Your business has decided to make the much needed plunge, and use Marketing Automation Software to streamline all of your marketing processes. You’ve made the right decision. After all, 67% of Marketing Leaders use a Marketing Automation Platform illustrating just how integral automation is for marketing success.
The next step to take is to find a Marketing Automation Software solution that best works for you, and your company. This can be tricky. There seems to be an ever growing number of automation solutions on the web, and without a keen discerning eye – it’s easy to settle on a platform that simply won’t deliver on your key needs.
That’s where these 5 things to look for in Marketing Automation Software come in. These are the key features you need to consider for your business, and look out for in the software you wish to implement.
1. Does it automate what you need automated? (Emails, events, surveys, SMS)
The most important thing to look for in Marketing Automation Software is the functionality you need to reach your specific marketing goals.
For example:
- Is your company in need of Marketing Automation Software to create and blast email campaigns?
- Are you looking to manage your events on a platform that automates much of the repetitive work?
- Is your company looking to collect data and feedback via surveys?
- Perhaps you need a communications solution that allows you to build a customer journey that involves both triggered emails, and SMS?
Whatever it is that you need, list it down, and make sure that the Marketing Automation Software solutions you’re comparing have features that help you fulfil those needs.
Don’t be afraid to be specific. After all, there’s plenty of solutions to choose from, and there’s bound to be one that caters to most – if not all – of your unique needs.
– You need to create and send emails, but do you want a Marketing Automation Software that also provides unique templates branded and designed just for your company?
– You need to send SMS campaigns, but only to the attendees of your company’s event, and you want it to send to them automatically after the event’s over.
Think of these narratives when looking for the right solution. You will want to make sure your Marketing Automation Software can deliver on all these steps.
2. What level of support do you need?
There are plenty of Marketing Automation Software available online, but not many of them provide support beyond static help documentation, or email support (often with long turnarounds).
Is that OK for your company? Is your marketing team equipped enough to deal with technical difficulties, and training themselves, or would it save you time and resources to have more hands-on support and training provided as part of your Marketing Automation solution?
Whilst plenty of Marketing Automation Software provide the features your company needs, not all of them will provide the level of support that your teams require.
Types of support you want to consider:
- Email support
- Phone support
- Face-to-face support
- Help (text) documentation
- Text manuals
- Video tutorials
- Online training
- In-house, or on-site training
- Workshop and training events
Decide how much training and support your teammates will need, remembering that training and support will be something ongoing due to staff turnover, as well as software updates and changes. Once you’ve got a clear idea of the level of support your company needs, compare the Marketing Automation solutions you’re interested in, and check whether they provide support beyond email and help documentation.
3. Is it compliant according to your country’s privacy laws?
In the wake of notorious privacy leaks such as the Equifax breach, and the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal – companies, and customers alike are understandably on edge when it comes to privacy and data collection.
With new privacy laws being introduced to regulate the use of data online, such as the GDPR in Europe, it’s important that as a company you choose a Marketing Automation Software that will be compliant with your own local privacy/data laws.
If you’re not sure what the privacy/data laws are for your country, then you best do some research before choosing a Marketing Automation Software.
Once you’ve understood your unique laws, and the restrictions that places on your marketing efforts, then it’s time to shop around for a Marketing Automation Software that will ensure your company stays compliant.
Swift Digital is an Australian Marketing Automation Software, for example, and it is compliant with both Australian privacy laws, and the SPAM Act. Unlike most other Marketing Automation options, Swift Digital’s data is stored within the country, ensuring privacy compliance, and data security. If you’re in Australia and are particularly concerned about following the law, and keeping your clients’ data safe, then you may want to check our platform out!
4. Integrations with other software, especially your CRM
Marketing Automation is all about taking the monotonous, manual work out of your marketing efforts. But if you, like most companies and organisations, are using multiple online platforms to serve different functions, you may find you have your work cut out for you.
Having to manually move data between the platforms you use sort of defeats the purpose of automating your marketing efforts.
If you’d like your platforms to work well together, especially if you’d like your Sales CRM to work alongside your Marketing Automation Software, then make sure that the software you are considering includes integration with your CRM, and other services.
There are a couple ways to check this. The Marketing Automation Software’s site should explain what integration options it provides, and if not, a quick email or call should clear things up.
You may also want to check if the Marketing Automation Software is available as an app on the integration service: Zapier. This will allow you to create your own automated integrations between your Marketing Automation Software, and any other apps your company uses (given they are integrated with Zapier as well).
5. Targeting. Does it have personalisation, dynamic content, and trigger rules?
Successful brand marketing relies heavily on personal relevance. This means that audiences are becoming more scrutable over the content they receive and give attention to. If it’s not relevant to an individual reader, then you’re going to lose plenty of potential engagement, and you will lose your audience to dissatisfied unsubscriptions.
Whatever Marketing Automation Software you choose, make sure that amongst its features and functionality are options for segmenting your mailing lists, inserting personalisations into your content (e.g. first name is an absolute must – but you should be able to personalise with any data you collect, full stop), tweaking your content for each reader based on past behaviour or preferences (dynamic content), and finally – automation triggers, which allow you to create workflows where each subsequent step is triggered by a previous action (for example, a forgotten shopping cart email is sent to shoppers who didn’t continue with a purchase on your ecommerce site).
If the Marketing Automation Software you’re considering doesn’t provide any of the above features, then forget about it. Relevance is key to marketing success, and in an attention economy – grabbing and keeping attention is everything.
Choosing a Marketing Automation Software
If you consider these 5 key items when shopping for your Marketing Automation Software, you’ll make the right decision for your company, and marketing team.
Marketing Automation is popular mainly because it takes the pain out of manual marketing efforts, and also amplifies the success of your strategies by supplying tools and functionality that boosts your reach and relevance.
It’s precisely because of how powerful a tool Marketing Automation is that you should take your time when making a Marketing Automation Software purchase. You want the software that will help your company reach all of its unique goals, easily, with the right level of support, without breaking the law, and with targeted, personalised accuracy.
Here at Swift Digital, we can help you with your Marketing Automation needs. To find out how your business can get the best out of Swift Digital’s platform, contact our Sales Team today on 02 9929 7001.
The Preferred Email, Events and SMS Automation Software For All Australian Government Departments
Swift Digital’s templates help you effortlessly create stunning emails and events communications using our drag-and-drop email and event builder.
You can raise engagement with embedded images, videos, polls, article feedback, and emojis and schedule messages to send at the right time.
Government departments’ unique marketing requirements are covered with Swift Digital, and full compliance with all anti-spam and privacy laws is guaranteed. Swift Digital is also ISO 27001 certified.
Swift Digital is Australia’s leader in marketing automation software and event management working with organisations like the NSW Government, ATO, and companies like Westpac Bank and Qantas.
Find out why we’re the Australian government department’s number one choice for their professional communications and events.
To find out how your business can get the best out of Swift Digital’s platform, contact our team today.
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