We are helping quite a few clients get up to speed with Act! Marketing automation. Many of them were prior users of the Swiftpage e Mail marketing.
One of the top questions I get is how is marketing automation different. There are tons of articles about marketing automation, but here's what I have told everyone - in a few words so they don't need to go read those articles right away.
Email marketing is just that - sending marketing pieces out via email "hoping" people will 1) open them and 2) buy your service or product. You send the emails out on faith. And sit back and wait for either a response or someone perhaps clicking on a website link you've provided.
That has worked well for many years and for many companies. But how do you make sure it makes you money? How do you insure that the lead generated by that email or click is responded to and a call to action has been implemented?
You need to find a way to automate that process and that is where marketing automation comes into play. It takes email marketing to a whole new level.
Things like automatically creating an activity when someone clicks on a link. Moving that lead into a group that you will follow up with additional emails in the future.
How about emails going out automatically on someone's birthday with an activity scheduled for a sales rep to "check in" and see how things are going.
One of my favorites is having an email go out if someone has not been talked to, met with or responded to within 90 days - I call it the "neglected clients" campaign.
If you do a bunch of manual steps and processes after you send out email marketing pieces, then you need marketing automation.
Take the time to go research marketing automation on Google. Or...give us a call. This article will actually be in one of my upcoming emails with a click-through that I will follow up on. Compliments of a marketing automation campaign. Yes, we eat our own dog food.
So should you.
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