According to the latest figures from Marketo, 76% of companies that implement marketing automation generate a return on their investment within the first year. Yet, there are a few myths around marketing automation that cause some businesses to pause.
So let’s get rid of those misconceptions! If you’re skeptical about how marketing automation can help your business, here are some common myths and the truth behind them.
Myth 1: Marketing automation is impersonal
We get it, marketing automation sounds incredibly robotic. When not done right, email marketing can feel impersonal, because ALL prospects are getting the exact same message as everyone else.
The key words in that sentence is “when not done right”. At it’s best, marketing automation allows businesses to create extremely robust and personalized lead journeys, which intelligently considers a lead’s demographic information, as well as their past browsing data to serve up content that speaks to their unique interests, concerns, and needs.
Like anything, you will get out of it what you put in. If you put the time and effort in to build out a strategy which prioritizes personalization, it will be impossible to sound impersonal!
Myth 2: Marketing automation is only suitable for big companies
While traditionally adopted by large enterprises, marketing automation tools are becoming ever more accessible to medium and smaller-sized businesses. Most platforms now offer flexible tiered pricing, which is largely based on database size.
A good understanding of what aspects of your marketing strategy would be worthwhile to automate can help you choose the right platform to maximize your ROI. Regardless of the size of your company, investing in marketing automation can lead to higher revenue and faster growth at a lower cost. Manual work for repetitive tasks simply doesn’t scale.
Myth 3: Marketing automation is spammy
When it comes to email marketing, reputation matters and marketing automation is sometimes misunderstood as an email-focused tool to mass-spam your audience. This is far from the truth.
Marketing automation platforms have several features in place to ensure your email reputation stays intact. For instance, contacts who hard bounce can be excluded from future emails and a frequency-cap can be put in place to avoid irritating your leads with continuous communication.
Additionally, preference centres can empower prospects to tell you what they want to hear about, by providing a mechanism to choose which email types and email frequency they want to receive. Lastly, by analyzing what content your leads have recently engaged with, marketing automation can help you proactively tailor emails to send the most relevant content to each individual lead.
Myth 4: It will only benefit my marketing team
The benefits of adopting marketing automation go far beyond helping your marketing department avoid repetitive, manual tasks. In truth, marketing automation brings as much value to sales teams as it does to marketing.
While lead scoring helps sales effectively assess lead quality and prioritize, automated nurturing helps colder leads “warm up” instead of waiting for a competitor to sway them away. Executives will also be able to have a clear picture of your sales cycle, make revenue predictions and see the true value of marketing efforts.
Myth 5: Implementation is overly complex
Your implementation process will differ based on the marketing automation tool you choose and the other systems you currently use. But, even with the more complicated tools, you typically can get up and running with just a week or two of work. Most platforms offer a robust resource library to help get you started. And, creating a detailed plan will help you manage tasks, keep the process on track and get your team ready to use the tool.
If you need an extra hand, MAC offers Implementation packages which start at just $4500 (45 hours of support), to make the process more seamless for you. Curious to learn more? Contact Us for more information.
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