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Marketing automation is continually changing the way organizations conduct business. By automating specific marketing tasks, these organizations can boost productivity, save money, and improve their bottom line.
One area of business that continues to adopt automation tasks is marketing. Experienced marketers are stepping into a whole new world, experiencing the benefits that come with the power of automation, especially when implementing no-code, out-of-the-box solutions. According to recent research, marketing automation increases sales productivity by up to 14.5% and reduces marketing overhead by 12.2%. When using marketing automation software, 80% of users saw an increase in leads, and 77% enjoyed an increase in conversions.
The benefits of moving toward greater automation are clear. So, which marketing automation tasks should you focus on as a marketer? The following five are ideal starting points as you begin to supercharge your omnichannel marketing strategy with automating tasks.
The savviest marketers understand the value of a strategic omnichannel approach, focusing on both digital and direct marketing channels. Considering 67% of marketers say direct mail delivers the best ROI of any channel, resulting in five times larger purchase influence than email, it's tough to ignore the value that direct mail brings — but how can this channel be automated?
No longer are direct mail campaigns stuck in the '90s, taking months to complete. With partners like Lob, organizations can transform manual, repetitive processes to experience the value of intelligent mail. With this approach, your direct mail campaigns will be more connected, personalized, and measurable, resulting in a higher ROI.
Read more: What is direct mail automation?
Social media automation is another exciting opportunity, allowing organizations to optimize all social interactions. Whether scheduling posts or using chatbots to respond to user messages, social media automation can help you save time, maximize your reach, remain active beyond regular hours, and better analyze social data.
As of 2019, 75% of companies were using at least one marketing automation tool. Of those using these tools, 83% consider social media post scheduling most suitable for automation — making social media the most popular use case.
Email automation is another commonly used type of marketing automation. There are many ways to use automation to enhance your email marketing strategy. For example, automating emails to complete subscription opt-ins. Visitors to your website may provide their email in exchange for an eBook, free template, or report. From email newsletters to drip campaigns, the possibilities are nearly endless.
When aiming to drive sales, two key areas to focus on are cart abandonment emails (for eCommerce companies) and email nurture campaigns. With cart abandonment emails, you target leads that nearly converted. Organizations can recover around 10% of lost revenue by sending an automated follow-up email. In contrast, an email nurture campaign is a series of emails sent based on behavior, delivered in a targeted, timely manner. A similar approach can also work via triggered direct mail.
To know which leads to pursue, lead scoring is a valuable strategy, especially when your goal is to prioritize leads based on worthiness. Most marketing automation tools allow you to create the parameters around lead behavior that puts them into the next stage of the customer journey - automatically. No one from marketing operations has to sit there and manually assign sales reps to leads based on the data collected about them, lead scoring and the right integrations passes the lead and the right info to the sales rep to take the next step.
Since the '90s, the phrase "content is king," coined by Bill Gates, has resonated with marketers, and rightfully so. Whether you're sending direct mail, an email, or writing social media posts, the quality of your content matters — and when it comes to content tasks, automation can help. For example, dynamic content tools on your website will show viewers the most relevant content based on individual leads, boosting conversion rates.
And then there's the importance of SEO practices. After all, 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine. From SEO site audit tools to keyword research tools, these automation tools help you streamline your SEO strategy to stay on top of the latest opportunities and optimize marketing tasks. Another easy way to automate SEO and content tasks? Have Google Analytics reports automatically emailed to you on a regular cadence instead of spending time clicking through different reports to find the data you need to optimize your website.
If you have been solely focusing on digital marketing concerning automating tasks, now may be the perfect opportunity to consider the benefits of adding direct mail to your strategy. Lob will make this transition simple, offering a fast and powerful solution.
Over 10,000+ innovative companies, including Expedia, Twitter, and Clover Health, are using Lob to drive their direct mail marketing campaigns. Read these case studies to see how Lob supercharges the ROI for companies across various industries.
You no longer need to experience the "old way" of doing things. Long gone are the days of static, non-personalized mail that lacked analytics. The entire process took an average of three months. Today, Lob offers hyper-personalized mail that is prioritized and measurable. This intelligent, direct mail process takes less than a week, allowing you to take advantage of targeted, timely campaigns.
Best of all, you don't need to know any coding as a marketer to benefit from direct mail marketing automation tasks. This out-of-the-box solution allows you to create personalized mail in minutes, schedule ahead, send last minute, or send based on triggered customer behavior. With a click of a button, personalized mail pieces show up to your customers on the day you choose, allowing you to optimize with end-to-end analytics.
Want to learn more about the state of direct mail in 2022, learning from 150+ enterprise marketing leaders across the United States? Get access to our direct mail eBook here!
