Freya Oxton-Grant
In our modern, technological era, more and more activities and services are being automated either as a way to reduce human labour or to streamline processes.
Marketing is no different – anything digital can be automated.
Automating your marketing processes can save your business time and money whilst improving ROI and customer experience.
What is Marketing Automation?Marketing automation is a software technology that allows you to automate and streamline your marketing activities and processes. This means you can improve your effeciency with email marketing, social media management, and lead nurturing campaigns, making it easier for you and more effective for your customers. |
Marketing automation is where software and strategy combine to create a better marketing system for you and your specifiers.
It also gives you more time to prioritise and execute other elements of your marketing activities.
Why is Marketing Automation Useful for Construction Businesses?
The software that is available today allows you to automate various marketing tasks from emails to social media, as well as content management and lead nurturing.
It also gives you the tools to monitor your marketing data and track the performance of your marketing campaigns.
If you are struggling with
- engaging specifiers and contractors online,
- knowing which leads to prioritise,
- and unsure of the performance of your marketing efforts
then marketing automation is the answer for you.
Implementing this software will not only benefit your marketing department but also make your sales rep’s lives easier.
Understanding your website visitors and their readiness to buy can dramatically shift the way you approach and interact with them in order to move them down the sales funnel.
How Does Marketing Automation Work?
If you are a business that is invested in growing your company to the next level, marketing automation can help you do that through its many forms and applications.
There are many aspects of your marketing that you can streamline. In the next few paragraphs, I will explain some of the key processes you can put on autopilot.
Email Marketing
Marketing automation isn’t just a process of pushing out spam to your mailing list.
It is a way you can segment your customer base into each stage of the buyer’s journey whether they are a specifier researching your business or a contractor about to request a quote.
You can then provide them with content straight to their email that is informative and valuable to them.
Automated emails can also be used throughout your whole website, not just as a weekly newsletter.
If you have a CRM system (like Hubspot), when a visitor to your website clicks to download something off your site you send them a thank-you email straight away.
You can then also automate the system to follow up in 2 days or 2 weeks, to help out your sales team and re-engage your potential leads.
Lead Nurturing
Following up on leads without even having to do anything seems like a dream for many businesses. But with marketing automation it is a reality.
When you nurture your leads, you can increase both conversions and revenue, as you have earned trust with these customers.
Automating the contact you have with website visitors that have shown interest and engagement with your product or service means you can immediately start building a relationship with them.
Even out of office hours!
In the competitive construction industry, staying top of mind against your competitors is paramount.
Customer Service
Automating mundane and repetitive tasks that take up time for your marketing department means you can give your website visitors the information and care they need.
But it also means you can focus your one to one time on more high-quality, sales-ready leads.
In this way we start the conversation with our customers with automation, but we transfer it, when the time comes, to meaningful human interaction.
The implementation of automated customer service comes in the form of chatbots and automated help centres.
This saves your company time and money, but also makes it easier for customers to do business with you as they can gain unhindered access to your information, pricing, and resources.
Website visitors get immediate answers to their questions, whatever time of day or week.
Conclusion
Marketing automation can give you the opportunity to save time and money whilst also increasing ROI – it’s a win-win!
According to VentureBeat, marketing automation allowed 80% of the surveyed participants to see an increase in number of leads, and 77% found their number of conversions increasing.
If done well, marketing automation gives you the ability to streamline your marketing activities, nurture those leads which are currently unengaged, and provide your website visitors with the information they want, then and there.
Want to learn more about marketing automation for your building products or construction business? Read our BEGINNER'S GUIDE to Marketing Automation for Construction Companies.
About Insynth
As the only HubSpot certified agency to major on construction marketing, we bring together construction marketing strategy, digital strategy, website design, SEO, content marketing, email marketing, sales automation, marketing automation and HubSpot CRM implementation to produce successful campaigns and great results for our clients.