5 Factors to Consider When Choosing a Marketing Automation System
Marketing automation is a tech solution that automatically handles marketing processes, including database management, campaign coordination across multiple channels, and lead scoring. One of the main benefits of marketing automation is efficiency. It potentially helps reduce staffing costs and frees up your personnel’s time to work on their core tasks. Other marketing automation benefits include increasing conversion rates and enhancing accurate reporting.
Although marketing automation can significantly benefit your business, you need to research and find a system or platform that best suits your needs. Here is a list of what you want to consider.
1. Business Nature
Before you select a marketing automation platform, it is crucial that you first understand the nature of your business. A marketing automation consultant can help you determine your marketing goals after carefully understanding your business. Also, your marketing team can determine these objectives and benchmark them against each platform’s pros and cons. This will help you eliminate most of the systems, especially if they do not contribute to achieving your marketing goals while remaining with only those that highly fit your objectives.
2. User Interface
User interface plays a vital role in your day-to-day operations. Therefore, you will need to determine the ease of use or complexity of the user interface before settling on any platform. Although many providers will claim that their system’s user interface is easy to use, this is not always the case. As such, you will need to request a demo end test their platform for straightforward navigation. You will also need to check for contextual information, which helps clarify vague or confusing titles. Also, you need to check the number of hoops required to complete a task, as this can hinder efficiency in the long run.
3. System Features and Integrations
Different marketing automation systems will come with varying features. Thus, you need to choose a platform with the capabilities required to achieve your marketing goals efficiently. Make a list of all the features you need to stay focused on choosing the right fit. Some of the features you may need to include customer behavior tracking, registration forms, lead nurturing, social media tracking, event marketing, A/B testing, and email marketing. Also, consider your existing technology and check whether the marketing automation system easily integrates into this technology. This will make connecting and transferring data from your existing systems easy.
4. Cost versus Value or the Platform
When selecting a marketing automation tool, it’s always important to weigh its return on investment (ROI). You need to check the server type, capacity, and features included to match the stated price. You can conduct your online research end determine what competing developers are charging for platforms with similar traits. Also, you need to ensure that the system’s price fits into your budget and leaves room for paid campaigns. In addition, check for any hidden costs that the developer might have included and that might result in an increased total cost. Finally, look for any offers or discounts you may qualify for, reducing the total cost.
5. Customer Support
The best marketing automation tool will be the one whose provider can offer good after-sales services as well as effective training. Thus, you need to ensure the system comes with a manual, training programs, eBooks, and how-to videos. Also, you need to acknowledge that technology isn’t perfect and that, at times, things might not run so smoothly. Hence, having help to troubleshoot these issues will come in handy.
Wrapping Up
Regardless of your marketing needs, you can only be sure that you’re selecting the right marketing automation system after going through a careful selection process. Considering the factors mentioned above can help you acquire a powerful marketing automation platform to propel your business to grow.
