What is marketing automation and how can it help B2B marketers?

1 year ago 60

What factors are driving marketing automation platform use, and what capabilities bash MAPs supply for B2B marketers?

MAPs assistance businesses place imaginable customers and automate the process of nurturing the leads to income readiness utilizing channels similar email, societal media, webpages and show ads to bring customers and prospects to customized landing pages and done different experiences designed to determination them down the acquisition funnel.

These platforms integrate tightly with CRMs and CDPs, continuously collecting much information astir leads to substance insights and further personalization, often with the assistance of artificial quality and instrumentality learning.

MAPs are often overlooked by marketers amid the pursuit aft the shiny caller thing. They are taken for granted successful portion due to the fact that of their ubiquity and captious value arsenic the cardinal hub of galore businesses’ selling stacks.

Marketers treble down by replacing MAPs

Perhaps that’s why, successful a clip of accelerated change, marketers are replacing their MAPs much often than different technologies — it is captious the MAP does what the concern needs it to.

MAPs were replaced by 23% of the respondents to our MarTech Replacement Survey successful 2022, likewise to the 23% that reported replacing MAPs successful 2021.

Digging down into the motivations for replacement, the marketers who said they replaced MAPs successful 2022 mostly went from 1 packaged commercialized solution (rather than a homegrown application) to different commercialized tool, with astir seeking amended features (58%) and improved integration (23%).

Dig deeper: MarTech Replacement Survey. The apical 5 solutions replaced

How vendors differentiate connected capabilities

The much basal functions of selling automation person go somewhat commoditized, truthful level vendors mostly effort to differentiate connected the quality to standard (especially to caller selling channels), usability, easiness of implementation and lawsuit acquisition features.

Vendors proceed to grow grooming programs, arsenic good arsenic add-on nonrecreational services, to amended level use. Online communities — for some customers and developers — are besides progressively important to fortify level support, advocacy and marketplace penetration.

Many MAP vendors person roots successful email marketing, which continues to beryllium a halfway relation and
is often the lone relation customers use. However, galore platforms connection an evolving scope of
email selling features, including precocious pb management, ABM tools and predictive
analytics.

Core and precocious functionalities of an MAP

Virtually each selling automation solution comes with tools for email run improvement and
execution (including landing pages), arsenic good arsenic pb capture, scoring and nurturing. Vendors proceed to adhd features, including the following:

Dynamic contented instauration and delivery

Virtually each MAPs fto users create, nonstop and measurement personalized email campaigns. Where
they disagree is successful however email, landing leafage and website contented are created and personalized.
Some connection wizard-based run plan oregon contented templates, portion others supply a more
customized approach.

Lead management

This encompasses pb nurturing and scoring and is based connected leads captured from the assorted sources feeding the selling automation database. These include, but are not constricted to, website visitors, societal media, paid integer campaigns, email selling respondents, commercialized amusement attendees and purchased third-party lists.

Predictive analytics

Marketing automation vendors mostly supply analytics that way quantifiable information specified arsenic website visitant activity, pages viewed, clip spent connected site, emails opened, contented downloaded and run responses. More vendors are offering predictive analytics and models based connected instrumentality learning. This uses algorithms to process information and aboveground trends oregon insights that alteration marketers to customize visitant experiences and selling campaigns.

Mobile marketing

Creating an engaging acquisition for mobile prospects and customers is simply a must-have capability.
As a result, galore MAPs see responsive templates for email, landing pages and web forms. More precocious mobile selling features see SMS/texting, in-app selling and distant level absorption from mobile devices.

Account-based marketing

Vendors proceed to adhd caller ABM features to alteration marketers to code the buying radical arsenic good arsenic idiosyncratic members, including enhanced relationship nurturing and predictive scoring capabilities.

Native CRM integration

With much businesses seeking to align selling with sales, autochthonal oregon out-of-the-box integration with
CRM systems has go a captious diagnostic for MAPs. Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Oracle NetSuite and SugarCRM are immoderate of the astir commonly disposable connectors. Data is synchronized betwixt the 2 systems and shared successful some directions astatine predominant intervals.

Other precocious capabilities

Some MAPs besides connection matching of leads to societal media profiles; APIs and app marketplaces to entree and integrate third-party bundle solutions; and AI-based recommendations for next-best-steps.

The marketplace is rapidly evolving, arsenic B2B marketers request integrated selling functionality. For overmuch much item connected this rapidly changing space, download the latest variation of our escaped report, “B2B Marketing Automation Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide.”


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About the author

Pamela Parker

Pamela Parker is Research Director astatine Third Door Media's Content Studio, wherever she produces MarTech Intelligence Reports and different in-depth contented for integer marketers successful conjunction with Search Engine Land and MarTech. Prior to taking connected this relation astatine TDM, she served arsenic Content Manager, Senior Editor and Executive Features Editor. Parker is simply a well-respected authorization connected integer marketing, having reported and written connected the taxable since its beginning. She's a erstwhile managing exertion of ClickZ and has besides worked connected the concern broadside helping autarkic publishers monetize their sites astatine Federated Media Publishing. Parker earned a master's grade successful journalism from Columbia University.


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