KEO Marketing


How the Best B2B Marketing Companies are Responding to Automation


B2B marketing companies know that marketing automation is an effective new way to reach customers where and when they begin their buying journey. Today’s savvy customers complete as much as 70 percent of their research before engaging with a salesperson. That means marketing must reach across multiple channels and provide educational information to its target audience to give customers and prospects the tools they need to move forward in the purchasing process. One way to accomplish this is through marketing automation.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation is a set of techniques composed of software and technology that automate marketing actions. B2B marketing companies can now automate repetitive tasks such as email marketing, social media marketing, and other website actions. Automated technology takes these labor-intensive, menial tasks and systematizes them to provide marketers with relief to focus elsewhere in their workflow on generating high-quality leads and achieving a substantial ROI.

Types of B2B Marketing Automation

The different types of marketing automation you need to consider are:

  • Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software. Regardless of how many customers you currently have, managing their interactions with your brand is imperative. Your marketing and sales teams need to collect, store, and retrieve data anywhere and at any time, making CRM software mandatory for your business. A CRM platform can help you serve customers and prospects promptly to create a better customer experience.
  • Email marketing software. Email marketing provides one of the best ROI, which makes scaling through automation essential. An email marketing software lets you automate the many messages you send to prospects and customers. These could be trigger-based messages like auto-responders or an email blast sent by your marketing team. Emailing marketing software helps you distribute large-scale, personalized messages and track their effectiveness.
  • Marketing automation software. You can automate activities like managing B2B content marketing and creating landing pages. A marketing automation software is an all-in-one tool that lets you manage a variety of tasks. For example, drive traffic to your website, set up campaigns, and create inbound marketing A good marketing automation platform lets you set up workflows that map out your customers’ journey.

  • Social media marketing software. Social media is one of the best platforms for B2B marketing companies to reach out to customers and prospects. But responding to every post on social media is more than a full-time job. Social media marketing software automates promoting engagement and displaying brand personality. Most marketers use a combination of social media advertising and personable posts and updates. Automation software sends out posts and ads when you want and on which platforms and helps you track and analyze your success.
  • Marketing analytics software. Measuring your marketing strategies’ performance is also imperative because you cannot improve what you do not measure. Automating analytics allows you to look at a single dashboard to see how your efforts are performing and lets you make real-time changes and improvements to maximize your ROI.

How is Automation Impacting SEO?

Marketing automation allows you to guide prospects and customers down your education funnel or sales funnel, so you get the most out of your B2B SEO efforts. Automation helps you stay aware of what happens to a lead once they click through to your site. You can track and follow-up with leads, create optimized landings pages and forms, and convert leads. All your SEO efforts will not mean much if you do not manage the process from the first click to final sale on your website.

Automating content distribution, reputation management, and lead qualification enhances and amplifies your SEO strategy, and lets you focus your precious resources on your ideal customers.

How does automation impact the buying/selling process?

Companies face a longer B2B buying process, and a big percentage of a customer’s journey happens before a salesperson even gets involved. This mean marketing has a bigger role to play in the buying process at the beginning through education and awareness. You must capture and engage your prospects’ attention, instill customer loyalty, and move the lead to the sales funnel. Automation is the only way for marketers to scale this level of attention.

Automation lets you segment prospects based on demographic data, behavior, and other characteristics. You can create more effective marketing strategies and prioritize your budget for the campaigns that generate the best ROI.

How will automation impact other marketing services?

Marketing automation allows you to capture more data than ever before, which enhances and optimizes your marketing services. It also leaves time for you to add the human touch your prospects and customers want so you can build an emotional connection with your B2B services.

In addition, automated delivery shortens the value chain, so your customers get their products faster. Then you can analyze what customers do and predict when they might buy in the future. Predictive modeling lets you laser target and time your communications to generate the best user experiences.

Automation is increasingly important to B2B marketing companies to help you reach your prospects and customers where and how they want. It is changing the way marketers work and fosters better customer engagement and productivity. B2B marketing automation is changing the future of marketing—for the better.

Contact us to find out how you can leverage automation to drive your B2B marketing efforts.

Emina Karic has experience in researching new leads and trends, social media outreach, as well as assisting the marketing department in any way seen fit. She had previously interned for a marketing firm that specializes in nonprofit and political clients before becoming a part of our agency. As the Marketing Coordinator, she compiles research on leads to target and is responsible for social media outreach via LinkedIn. She prides herself on her hard work and her ability to obtain information quickly and effectively. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Film and Media Studies from Arizona State University.