With new digital marketing tools becoming more powerful and accessible thanks to the B2B software-as-a-service revolution, not just large enterprises but SMBs can also use resources like business intelligence data platforms, mobile app development, etc. And there is no better game changing digital marketing tool for businesses engaged in the digital spaces as marketing automation.
A marketing automation platform allows marketers to score, nurture, and attribute leads by analyzing digital footprint trails that users leave behind them when browsing the Internet. A report by Emailmonday confirms that more than half the B2B companies (58%) plan to use marketing automation technology. According to Oktopost, companies that utilize marketing automation on average enjoy a 68% increase in customer engagement and a 77% increase in conversions.
Bet you have already figured out how best to utilize the marketing automation platform and understand the nitty-gritty’s of approaching potential customers by sending automated direct response to them, scheduling events and tracking your email click-through rates. But what about the other important channel – social media?
The Power Of Social Media And Automation
Social media has changed marketing approaches because of its ability to reach millions of potential customers. The nature and size of social media platforms (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat) have made it so much easier for businesses to target different types of audiences with products and services for effective exposure. This potent marketing tool can help generate an endless flow of website visitors or potential leads for a business. By leveraging targeted marketed automation, these raw leads can be turned into customers.
Surely your business already has social media channels in place so all you have to do is integrate automation into your social media efforts. This is a match that can produce profitable results for businesses using them. When introducing automation tools one has to be savvy about it, especially since social media is all about connecting with your audience. So you do have to remain engaged and have real conversations while listening to what your users have to say.
Automation as part of B2B inbound marketing strategy can help to send the right messages to the right people at the right moments and track their interactions with your content. If you add in lead research, content distribution, and engagement through social media into the mix then you can escort leads as they progress through your conversion funnel.
There are four major steps to crafting a well-rounded automation plan:
- Know the opportunities when you can automate and when to engage
- Select your automation tools wisely
- Fix a specific automation schedule according to your needs
- Devise ways to remain on top of trends and in on the conversation
Advantages Of Social Media Automation
Integrating your marketing automation platform with social media provides you the opportunity to get on the data bandwagon. It gives your marketing team the opportunity to get a well-rounded 360-degree view of your prospects. For example, you can create tags behind posts to tracks your campaigns or add social sharing buttons on emails and landing pages. Social media interactions, user activity on posts make it so much easier to segment your audience so that you can properly target your messaging. Your message then specifically be created and displayed to a defined group of recipients, like loyal customers, bloggers, users who never open your emails, etc.
Integrating automation with social media can help to recognize which leads are sales ready and the ones that require further nurturing. With more information about the kind of users clicking, and where, which messaging is engaging the audiences, which posts get the most impressions, the more ammo your sales team will have to push for the buy.
Social data helps you understand the prospects’ true interests and behaviors. You can also identify and best utilize the social channels bringing in the most leads. Being able to segment leads based on clicks, content topics, channels, campaign tags and more can help businesses effectively nurture them with more relevant content.
With social media marketing automation software, you can react to the social media actions of users by setting up automated alerts on the marketing automation platform. An instance of this would be automating the sales chat by automatically inserting contact data in your CRM.
Incorporating social media behavioral and transaction profiles of customers to automation workflow enables marketers to reach them more precisely and effectively. It is possible to link automation of ad display or post boosting to any intelligence gathered in marketing automation platforms, like users’ website behavior, their current place in the buyer journey, or even to external events, such as contacting sales team or customer service.
Social media marketing automation applications have opened up many opportunities for businesses to reach new consumers. Distribution software like Hootsuite, Jollor and Buffer allow marketers to schedule and optimize content and posts at a specific time, on a specific platform. Even promoting your content on social sites can be automated through Dlvr.it and Viral Content Buzz. This ensures a larger audience and more eyeballs on your content.
Automate What You Can But Remain Engaged On Social Channels
The primary goal of automation is better targeting of customers and prospects. Use your time wisely and take repetitive tasks out of the equation with automation. It most certainly won’t remove all work entirely but it definitely does help reduce human error in campaigns and helps you work more efficiently. Let DirectiveGroup help your business grow successfully with lead management efforts and multichannel marketing.
