Of course, getting started with these platforms can present new challenges, and it’s important to determine whether a platform meets the needs of your business before making an investment. Businesses need to think about the steps they can take to unlock their full potential, increase efficiency and drive substantial growth to ensure they stay ahead in the race to success.


businesskinda.com Business Council is the leading growth and networking organization for entrepreneurs and leaders. Am I eligible?


You may also like

All Right Reserved Businesskinda.com