“Doing marketing automation”; This is often how many marketing experts approach the nurturing phase of a digital strategy. Is that really reasonable?
It is time to bring some order to our vocabulary! Our clients ask us to “do marketing automation” at every turn. Yet, this often reflects confusion between a tool and a practice.
Confusion and reflexes
Marketing automation generally refers to tools that automate marketing actions. For example, sending emails or posting on social networks.
More specifically, what are these tools for? They help you structure your nurturing strategy. It consists of establishing – and maintaining – a “nourishing” relationship with a prospect in order to gradually turn them into a lead that will then be passed on to your sales teams. The principle of nurturing?
Capture a contact’s email address by offering them premium content, an ebook for example, then map out this relationship with the prospect so you can convert them into a customer and identify projects.
Marketing automation: really indispensable?
To carry out all these actions, is a marketing automation tool really indispensable? Big reveal: no, you can run a nurturing strategy manually. Its performance will depend mainly on the quality, relevance and originality of your content. On the other hand, if you do without a marketing automation tool, the operational management of your campaign will be a real headache and will take you much, much more time.
What are the tool’s advantages? It will enable you to store a contact database, track contacts to understand what they do on your website, and identify those who fill out forms. This way, you will obtain genuinely qualified leads based on criteria that you have defined beforehand.
My advice: before choosing your marketing automation tool and benchmarking the different options on the market, focus instead on your overall digital strategy and refine your nurturing scenarios. Above all, always think about the quality of your content. It is thanks to them that you will succeed in putting in place a truly effective digital strategy. The tool comes later to help you operationally deploy this strategy. In short, don’t put the cart before the horse.
