Debunking 5 Myths About Marketing Automation

Good day! Lyudmila is in touch; she is a marketer at Altcraft. Marketing automation will make the business “take off” and reduce marketers’ work to minimal tasks – there are dozens of such stereotypes. The main misconception about automation is that it will launch a system that will do everything independently and generate leads effortlessly. But robots do not know how to do business for people: develop strategies, build marketing communications and sell.

Automated marketing is a step forward for the business. However, automation will only be beneficial with an integrated approach and a well-thought-out strategy. Let’s look at some of the popular marketing automation myths and stop believing them.

What Is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation (Marketing automation) – Transfer routine tasks in marketing special software

 Robots take on repetitive tasks in whole or in part, leaving marketers time for strategy and creative questions. Automation is suitable for any area.

A modern marketing automation platform is mailings, advertising campaigns, tracking user actions on the site and reactions to them, converting to leads using pop-ups, analyzing SEO articles of competitors, bidders in contextual advertising, audience parsing, data collection for analytics, content posting …

Important! Marketing automation is a set of actions and a marketing management system. Running an automated email campaign is not the same as automating your marketing.

What problems does automation solve:

• Personalize communication with less effort.
• Fine-tune your ads based on the collected data.
• Reducing the burden on employees. Also, there is no need to inflate the staff when scaling a business.
• Consistency of marketing with other departments. Joint marketing and sales automation are possible: all actions are subject to one plan and do not occur chaotically.
• Tracking user engagement.
• Control over the sales funnels from start to finish.
• Finding weak points in your marketing strategy.

Marketing Automation Myths

Myth # 1. It’s Just An Automated Mailing List

The system will send mailings by itself and save marketers’ time, but without a plan and a systematic approach, this is just the automation of a separate action. A sales funnel links multiple channels that a marketing automation service monitors. The system reacts to customers’ actions and starts mailings after triggers. It also collects data for analytics, controls advertising campaigns, and publishes content.

Important! Don’t confuse automatic mailing with spam. Spam is an unsolicited mailing that users have not agreed to. Correct business automation personalizes offers and sends the client only what is relevant to him.

Myth # 2. Automatic Marketing Makes Things Easier – Set Up And Forgotten

It won’t work that way. Even advanced systems have not learned to work without human supervision. They know how to track user actions, provide data but independently draw conclusions and think over strategies – no. A campaign is planned and created by a person who sees the full picture and knows how marketing is connected with other channels; the marketer is always aware of the circumstances: the situation in the market, in the world.

A marketing automation tool will increase the number of actions per unit of time, but they need to be monitored and adjusted – these are individual skills, competencies, and manager time. The system will show which campaign brought more / fewer conversions; the person will answer why this happened.

Myth # 3. Marketing Automation Is For Email Only

Email marketing is part of marketing automation. Modern digital marketing is omnichannel: a client can start getting to know the company with advertising on the social network, continue to search for a product in the search, subscribe to the newsletter, and finally buy after an SMS message with a discount offer. Therefore, automation is a complex of interconnected actions with a single strategy.

Example. The client looked at the product on the site and stayed on its page long. The system “understands” this and displays an advertisement for the product, sends a promotional code for this product by email, but the client does not respond – does not open the letter. If the user is authorized on the site and has his phone number, the system sends an SMS about a special offer. The result is that the client buys.

Myth No. 4. Automation Is Needed Only For Large Businesses

Sales and marketing automation will pay off only with a large volume of tasks for large corporations – a popular myth that has recently been true. The market for SMB marketing automation software used to be modest. Software for large companies did not fit the budget of small organizations.

Nowadays, there are enough automation systems offered for small and medium-sized businesses. Cloud technologies simplify implementation – businesses do not need additional resources: equipment, hiring technicians. But it’s important to remember that a cloud solution is not the most reliable today. Automation is easier for a small company than for a large one. There are no dozens of departments with disparate data, and fewer people will have to train than a business with thousands of employees.

Automating marketing management for small or medium businesses is a chance to grow.

Myth # 5. Automatic Marketing Is Impersonal And Soulless

The opposite is true. Automating the process of mailing and communicating with the client in marketing channels customizes offers and responses. The system monitors the actions of users in different channels and collects data for a complete picture of user behavior. The service sends out personalized offers because it knows the habits and interests of customers, segments the audience, and selects which advertising option to show at a certain moment.

A marketer without an automation system needs more time to keep track of all user data: to collect and process on their own. A person is more likely to make a mistake due to inattention, such as calling the user by a different name. The robot will substitute data from the database.

Also Read: Top 5 Marketing Trends That Will Help In Business To Grow