Marketing automation refers to the use of software and technology to optimize, automate and measure marketing tasks and processes more efficiently and effectively. These tools can help companies nurture prospects with personalized and useful content, which can eventually convert prospects into customers and turn customers into loyal, repeat customers.
Through automation, companies can segment customers based on different criteria, schedule email blasts, track the customer journey, score leads based on their behavior and more. These actions, which once required a considerable amount of manual time and effort, can now be performed in a more systematic and scalable way.
By allowing companies to maintain a closer, more personalized relationship with their customers without requiring significant manual effort, marketing automation has become an essential tool in any digital marketer’s toolbox.
Related to marketing automation is the CRM strategy and its related software. In fact, in many companies, the two systems combine and complement each other to maintain a consistent and detailed profile of a person from contact to prospect to lead to customer. Marketing automation handles lead generation and lead behavior tracking, while CRM takes care of storing and managing detailed customer information, including interaction history, purchases and preferences.
