Marketing Automation has become a buzz word recently. As marketing becomes even more mult-faceted, it has become increasingly difficult to manage and integrate various marketing channels like social media and site analytics.

1) Consolidate your marketing efforts into one place. Managing various marketing initiatives can become both daunting and frustrating. Lack of organization and efficiency can lead to poor decision making and even monetary loss. Marketing automation tools consolidate all of your key performance indicators into one place, allowing you to make informed decisions based on measurable metrics. You can measure your PPC, SEO, and social media efforts in conjunction to determine which channel is most profitable.

2) Optimize your lead conversions. A lot of time is put into producing the most qualified leads possible. However, if you can’t convert those leads to buying customers, your efforts are worthless.

3) Marketing automation software can help you:

• Split test your landing pages to determine which ad copy and lander style converts the most visitors
• Score your leads so that you focus on the leads that are ready to become customers
• Create a better process by which your leads are nurtured to increase your closing rates.

4) Enhanced Lead Management: Separate and segment your highest scoring leads with ease, allowing you to focus on the leads that matter most.

5) Email Marketing Management: There are a lot of great list mailers out there, but sometimes your company needs to trigger emails based on predefined events such as downloading something from your lander. Quality marketing automation solutions come with comprehensive e-mail marketing solutions to drip your emails out to your leads over a predefined period of time.

Marketing automation is an extremely useful tool when setup and used correctly. Its main purpose is to allow businesses to use collected data on a lead to individualize and customize a lead nurturing campaign. In the end, providing the lead with the information they need to make an informed purchase is why marketing automation is so powerful.

Keep in mind that marketing automation tools are just that – tools. They must be setup correctly, and anyone using them must be trained to use them to their potential. Most high end automation solutions are setup by a professional representative that also provides training. However, some lesser automation tools that carry a lesser price tag may be lacking in their training and customer support. Remember that you get what you pay for, but in the end a quality automation solution may save your company thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands of dollars.

Ryan enjoys writing about how marketing automation can help enchance ROI and save companies money.