Thanks to search engines, the wealth of free information and quality content available on the web, buyers can now access to the content from anywhere. Prospects are now generally available online, especially through social media. And these channels have become the main target of traders worldwide.

The firm Sirius Decisions estimates that 70 percent of the interactions between the customer and the brand are now done online, without physical contact. Gartner reports that this proportion will rise to 85 percent by 2020.

The proliferation of social networks and its widespread use has taken marketing to a whole new level. Consumers have a wide range of options to go online and search for product/service recommendations on Twitter, Facebook, etc. They use LinkedIn to find that company executives may be able to provide better purchasing conditions.

The frequency and volume of these cloud-based conversations makes one thing clear — social media offers a promising platform for lead generation, and lead management. And the only way to take advantage of this platform is the integration of social media features with Marketing Automation.

Wikipedia defines Marketing Automation as marketing departments, consultants and part-time marketing employees that benefit by specifying criteria and outcomes for tasks and processes which are then interpreted, stored and executed by software, which increases efficiency and reduces human error. It was originally called email marketing automation.

Marketo, one of the top providers of marketing automation software, defined Marketing automation as a category of software that streamlines, automates and measures marketing tasks and workflows so companies can increase efficiency and grow revenue. According to marketing research firm Raab Associates, the marketing automation system industry will reach $750 million in 2013, growing 50 percent from 2012 (see full infographic below for more fun and interesting details).

Why do we need marketing automation Services?

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Marketing teams in particular are always on the go. So, they need tools that can be accessed anywhere. Marketing teams are also experimenters by nature. They want to see a tool to address specific pains— like supporting campaigns, delivering messages in a timely way or tracking opportunities.

For example, if a business is using CRM and email platforms consistently and successfully, there should be a decent amount of performance data to evaluate and guide future decisions. Marketing automation provides broader and deeper data on the successful actions of the marketing and sales departments. Automation systems can also remind marketing professionals when it’s time to check in with a client, follow up with a prospect or search for new leads.

Marketing automation systems can benefit both B2B companies large and small, whether you’re looking for cash flow at credit card companies or growing a customer base from scratch.

Improve the quality of leads

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Most marketing automation solutions on the market come with a mechanism incorporated ROI tracking, which can be easily extended to social media. Lead creation is also a crucial part of any marketing platform. But implementing lead nurturing programs is virtually impossible without the right technology. The leads are not progressing at the same pace: a manual system would require constant monitoring of the behavior of your prospects.

With Marketing Automation, you implement automated processes that accompany your cold prospects by providing relevant content aligned with their interests, and help them to progress in their thinking. When done right, nurturing relationship with users can result in 50 percent more sales leads.

For example, using a marketing automation smart app, a restaurant can review and accept new contacts on LinkedIn and Facebook Friends, welcome your new followers on Twitter, respond to comments on the services, thanks others for retweeting and participate in discussion. The marketing automation platform can also generate lead via forms, landing pages, integration to social media; communicate over time (email marketing and social media marketing); present choices along the buyer’s journey and offer campaign management (in terms of offers and loyalty) to retain users.

Social networks offer great potential for the collection of views on the prospects. And by integrating functions for lead intelligence, marketing automation tools can identify prospects, and put your Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn in the automation system. This in turn can facilitate lead mark and segmentation.

Including a Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn buttons in emails and landing pages can make a big difference in getting potential customers. And if the marketing automation software is equipped with the ability to track the information shared and how this has increased web traffic, lead scoring and segmentation becomes even easier.

Smart Automation Apps

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Marketing automation software allows you to automate touch points and can provide key measurement information, tasks and workflows so that over time you make better marketing decisions. Several established firms, including Eloqua, Marketo, Silverpop, and Hubspot, have been leading the charge offering their software to thousands of businesses.

Automation software from Eloqua and Marketo are gearing more towards enterprise clients. Hubspot and Marketo Spark are catering to small and medium businesses.

Blu180 Marketing automation software is a highly flexible solution for complete lead nurturing, scoring, segmentation, progressive profiling, anonymous visitor identification and much more. Systems like Marketo can unify marketing and sales efforts. Marketo can connect with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics systems, further simplifying the outreach process.

HubSpot not only has a marketing automation solution, has other valuable tools as SEO, blogging, Social Networking, e-mail, Lead Nurturing, with the ability to automate marketing based on the buying behavior of prospects, in addition to measuring most important results of the process: visits, leads and sales.

Oracle has just entered in the highly competitive arena for next-generation marketing software with the acquisition of marketing automation vendor Eloqua. Eloqua has analytic capabilities that measure which marketing campaigns run via it are the most effective as well as provide lead management, sales automation and contact management and feed customer profile data into Eloqua for campaign targeting and other purposes.

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