Automation has become so ingrained into our daily lives that we barely even notice it anymore. Automatic doors and automatic soap dispensers, for example, are automated processes aimed to save us time and make our lives easier. Even marketing, a field that is traditionally very creative and content heavy has the potential to increase effectiveness and efficiency through automation. So what exactly does it mean to automate something as broad as marketing? 

B2B marketers face a multitude of challenges including multi-step buying processes, long sales cycles, and differing business values with multiple stakeholders. With the emergence of an increasing number of channels such as social media networks, user groups, and email and online advertising, how do marketers keep track of what is going on? Who is truly interested in our services or products and how do we effectively manage these leads through the buying cycle?

This is where marketing automation comes in. It’s a system that helps manage marketing communications and deliver them to leads at a time that is most relevant to their buying cycle. Marketing automation contains a repeatable, defined process that marketers can use to help generate, nurture, and score leads—essentially, a way to help drive sales! Marketers use lead management to manage this insane amount of data, which are all the processes, rules, formulas, and overall framework from acquiring a lead to handing off the lead to sales. 

Turn Cold Leads Into Hot Ones!
In a “perfect marketing world,” acquiring a lead means an instant sale, but we know this is not the case. What can you do with these leads sitting in your database? By nurturing these leads, you can build a relationship and keep your brand top of mind when they are ready to purchase. Building a relationship means sending the right content to the right people at the right time. With the advent of the Internet, leads are spending more time researching independently, speaking with peers, or gathering feedback through social media networks. Effective strategies that marketers employ are to allow leads to further educate themselves by sending them through automated journeys, which are a series of emails promoting content such as white papers, webinars, and newsletters sent according to the lead’s profile and behavior. Not only are leads benefiting from making the right decision to buy, but marketing resources are also shifted to focus on optimizing journeys and making data driven decisions.

Who’s Hot and Who’s Not?   
It’s well known that every lead is different. In order to quantify leads, marketers use a process called lead scoring which is done by assigning a value to each characteristic and behavior of a prospect. Looking at explicit data (job level, industry segment, company) and implicit data (email opens, website visits, and downloads) of a lead, we can evaluate each lead’s quality and where it stands in the sales cycle. Low scoring leads would be routed to a lead nurturing program for maturation. High scoring leads would be ready for immediate action from sales. Lead scoring is an effective way to prioritize leads, enabling sales to effectively qualify leads while giving marketing a basis for nurturing leads. 

Automation is no longer constrained to automatic doors or automatic soap dispensers. Automation goes far beyond the simplicities of everyday life to even impact a field as broad as marketing. Although we may be far from a “perfect marketing world,” we’re ever closer to streamlining leads to sales.