Marketing automation can be used to save time, increase productivity, prioritize and drive revenue. It sounds great, right? Automation can transform businesses if it is done correctly and strategically. Continue reading to learn 6 essential ways marketing automation can help take your business to the next level.

Marketing automation automates repetitive and important marketing and demand generation tasks. Although automation cannot replace team members, if it is used correctly, it can be a support tool for the team. It allows them to assign and forget tasks that help keep their day-to-day operations running smoothly.

Marketing Automation can help you achieve better business results

These are six ways that automation software can be used in these 6 ways.

1. Segment your Contact List by Industry (And Use Smart Material!)

There are chances that prospects in different industries will respond to your messaging if you sell a service. This is true for prospects at various stages of the funnel and prospects at different levels.

Segmentation is essential in this sense. Marketing automation software allows you to easily segment your database by anything, from industry and job title to company size or engagement level. You can segment your contacts automatically to create landing pages and email campaigns with targeted messaging that reach the right audience every time.

You can segment your contacts and then use smart content to create one piece of content, change certain parts of copy, or images, so that one segment receives customized messaging, while the other segment gets a modified version that is more relevant.

2. Maintain a clean database

Marketing efforts can only be as effective as the data they contain. Unorganized data can cause campaign failures and skew metrics. People change jobs and move around frequently, so contact information is constantly changing.

Emails that go to invalid email addresses will bounce if they are sent as part of an email marketing campaign. This can negatively impact deliverability and cause delays in reporting.

InCycle is a tool that allows you to keep your database organized, clean, up-to-date, and organized automatically. InSycle allows you to deduplicate contacts and standardize the way contacts appear in your CRM. You can also consolidate fields and delete invalid data. InSycle can also be integrated with many CRM to simplify automated database organization.

3. Establish a Lead-Nurturing Workflow

To engage with a lead and convert them, it takes many touches. Not every lead is ready for conversion. Automated workflows to nurture leads will keep them interested and motivated with little effort.

These workflows should have touchpoints that are tailored to the lead’s stage. A workflow that sends them a series or educational videos is a good option if they are at the top of their funnel (TOFU). Prospects in the consideration phase (MOFU) can benefit from e-books, events and other content that is specific to your company.

If leads are at the bottom of a funnel, the content that offers free demos and pricing information can prove to be very beneficial. It is possible to create workflows and have contacts added when they meet specific criteria. Then let automation take care of the rest.

4. Use Workflows for Marketing and Sales Alignment

Aligning sales and marketing is a great way to bring everyone together, work towards the same goals and convert leads into customers. It is possible to create a workflow that fosters this alignment and cohesion.

You can create workflows that allow for seamless handoffs of leads between marketing and sales. This is where lead scoring plays a major role. By setting lead scores that are specific to your company, you can create workflows that change a contact’s lifecycle stage or status when they reach a certain point. This allows a contact to be automatically passed from sales to marketing once it is a qualified lead (SQL).

This seamless handoff allows sales to build on the marketing foundation quickly. Sales-qualified leads don’t want to go unnoticed. Automated marketing and sales alignment workflows make sure that no leads slip through the cracks.

5. You can turn those lost opportunities around

You don’t have to lose contact with a prospect because it was closed. A contact can be re-engaged with if they were once a potential prospect. Marketing automation can turn closed opportunities lost into closed-won opportunities, without the need to reach out manually.

This is possible with automated email nurturing. Your organization will remain top of mind for prospects by automating email nurturing. This is why email content should reflect the fact that prospects already know a lot about your company and products.

You can also create a strategy retargeting campaign which, for example, allows leads to be entered within 3 months of a deal being marked as closed lost. This timeline gives leads space and then re-engages them by providing relevant content to help them close the deal.

6. Use Workflows to create time stamps

Marketers are reliant on reporting and attribution. However, there is nothing worse than inaccurate or unclear information. Reporting can be made easier by creating workflows that clarify various data points.

This can be done by using workflows to create time stamps for important properties. You will have all the information that you need to accurately report. This could be the date of a contact’s most recent demo request or submission.

This information will allow you to engage prospects in a way that is most effective and ensures that no one remains unengaged.