The concept of automation is increasingly combined with digital strategies , but why is this combination able to guarantee greater success for companies that opt for this path?
First let’s clarify the concept of digital strategy . We have already dealt with this issue in the past, and it can be defined as a set of synergistic and calibrated actions, aimed at achieving specific online objectives . From the increase in brand awareness to the improvement of the reputation of a company, from the diffusion of a brand, product or service, to the loyalty of acquired customers and, last but not least, the increase in sales and consequently the profits deriving from them.
An adequate digital strategy must therefore be able to structure a suitable project, choosing the channels to be used to achieve certain objectives , as well as drawing up an operational plan aimed at achieving them.
Therefore, once these first concepts have been defined, what role could automation play within a winning digital strategy? Is the automation of the channels used really useful for intercepting the interest of potential customers? Does marketing automation really represent the technology capable of increasing profits?
Marketing automation and digital strategy: a successful combination
First of all it is good to specify that, at the base of an effective marketin automation system, there is a digital strategy with attention to every detail , studied by analyzing the needs of the company but also the path taken by the consumer. Therefore, if you think that marketing automation alone can give excellent results, you are doing everything wrong. In fact, this must be implemented only after in-depth studies that focus on the customer journey map , or the path followed by the user.
Therefore, to summarize the key points of a truly valid digital strategy, we can say that:
- It is essential to create one or more buyer personas profiles to better understand the customer journey map
- Build a prospect-oriented plan
- Analyze the weaknesses and any nuanced sales opportunities
- Develop new pre and post sales products and services
- Build customer loyalty with specific marketing operations.
This whole series of interventions, once studied, can be implemented by resorting to automation, or by using specific CRMs aimed at automating specific processes . The introduction of CRM has in fact made it possible to analyze large amounts of data more accurately, allowing a consequent personalization of contents, emails and campaigns destined for certain user groups.
The concept of marketing automation does not exclude the real operator , but simply refines, increases and simplifies the execution of some actions aimed at achieving different points highlighted within the digital strategy.
What can automation in a digital strategy do?
The latest generation marketing automation software (also called marketing automation tools) are able to:
- Connect to dedicated CRMs
- Obtain information regarding who accesses a website , the pages visited and the length of stay, as well as all the crucial phases by activating dedicated workflows
- Create emails, landing pages and contact / registration forms
- Manage lead nurtruring campaigns , running them automatically and sending messages to specific audiences, modifying their sequence according to the behavior of the individual contact
- Calculate lead scoring , which is a score to be attributed to a single contact
- Carry out detailed reports and analyzes in real time
- Supervise and monitor social network channels
For this reason it is therefore easy to understand how the integration of a digital strategy with special tools designed for marketing automation, contributes to speeding up and automating processes in different company departments, leading to a consequent increase in terms of sales and turnover.
