Future Benefits of Marketing Automation in 2021

Marketing Automation: A Ray Of Hope In Dark Clouds

Marketing automation is an integral part of online marketing. It has grown over a period of time. More than 58% of the companies have invested in marketing automation in the past years. The trends are already roaring about the future benefits of marketing automation.

According to a forecast by Forrester, the companies’ investments in marketing automation will reach around 250 billion dollars by 2023. Due to the last year’s pandemic crisis, several companies shut down and decided to move to the digital portals for carrying on a business. Due to this fact, the prediction has a solid foundation and roots to be real in the future.

Read this blog to know more about the future benefits of marketing automation in 2021.

2020 – The Growth Of Marketing Automation Amidst The Chaos

Although many tensions were going on the marketing front, which affects the economic and financial aspects, still, the marketing automation industry paved its way towards growth at the rate of 9%. Consequently, the marketers predict that the market capitalization will grow by 7 billion US dollars by 2024.

The past year has laid a strong foundation for the marketing automation industry. It helped many platforms improve their business processes and establish a strong relationship with the customers when they need support. Let’s see how the marketing automation industry will flair up in 2021 with some interesting trends.

What Are The Marketing Automation Trends In 2021:

Your current year and future years will not be successful for your business if you are still not adopting the marketing automation software. It is not a derogatory statement, but the trends say so.

1. Personalization along with data privacy:

Marketers have been using Personalization for a couple of years by acquiring customer data from different sources. But what is the core concern here is data privacy. In 2021, personalization along with data privacy will be the onset goal. Many companies are taking measures to protect consumer data as per the latest rules of GDPR.

2. Alignment between sales and marketing teams:

Both marketing and sales teams are using marketing automation to achieve an alignment between the departments. Creating alignment amongst the departments is the primary benefit of automation as it helps automate the workflows. The automation tools allow the sales team to track the lead’s behavior, which led to a change in the marketing behavior or vice-a-versa. It will be a crucial objective to achieve in 2021.

Note: Marketing automation enables the teams to look into the valuable insights of a customer journey, such as the analytics ( drop off rates, bounce rates, etc.). Further, helping the departments to take initiatives.

3. Hyper automation takes the lead:

Many companies are already using AI and machine learning to automate business workflows. They have played an essential role during the pandemic and will continue to do so.

AI and machine learning help analyze the past behavior of the customers across various channels, thereby helping the marketers engage customers with the personalized content across different channels.

4. Conversational marketing for best customers experience:

Conversational marketing is gaining a grip to provide the best of customer services. Google Assistant and Alexa are the go-to-tools to deliver the fastest customer service, and they will keep on leaving a long-lasting impact on the users.

More than 90% of companies are using AI chatbots, and those who have still not adopted them will by the end of the year 2022. Human agents are reducing, and conversational chatbots are emerging, such as Facebook and WhatsApp Messenger, which reign the world of successful customer services.

5. Video marketing is on the uprise:

More than 80% of internet users are interested in using video content, and they spent more than 3 to 4 hours watching online videos by 2021. Therefore, marketers are putting up all the efforts to reach the target audience with the right content through video marketing, such as vlogs. Other ways such as Q & A videos, webinars prove to be educational.

Now marketers can automate the distribution of the videos. You can schedule the videos for a specific day and time of the day and go on with your work.

Note: You can schedule your videos for international or local audiences as per the country’s time-zones.

Now that you have become familiar with the marketing automation trends in 2021 let’s know how you can benefit from marketing automation.

What Are The Future Benefits Of Marketing Automation In 2021:

The relevance and importance of marketing automation are sure shot seeing its impact on the marketers who are creating and gaining from successful marketing strategies.

Let’s have a look at the numbers :

• More than 63% of the companies have seen tremendous results and growth within the six months of implementation of marketing automation.
• Marketers have recognized the following benefits of marketing automation:

1. Automation saves time by 30%
2. It helps in generating leads by more than 20%
3. Marketers have seen a tremendous increase in revenues at the rate of 17%
4. Marketers can retain the customers by 11%
5. More than 70% of the marketers can now target the audience with relevant and personalized messages.

How to build a successful marketing strategy using the benefits of marketing automation

Marketers can efficiently wage the benefits of marketing automation and boost revenues and customer retention in the long run.

• Create a marketing automation strategy:

Before you begin to invest in marketing automation, create a solid strategy that clarifies how to devise the software for the maximum potential.

• Take a note of your buyer’s journey:

You can use marketing automation and make it work at every step of the customer journey. It could be in the form of automated workflows or nurturing of interested prospects. You can retarget the users through automated SMS and email campaigns.

• Set SMART goals:

Before putting your plans into action, you must set specific goals that you want to achieve with marketing automation: set SMART goals that shall be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For example – If you want to attain more than 20% conversion rates by the end of the year 2021. Begin taking measures according to that.

• Optimize your efforts:

Once you set your goals and implement automation tools to achieve them, you will have a lot of data on which you need to work. You need to measure the key performance indicators and evaluate each of the tools’ performance to begin with the optimization process.

How do B2B companies differ from B2C companies in marketing automation:

Although both companies use marketing automation to procure the benefits of attaining revenues, the implementation for both companies is different.

• The difference in priorities: The focus and priorities differ for both companies. B2B focuses on engaging with the prospects in different stages of buyers’ journey. B2C focuses on building the brand.
• Degree of personalization: It is easy for B2B marketers to group the prospects based on common characteristics by using segments. B2C companies have to work a little more challenging by focusing on different segments’ diverse interests and tastes.
• Use of different channels: B2B focuses on email communication, whereas B2C focuses on channels and mediums such as Push notifications, SMS, Web banners.

How To Shape Up Marketing Automation Decisions In 2021:

As we have read some of the trends and benefits of marketing automation in the upcoming years, let’s know great tips on how to shape up the marketing automation decisions :

Integration is going to be the keyword for marketing automation in the year 2021

• Automate buyer journey smartly:

Create campaigns for each part of the customer journey, whether awareness, consideration, and decision. To have a smart automation strategy, begin integrating CRM with marketing automation. Track their behavior across different channels and engage them with hyper-personalized content.

Note: Marketing automation in 2021 needs to fulfill the customers’ demands with more personalization and relevance.

• Email marketing automation and cross channel strategies:

Email marketing will continue to reign in 2021 when you integrate email automation with CRM. Email marketing has revolutionized over the years, and now you can combine email with CRM to have a clarified view of a customer profile. Consequently, you can set automated campaigns with AI, such as reminders at regular intervals, thank you mail, birthday wishes, and so on.

• Integration between the departments:

2021 will mark the integration between the sales and marketing teams and the other departments. Now you can achieve SMART goals using iPaaS. SAAS and iPaaS will help the industries have an integration amongst different departments. The interfaces and single dashboard view help the companies to begin the seamless transitions between different departments and channels.

Last but not least, you can track offline conversions through marketing automation tools. For example – Google uses features such as geo-targeting that give you an idea of potential customers. Facebook also utilizes the data from customers with location services. The automation tools help you get detailed insights from all the customer touchpoints.

Conclusion

After introspecting the brighter prospects of marketing automation in the upcoming years, it becomes inevitable to adopt the tools and reap the long-lasting benefits. The future scope of your business is incomplete without marketing automation.