Forrester predicts more than 40% of companies will have state-of-the-art digital workers by combining AI and Robotic Process Automation (RPA). In 2019, the RPA market is expected to reach $1.7 billion and $2.9 billion by 2021. Robotic process automation, or RPA, is an emerging technology in business process automation that uses software-based robots powered by artificial intelligence (AI). RPA systems can perform repetitive tasks that are normally performed by humans using an application’s graphical user interface.
Although it may seem that Robotic Process Automation does not fit the bill for Marketing Automation, because most marketing operations departments do not have large teams of people who are performing repetitive manual tasks, there is still a strong case for RPA in certain areas of marketing automation due to the agility and productivity it offers. These are our top five picks for automating processes so marketers can relax and let the bots do their work.
1. Monitor Competitor Pricing
Pricing is an important factor in many marketing decisions. Being able to understand it can make a big difference for your business. Continuous price shopping is essential to keep your business competitive in an era of dynamic pricing, especially for e-commerce businesses. It’s possible to do all of this without spending too much time. A bot can take care of it and deliver it in the way you prefer.
2. Data Management & Aggregation
RPA allows you to deploy robots that can collect and aggregate contact information from any website. This will allow your teams to save time and avoid spending too much time looking for company names, phone numbers, or other important information. The bots can update your CRM or your marketing automation system with new information. You can also have your bots scan soft-copy documents such as attendee lists from trade shows and automate the uploading of the contacts to your marketing automation system. This is another example of agility in your marketing to sell handoffs. This will reduce the time required to upload these soft copy lists, which can be reduced from days down to minutes.
3. Search for new RFPs and opportunities
Your sales and marketing teams must continuously search for potential opportunities. It takes a lot of effort to find and download the RFP files. Robotic process automation-powered bots can automatically crawl the websites you are interested in and download new RFP files. These files can then be delivered to your sales team for them to act upon.
4. Automated Marketing reports
Due to the complexity of marketing channels and increasing pressure to ensure marketing budget decisions are based on results, significant time is spent gathering, aggregating, and visualizing marketing reports. Robotic process automation can automate the whole process. Reports from different channels can be prepared automatically and sent directly to your email or mobile device. It is easy to free up resources for more productive marketing tasks by automating the process of assembling data and creating reports.
5. Chatbots powered by RPA
Conversational Marketing is essential for both B2B as well as B2C marketing. RPA-powered chatbots-powered artificial intelligence can be a powerful combination to convert website visitors. A website visitor might be searching for information that will help him make a decision. Website chatbots can be used to trigger the RPA bot and retrieve the requested information. The RPA Bot integrates with many back-end applications and databases so it can retrieve information quickly and make it available to visitors in milliseconds.
RPA bots will allow you to spend more time on your pipeline and customer engagement. As you automate repetitive tasks, you can focus on nurturing your leads. RPA bots can help you maximize your sales opportunities and bring you closer to customers. RPA bots can be an integral part of your Marketing strategy. Try RPA and see if you like it.
