Social Marketing

Marketing Automation vs. Email Marketing

Mothernode Author — Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:45:52 +0000

4 minute read

Email marketing has long been a key component of marketing, and one that has helped companies perform at consistently high levels for many years. With this level of efficacy in mind, why would anyone want to shatter such a pleasant status quo? Why would anyone want to disrupt something so useful?Because there are serious advantages to be gained. Good quality marketing automation software is able to handle the duties of email marketing, while also providing a wide range of stunning features to businesses eager to move ahead of the pack in the market.

Read on to discover more about the differences between marketing automation and email marketing, and discover what marketing automation software can provide to your organization.

Strict Definitions

The main difference between marketing automation software and an email marketing campaign is scope. While email marketing has a solid track record in providing leads and prospects to businesses in a variety of industries, marketing automation is simply a far more sophisticated approach.

Let’s take a look at the definitions of each strategy;

Email Marketing: Basically a tool to deliver mass email marketing campaigns to large databases of prospects. The tool will also include a facility for tracking replies for each communication, and for commissioning reports on the effectiveness of each campaign.

Marketing Automation: Far more wide-ranging than email marketing, marketing automation pulls together a variety of different channels, enabling a wholly integrated marketing solution. Inbound leads via websites and social media, content marketing strategies, email marketing and other lead sources are operated together.

Advantages of Market Automation

Scope

The primary and most obvious advantage to market automation over email marketing is the sheer scope it provides. While email marketing is highly effective at targeting pre-defined groups of prospects and encouraging them to move further into the acquisitions or sales funnel, marketing automation yields far more comprehensive results.

Efficiency is vital in business, and the ability to manage and oversee a range of marketing strategies is incredibly valuable. Rather than wasting time and resources developing different marketing strategies and then arduously pulling them together, marketing teams utilizing marketing automation software find all these strategies integrated within one convenient hub.

The benefits of this cannot be underestimated. Suddenly, organizations discover that – not only are their marketing strategies suddenly far more effective in terms of customer acquisitions – but they also have far more time to spend on other areas of their business.

Nurturing Leads

Email marketing is effective in gaining leads and in introducing those leads to your acquisition funnel, but marketing automation software moves this a step further. This kind of software facilitates the nurturing of leads and the management of these leads as they progress towards your desired outcome.

Marketing automation software also reflects the nuance and versatility of the products and services offered by individual businesses. For example, different leads may be suited to different product packages, in which case market automation software enables businesses to guide that lead towards the outcome which most suits their needs.

This kind of segmentation is an imperative part of modern business. An organization must have the agility to provide the services or products that a consumer requires, but they must also be able to recognize these requirements and tailor their responses accordingly. Demonstrating this agility and versatility to the customer increases the likelihood that that customer will remain loyal post-conversion.

In addition to segmentation, marketing automation also enables organizations to analyze leads as they are acquired and nurtured. High quality automation software will include a lead scoring tool which gives an insight into the likelihood of conversion and into which methods are required to secure a conversion. This represents the shift towards treating the customer like an individual, not simply one component of a wider herd.

Gain Knowledge/Wield Knowledge

All of the above really boils down to one thing; knowledge. Knowledge, and the ability to deploy and wield knowledge effectively, has become a sort of currency within the landscape of modern, client-driven business practice. Market automation provides a level of knowledge and insight which enables organizations to provide only the best products and services to consumers and cement their position at the head of the market.

Each interaction with a customer generates a wealth of information which can be used to specialize and refine future direct marketing strategies. With email marketing, this information can very easily fall by the wayside; however, with marketing automation, a bank of knowledge can be developed, stored, and then wielded by proactive organizations who are dedicated to providing the consumer with what they need.

The applications of this knowledge are almost endless. Everything – from creating lists of different customers or leads at different stages of conversion, to the deployment of workflow management tools aimed at simplifying business practices – can benefit from the application of in-depth and profound consumer knowledge. Market automaton software puts this information at our fingertips.

Emails that Win Business: Dos and Don’ts

Mothernode Author — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 16:53:25 +0000

3 minute read

Email templates are great time-saving devices, but they must be used carefully. The key to a great template is to make it appear that it is not a template at all, but instead an organic and unique response. In the sensitive world of business communication, creating this impression is vital.

Do ask questions
Questions, by their very nature, are engaging and provoke a response if nothing else. Without this response, you have nothing to work with in closing a potential deal. Deploy direct and meaningful questions to start the ball rolling on a positive conversation.

Questions also have substantial rhetorical power if used correctly. Rather than simply delineating your services, use questions to get the customer to focus on specific pain points. This approach can prove far more effective than a simple list of what you can do for the client.

Don’t ramble on
One of the golden rules of creating a successful email – whether the email is a template or a uniquely composed message – is to keep it short. One of the main reasons that an email gets ignored is that the recipient simply doesn’t have time to wade through it.

What’s more, emails consisting of several long paragraphs, carefully and methodically presented, tend to give the game away. While grammar is, of course, important, longer compositions scream ‘generic template’ to the recipient; something which you want to avoid at all costs.

Do focus on real solutions
Similar to the above, a good business-winning email should get right into the heart of the matter. Each email should be formulated with a specific objective in mind, and then designed in a way which meets that objective and communicates the necessary information to the recipient.

Think about the kind of response you want to elicit from the recipient, then think about the information you need to include to achieve that. We’ve included sample emails below for you to work with when creating your template.

Don’t include wasted words
As you’re already keeping it short, you are aware that your email needs to be quick and to the point if it is to do its job. This means that all the words you use must be specifically measured and weighed up to ensure maximum effectiveness.

We’ve mentioned above that a good sales email should get straight to the point, but what about later on? The way you finish an email is just as important as how you begin. Remember, it’s all about engineering your way to your desired outcome, whether that outcome is a contract renewal, a face to face meeting, or simply a chat on the phone. Design your call to action and make sure that it is deployed in your template.

Samples
Introducing Yourself

Dear —-
My name is —– and I am [role] at [organization], I would like to briefly introduce you to our company.

We provide bespoke software and app design services to businesses and help to fine-tune their media marketing strategies. Is this something that you think your company could benefit from? When would be convenient to have a five or ten minute chat about this?
Yours sincerely,

—–

Follow Up Emails
Hi —-
Just following up on the voicemail I left you earlier. I did some research on yourwebsite.com today and saw that you are the [role] at [organization].
I’m not sure where your interests lie but I would like to set up a time to find out. That way I can provide some relevant resources and answer any questions you might have.

When would be a good time to speak for 5-10 min?

—-
Customer Service Emails

Hi —-,
Thank you for forwarding the email you received from your client. We understand that it is important to pass on information regarding additional charges so we would like to add a notice to your company profile page, outlining this clearly to customers.

Could you get in touch to let us know the precise wording you would like us to include? We will be happy to accommodate this for you and you can expect the changes to be made by the end of the week.
Thank you for staying in contact, and don’t forget to email or call if you have any other issues or questions.
Sincerely,