“Marketing Automation is a powerful software and processes which make complex and repetitive tasks easy.”
– Mautic
Marketing Automation has brought about revolutionary changes in various industries and business sectors. The B2B ManufacturingIndustry has brought in automation in various facets of manufacturing, but it is yet to make its way into marketing and sales sectors. The Manufacturing sector hasn’t yet embraced the concept of digital automation which is the most effective way to reach customers. If you are a B2B Manufacturer and don’t have marketing automation, read on to know why you need marketing automation in your Marketing and sales efforts.
According to reports by Aberdeen, marketing automation helped improve lead conversion by 107%. Also, study conducted by Google concluded that 71% of B2B decision makers research about the product online before making the purchase. This is important for B2B marketers to shift their attention from traditional marketing methods to digital marketing strategies that are necessary to get the required clients.
Here are 6 compelling reasons why marketing automation is a basic need for every B2B manufacturer:
1.Lead Qualification
Marketing Automation helps you qualify the leads who will eventually turn into paying customers for the business. This makes it easier for the sales team to concentrate on these hot prospects rather than to wade through uninterested prospects.
Marketing Automation helps establish a seamless and consistent communication channel that helps identify leads better and close the leads faster. Marketing Automation reduces the time required to prospect and qualify the leads and then pass on to the sales team. Without the process of Marketing Automation in place, the sales representative has to go through a host of prospects and then make a list of leads and then proceed to pitch them the product or the service. This is a tedious and a not so cost-effective process which takes a toll on the Manufacturer and reduces the efficiency of future Marketing campaigns.
Marketing Automation also helps to identify the customer’s journey in the sales cycle and notifies whether the customer needs to be nurtured further or can the hard sell be made to him/her. This helps the Manufacturer save time and money and helps concentrate on the right leads to be pursued.
Marketing Automation has the ability to do A/B Testing which provides with enough data to see which of your content is engaging enough and which is not. This data helps you create more engaging content which will resonate with the target audience and bring in more sales to the Manufacturing Company.
Related:How E-mail helps reshape Marketing in Manufacturing concerns
2.Stronger Understanding of the Buyer Persona to Understand Shift in Buying Behavior
A study conducted by the reliable Content Marketing Institute nearly 55% of all B2B Companies were now using Marketing Automation, while 30% of the Manufacturers were using automation in their Marketing and sales departments.
Buyers in today’s day and age don’t want a generalized experience when buying products, this is especially more relevant in the case of B2B Purchases.
Marketing Automation allows B2B Marketers to track and collate forms, workflows and customer content to create the ideal buyer persona. With the Ideal buyer persona in hand, the B2B Marketers will get a shot in the arm as they can then formulate separate strategies to target people falling under different buyer personas.
Marketing Automation helps track the engagement and thereby puts marketers in the driving seat through which they can improve the brand voice, messaging and campaigns through efficient customization of their strategies to suit their Target Audience.
Buyer intent and behavior – Real-time data is the need of the hour, this allows the manufacturers to get a complete picture and all the necessary insights on the people who visit their online pages. Marketing Automation tools like Crazy Egg show the heat map of the user who visits your website and how much time if any they spent on your website, which pages caught their attention and more. This will provide detailed insights into the prospect’s behavior which can determine what exactly he/ she is looking for from your company.
Marketing Automation software used to collect and store information about how customers react to the Marketing efforts of the company. These critical behavioral insights will help you engage in better dialogue with your customers to develop a real rapport with them.
Related:The Requisite Toolkit for all Industrial Marketers in 2019
3.Improving sales and marketing alignment, efficiencies
Integrating CRM and Marketing Automation is the way ahead. It helps streamline mundane activities and eliminate time-consuming manual tasks.
When time and effort consuming tasks like lead prospecting and sales processes are automated the sales and marketing team can focus on other essential activities like strategizing marketing campaigns, customer segmentation, personalization of email marketing. CRM software and tools help share data across various business levels in a manufacturing organization.
Related: Marketing and Mining- How to get the best out of your Marketing as a mining company
4.Optimizing the overall customer journey and CX
Marketing Automation offers marketers a better chance to plan a seamless customer journey across multiple platforms and touchpoints. It enables you to target better leads and smoothen the flow of the sales cycle. When there is a smooth flow of the sales cycle the chance of stale and obsolete data accumulating in your sales cycle is a rare occurrence. When the Customer Experience is optimized, it presents a better opportunity to speed up the customer buying process, and the hard sell can be made to him/her earlier as compared to when the customer experience is not optimized.
A Marketing Automation program with all the real insights and data can help formulate a successful contact program when Enabled Marketing Automation enables for seamless brand experience. With all the deadlines and customer inquiries being digitally identified and monitored it helps reduce the delays in attending to the customer and also the delay in follow up to sales/ service inquiries.
Another Important advantage that will make the manufacturers rub their hands in glee is that Marketing Automation removes the hurdles in client follow up and keeps the sales and marketing engine well-oiled and running smoothly on an everyday basis.
Related: Want to 10x your sales in 2019?
5.Better Partner Management
Manufacturing companies maintain proper working relationships with their channel partners. A good relationship between the partners helps to facilitate the optimization of the supply chain. Marketing Automation keeps all the transactions, reminders, notifications, meetings and all things necessary in a digital format and reminds you several days in advance of what are the upcoming events for the next few days. This will significantly benefit the manufacturers as they can focus on bettering their product or service and not on mundane tasks like record keeping and customer follow up.
Related: Understanding the complete landscape of Industrialization and its future
6.Intelligent Supply Chain
A supply chain is crucial to maintain the regular flow of business operations in a manufacturing concern. Supply chain if let be as it is can turn into a complex maze of errors which is expensive and puts the company in deep waters and more importantly, it is difficult to turn around manufacturing concerns wrapped up in supply chain inconsistencies.
Deploying a CRM in such a situation would be a welcome change to all the parties involved in the process. The CRM gives details insights about operations, stock level, inventory management, reordering process, warehousing, and distribution. A digital management and intelligent Supply chain will help manufacturers keep track of production times, Order Management, Effective raw material restocking and other significant features that optimize the supply chain so that the manufacturers can yield maximum value from it. Moreover, ERP is also equally necessary for the manufacturing industry or any other sector as it keeps the workflow well monitored and secured.
Marketing Automation is not just meant to any one sector. Customers be it B2B, or B2C expect personalization, relevance, and responsiveness when they’re looking to buy any product or services. Marketing Automation since its inception has become simpler and easier to use over the years, so much so that even a person with no technical skills can master marketing automation in a way that he/she can track, execute and measure marketing campaigns and their effectiveness.
Conclusion:
Marketing Automation is the way towards the future. Marketers and professionals in an organization shouldn’t be dabbling in mundane activities that limit their potential. This is especially true for manufacturing concerns as they have automation enabled on the shop floor but not in the Marketing and sales departments. Marketing Automation helps eliminate errors and inconsistencies in the process and supports the Manufacturing concern in optimizing its performance.
This Blog details why Marketing Automation is required for Manufacturing Companies. It also helps if you are a Manufacturer and want to improve your optimization level and bring in more revenues.
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Sending out email blasts won’t just cut it in the world of marketing anymore. Marketers should plan & form thoughtful strategies to approach clients at their needs. They should also stand out from the messages that are being sent by your competitors. Incorporate this with these five types of emails into your industrial marketing strategy for best results.
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