Here at Demodia, we get asked a lot of questions about digital marketing, SEO, social media campaigns and more—but none of those topics seem to have as much detail and mystery as those relating to marketing automation.
Our clients seem to want to know more about marketing automation than anything else, and why wouldn’t they? Marketing automation is one of the most flexible, powerful tools at any digital marketer’s disposal. As inbound marketing and marketing automation specialists, we have released a number of blogs, white papers and other content to share our knowledge with our clients and help them with their marketing efforts.
That’s why we’ve created this marketing automation FAQ to assist with the questions our clients or prospective clients may have about this technology and techniques. This post aims as to provide quick answers to complicated questions, but will also provide a link to a more in-depth resources where you can find out more.
Read on to know the most important answers to the most commonly asked questions about marketing automation.
Q: What exactly is marketing automation?
The Short Answer
Marketing automation is a method of digital marketing that helps grow and nurture your leads down the sales funnel through highly personalised and automated messaging. Furthermore it can be used for detailed and complex analytics and reporting on your website.
The Long Answer
We’ve written a few blog posts on this topic that you can find here, here and here. Our marketing automation page also does a great job at describing what it is.
Q: What are the benefits of marketing automation?
The Short Answer
Marketing automation can increase your engagement with your leads, help convert more leads with fewer resources, gain more leads and convert those leads faster. It can also provide more information and data on your leads, and how they interact with your marketing assets.
The Long Answer
We’ve covered general benefits, as well as how marketing automation can increase your ROI, and assist your customer retention rate. We also have a few articles that point out the benefits quickly here and here.
Q: Would marketing automation work for my small company?
The Short Answer
Yes! Marketing automation is not just for large enterprises. The truth is, it works for any company of any size.
The Long Answer
We’ve written on how marketing automation can be used by small companies here and here.
Q: How much does marketing automation cost?
The Short Answer
It depends on which platform you want to use and how much you’re willing to invest. Some platforms are charged as low as $5 per month, and others can go beyond $2000 per month.
The Long Answer
We have a price blog on marketing automation here.
Q: What are the best types of marketing automation campaigns?
The Short Answer
Marketing automation really excels at lead nurturing campaigns, personalisation, marketing communication in general.
The Long Answer
Here are some resources to help you get started with progressive profiling, personalisation, and best practices in general.
Q: How do I migrate to a new marketing automation platform?
The Short Answer
This is not really a question that can be answered in a few sentences. However, the best way is to migrate slowly and methodically, taking note of everything, one-by-one.
The Long Answer
Luckily, we have written a two part guide to this process that begins here.
Q: Why do I need automation if I have auto-responders or email marketing?
The Short Answer
You can simply do much more with marketing automation than you can with email marketing or auto-responders. Marketing automation offers unprecedented personalisation for both your marketing communication and your website content, and provides detailed analytics that go beyond email marketing reports.
The Long Answer
We have a great blog post on this topic here.
Q: How does marketing automation help with inbound marketing?
The Short Answer
Marketing automation is the tool for inbound marketing. It personalises communication according to what your leads want to read, and delivers marketing based on their investment with your brand.
The Long Answer
Our blog itself is called the inbound marketing blog—so we have many posts that broach the topic of inbound marketing. Here are two examples to begin with.
Q: What is the best marketing automation platform?
The Short Answer
The marketing automation platform you choose should ultimately be based on your company’s specific needs and objectives. SharpSpring is great for agencies, HubSpot is seen as one of the best in terms of content delivery and innovation, Salesforce Pardot is one of the easier tools to use, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud is just about one of the most comprehensive platforms available.
The Long Answer
There are plenty of platforms for you to choose, and we’ve written about most of them.
More on HubSpot
More on Marketo
More on ClickDimensions
More on ActOn
More on SharpSpring
Q: How can I get started with marketing automation?
The Short Answer
For starters, you’re at the best place to begin your marketing automation journey.
Demodia is a specialised marketing automation consultancy that assists businesses around the world with marketing automation. Our website hosts tonnes of resources to help you get started with marketing automation, and we’re always available to chat if you need some more in-depth guidance.
The Long Answer
Some of our blog posts are a great place to start. You can find out how to learn marketing automation here, a best practices guide here, and a price guide here.
Ready to get started?
There is undoubtedly a lot to cover when it comes to marketing automation, and not every resource is bound to ultimately help you achieve your business goals. That’s why personalised guidance from a marketing automation specialist is so valuable when getting started with marketing automation.
Demodia has been practicing and perfecting marketing automation tasks and objectives for over a decade now, and has since become partners with the most popular and reliable marketing automation providers around the world, including Pardot, HubSpot and SharpSpring.
If you would like to get started with a head start, contact Demodia today, and find out what you marketing is truly capable of.
