• 08 Feb 2021
• 0

What features should be included within a marketing automation software?

Marketing automation can boost a company’s revenues, profits, and ROI (return on investment). To achieve maximum efficiency, the company must use the right marketing automation software.

Marketing consists of an array of processes, from generation and nurturing of sales to sending emails. If a person does these tasks, there are chances that he might make some mistakes. This can considerably harm a company’s internal processes, reputation, budget, resources, and valuable time. Due to this reason, an organization should focus on automating the marketing process.

An easy way of doing that is to use a marketing automation software. From all the software available in the market, it can be difficult to choose the right tool that aligns with a business’s goals and objectives or choose one with the essential features. What are these essential features? These are mentioned below:

1. Lead and lead management

A lead is one of the vital marketing factors, so marketing automation software should have this feature. According to a software development company in Kolkata, this feature will allow marketing personnel to generate, nurture, and manage leads.

Marketers can filter potential leads (using different criteria, such as behavior, demographics, buying potential, etc.). From this data, they will have a clear idea about which customers are most likely to convert into potential buyers. So, they can create a relationship with these people and encourage them to participate in buying.

The tool can help a person recognize the silent visitors and turn them into potential buyers. Also, one can use the tool to score these leads (using different scales of comparison).  

This feature can significantly save time, as marketers don’t have to waste time and energy running behind unfruitful leads. It will help in attracting and retaining potential customers and boost an organization’s productivity and profitability.

2. CRM (Customer Relationship Management)     

The business can integrate marketing automation software with a CRM software to boost overall productivity. Using CRM, the enterprise and its customers can freely communicate and work jointly to achieve a common goal. The person can use CRM to improve interdepartmental communication too.

Data from the marketing software can be communicated to these teams, enabling them to work on the potential aspects accordingly. Whenever a new lead is generated, the assigned marketer will know about it and verify its data.

3. Campaign management      

Campaign management is one of the vital components of marketing automation. Marketers need to create campaigns to send the right information to the right audience (people interested in the products or services). This section helps marketers with creating a campaign strategy, executing it, and analyzing the results.

This interface allows marketers to advertise different products and services simultaneously. Here, members of the marketing and other teams can collaborate and work on different projects without any hassle.

4. Email marketing and social media  

In the marketing campaign, a company has to send emails to millions of people every day. Emails are like a gateway of communication and can act as a tool to improve customer-company relationships, gain customers, and ultimately generate sales. However, the responsibility does not end with just sending emails. The concerned person should keep track of these campaigns and the ROI (Return on Investment).

For example, the tool can provide insights on the following issues:

• How are the customers interacting with the campaign? How many of them are converting?
• What is their activity? What are their thoughts?   
• What are the customer attraction and retention rates?

The software must allow experts to pre-schedule these emails and modify the content accordingly. Using this section., marketers can also focus on social media marketing strategy. For example, the company can check details on people who actively participate with its social media pages.

The organization can share regular posts about its products and services for people to see. Also, it can help improve the inner dynamics within the organization. In other words, this section is ideal for checking two things; social media marketing and engagement.

5. Security, reports, and analytics

The marketing automation software must be secure; otherwise, a company would not be comfortable using it. So, if an organization is getting a customized software, it should ask the developer to work on this feature.

Reporting and analytics are also essential components of this software. A business should have access to the insights and reports, including analytics. The tool should be robust in this regard, and people must use it for accurate reporting and analytics. The tool should email these reports to the company’s executives to check the data generated.

Aside from these features, the software may include facilities like:

• Google Adwords         

If the company is spending on PPC campaigns (Pay-Per-Click), it should know if it brings results. It will show if the marketer can leverage the market’s data and use it to the campaign’s advantage.

• Landing pages           

This portion should be developed during the website development process, and developers must know how to create robust and powerful landing pages.

Of course, developers can add other features within the software; it’s up to the developers. Does your business need this software? Then it would help if you considered consulting the developers of a reliable software development company.

The software development company will perform a thorough analysis of the requirement. This means analysis of feasibility, the time required, and the technology required to create this software.

Then they will work on choosing the right design and the technology to develop the product. These experts will perform several steps to ensure that the project is up-to-the-mark and free from any errors. The next step will be the testing phase, where they will check the software for bugs and errors.

After going through these phases multiple times, the product will be ready for launch and handover. And the client will be ready to use this software to gain benefits.

Key takeaways

• Marketing automation is key to ensure a company’s success.
• It can improve both intra-departmental and inter-departmental communication.  
• It can boost a company’s productivity and profitability significantly, which is why an organization should use this software.   

It can ensure a company gains maximum ROI (Return On Investment).