5 Reasons for Automating Sales And Marketing

Automation has been around for a long time, during which it has been altering how we do business. Precise machines first started replacing humans during the industrial revolution, when mechanization was still in its infancy.

After that, automation kept playing a larger and larger role in our lives and factories until computers appeared on the scene. Once we had programmable devices, automation went into high-gear.

Today, as we are on the cusp of Industry 4.0, automation is coupled with new technologies such as AI, Big Data, and IoT. Automation is expected to play an even bigger role, as it transcends factory floors, and impacts our offices and homes.

For instance, we now have technologies that can automate a large part of the marketing and sales process. Just as automation revolutionized the manufacturing process, the new software won’t only disrupt how the marketing and sales teams do their jobs. It is also going to force companies to either adapt to the new status or be swallowed by the competition.

Let’s look at some of the many benefits that come with automating sales and marketing:

Harnessing the power of data

Data has become the new oil. It needs to be collected and processed, but once this is done, it can be highly valuable. Data can lead to new insights, help with predictive analytics, and empower AI systems.

This is even more apparent in automating marketing and sales. Part of the automation process can revolve around how data is captured and stored.

For example, businesses can automate how they transcribe sales calls. This can be very important as most sales associates may have a hard time recalling every little detail of every call.

Better yet, automation tools can then scour these calls and look for insights that can help close the deal.

Moreover, automation can then use the data it has collected and provide companies with powerful statistics.

These statistics can be used as a form of KPI to gauge how the marketing and sales processes are doing, or it can be the basis for predictive insights into either the company or the market.

In other words, strong automation solutions can forecast the performance of future marketing campaigns based on the results of previous ones.

Simply put, automation enables businesses to focus on the results, learn from their mistakes, and quickly adapt to an ever-changing market.

Freeing up time

Aside from giving businesses a way of leveraging data, automation is good economics.

For starters, a good automation solution can save your marketing and sales teams’ time. Automation can take care of all the boring tasks that no one likes doing, leaving marketing and sales employees free to focus on their jobs’ core aspects. 

And, while a simple task such as data entry may take human beings hours to complete, the same task may take minutes from a machine.

As a matter of fact, more than one out of every three marketers today rely on automation to lessen the number of repetitive tasks they have to perform.

With all that free time, marketing teams will be able to devote more attention to each marketing campaign and roll out these campaigns on a more consistent basis.

The marketers will take care of the macro stuff, including the campaign objectives and the campaign strategy. The automation solution will be able to analyze the campaign, perform different tests, and help with segmentation.

Reducing costs

Just as automation lowered the manufacturing costs by replacing some of the workers, automation can be a cheaper option than employing a fully-fledged marketing or sales department. This can be an ideal solution for both a start-up and a company listed in the S&P 500.

For the start-up, an automation solution can help save plenty of costs at a time when each penny counts. All the start-up will have to do is hire a marketing consultant to help place the macro strategy.

After that, the automation software will take care of most of the heavy lifting, including taking care of email marketing and maintaining customer service with the help of a chatbot.

As for the Fortune 500 company, there are automation platforms that incorporate AI technology and offer predictive analytics, saving the company the need to hire an army of data scientists just to clean the raw data coming in.

Instead, the whole process can be carried out automatically under the careful watch of experts who intervene when necessary.

Increased ROI

One great benefit of automation software is its scalability. In other words, the tools can be adjusted depending on the company’s size and needs. After all, nobody wants to invest in a technological solution today only to find that it is useless to them a year from now.

To maximize ROI and truly get their money’s worth, companies need to understand that automation should be part of a host of other technological solutions, all of which aim to save time and money.

For instance, there are lead generation tools that can help businesses prospect for new potential clients. Subsequently, leads are fed into automation tools that interact with each lead differently, depending on where the lead is within the sales funnel and how likely they are to complete a purchase.

Automation is the future

Today, there is a need for personalized content, increasing revenue through upselling, and an efficient way to nurture leads. All of these things can be achieved with the automation software available on the market.

Companies are scrambling to adopt advanced automation solutions to get a leg over the competition. In a business landscape as competitive and crowded as today, every little step ahead means either staying afloat or going under. Unless your business wants to be left behind in the dust, you need to start thinking about how automation can serve you.