With #AUC2016 only two weeks away, we are thrilled to share with you all a series of guest blog posts courtesy of some of those who are sponsoring this year’s Aptify Users Conference in Miami! A big thank you to all of our sponsors!!!
This is a guest blog post by Jocelyn Johnson of Real Magnet. Thank you for sponsoring, and we look forward to seeing you in Miami!
Marketing automation is gaining momentum as the digital age moves forward. According to a survey from Ascend2, 55 percent of B2B companies are incorporating the technology into their arsenals, and high-performing companies are far more likely to have adopted automation than their struggling competition. To put it simply, marketing automation is a must-have, with countless companies reporting benefits ranging from improved member engagement to increased revenue.
Clearly automating repetitive tasks, streamlining audience segmentation and targeting, lead scoring, and integration with your Aptify membership software improves marketing efficiency and effectiveness. But there are even more reasons why a company should consider these solutions.
Let’s look at five challenges that may not be at the top of the marketing to-do list, but that can be easily addressed using the right automation tools.
1. ”Spray and Pray” Doesn’t Work Anymore
Engagement in the era of overflowing inboxes is driven by relevant content. Marketers need a solid understanding of which content generates the most interest and with whom.
Getting this insight is nearly impossible without the in-depth analytics and lead scoring available in marketing automation systems. With automation, you can more easily target each segment of your audience with the most relevant content.
2. Integrating Social with Email 
Social media is becoming a more powerful channel for marketers. Too often, social campaigns are disconnected from other channels—particularly email—and it can be extremely difficult to measure and compare performance of social relative to email.
Some marketing automation systems enable marketers to publish social posts in coordination with their regular email campaigns—amplifying the overall campaign message. Using the same platform for email and social enables marketers to truly understand cross-channel performances all their digital marketing efforts. This leads to detailed insights like which channel provides the most number of conversions or has the biggest impact for engagement. All this comparative data can inform marketers on which channels are most effective, as well as the types of content that have the most impact for their audience.
3. Lack of Resources
Understaffing is a problem for marketing teams, especially given the multitude of responsibilities they manage. As a result, many departments are stretched thin and have a hard time accomplishing their goals.
Marketing automation simplifies the process of building campaigns, eliminating repetitive tasks, and improving the ability to measure and track results. This ultimately helps the marketing departments get more mileage from their existing staff. In addition, the team can more fully engage in the important aspects of the job, like developing more creative and engaging marketing campaigns.
4. Minimizing Abandonment 
A common marketing tactic is to use a form to capture contact information to download content, register for a webinar, renew a subscription, etc. Unfortunately, abandonment is all too common—when an individual clicks on the call to action to view the registration web page, but doesn’t follow through.
Through automation, marketers can target abandoners with special reminders, incentivize them to complete the form, and capture a larger share of their audience.
5. Proving ROI
Marketing departments have always struggled to pinpoint return on investment, making it hard to identify exactly which efforts are worth pursuing. With automation software, marketers can track the buyer’s journey more effectively and see which strategies are paying off.
This helps you make smarter marketing investments and reduces the risks of traditional trial-and-error approaches. Plus, executives will become more confident in the marketing department and possibly boost budgets.
Marketing professionals can reap many obvious benefits from automation. Those benefits which might not be as apparent on the surface could generate significant rewards over the long term.
