Marketing automation (hereinafter referred to as MA) is a marketing activity that efficiently develops prospective customers and leads to the conclusion of business negotiations by formulating appropriate marketing through collection and analysis of customer behavior and automating these measures.
The function of MA plays a major role in these series of processes. Accurately understanding the functions of MA and effectively carrying out marketing activities will lead to results such as purchasing and closing business negotiations.
The following is a brief explanation of the typical functions of MA, its purpose, and application examples.
"Tracking" that is the basis of all marketing automation
Tracking is a feature that allows you to track the behavior of customers who visit your website. This allows you to understand what pages are displayed by customers who visit your website, and in what order they are viewed.
For example, it will be possible to understand the customer’s area of interest and degree of interest, which will lead to an approach to customers who are highly motivated to purchase.
"Scoring" to quantify customer behavior on websites
Scoring is a function that scores based on the attributes and behavior of prospective customers (leads). Scoring is used to improve sales efficiency because it allows customers to understand areas of real interest and customers who should be prioritized.
For example, if you open an email, you get 2 points, if you click a URL, you get 3 points, if you look at a specific product page, you get 4 points, and so on. You may want to send information that will increase your interest in the product, or hand it over to sales as a good customer.
"Access log analysis" to formulate appropriate measures based on the information obtained by tracking
Access log analysis is a function that analyzes what kind of measures are effective for customers to make purchases in the future based on the customer behavior information obtained by tracking.
For example, a customer who has visited many times but has not made a purchase is likely to be motivated to purchase but is uncertain about some conditions, so a first-time discount coupon for that product will be delivered. By doing so, you may be able to become a customer.
"Scenario creation (campaign management)" that scripted the measures to be taken for customer behavior
Scenarios are used to predetermine and automate measures to be taken in response to a particular customer’s behavior.
For example, if there is a problem that the number of repeat customers is small, it is conceivable to purchase the product for the first time and then deliver a coupon that can be used at a discount at the next purchase a few days later.
As a caveat, after the number of scenario operations increases to 10 or 20, operation management will become difficult. A possible example is the pattern of overdelivery of email to a person in a scenario.
To overcome this situation, it is a good idea to utilize a function called campaign management. For example, you can prevent overdelivery by setting the maximum number of deliveries per day or week.
"Personalization" that provides website visitors with a high value-added experience
It is a function that can change the displayed content according to the interest and degree of interest of the prospective customer. This allows you to provide your customers with a more personal and value-added experience.
A typical example is recommendations. Based on the customer’s purchase history, we recommend products purchased by another customer who purchased the same product as the target customer, or products that are likely to be purchased in connection with the product purchased by the customer. There are some recommended methods.
"Send segment email" that automatically sends an email to a certain group of users who have performed a specific action
Segment email sending is the ability to send information to a customer who has taken a specific action to increase their interest in the product. In other words, it is an example of scoring based on the customer information obtained by tracking and taking actions according to the scenario based on the score.
For example, it is possible to take measures such as sending information on benefits and examples of product use to users who have downloaded materials related to product explanations.
"Website construction function" that allows you to freely add necessary pages and forms
If you run a website, you may find that it is a special page for attracting new customers, or you want to add new information. This is a useful function in such cases. Inquiries and document request forms are often the first point of contact with customers, and can be said to be an important page that determines whether customers can be guided to purchase.
For example, you may want to implement an initial discount campaign or set up a special page to support shopping for a limited time.
"Advertising-linked / advertising management" that expands and manages customer inflow channels
The advertisement interlocking / management function is a function for grasping the medium, number of times, effect, etc. that the prospective customer touched the advertisement. By registering advertising media, you can manage the effectiveness of advertising placement in detail.
There is also a tool that can link and link offline channels, and by utilizing data from channels such as events, seminars, catalogs, and physical stores, we will implement marketing measures on omni-channel and measure their effects. You can also.
For example, by registering multiple advertising media, it is possible to compare the difference in advertising effectiveness for each medium and past data.
"SFA / CRM interlocking" that maximizes the effect of overall marketing activities
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is an abbreviation for customer relationship management, and is a management method for managing relationships with customers. The CRM system is a system of this.
In order to maintain relationships with customers, it is necessary to continuously provide appropriate information and increase customer satisfaction by centrally managing customer information and case information.
SFA (Sales Force Automation) is an abbreviation for Sales Force Automation, and its main role is to standardize sales activities by collecting and accumulating data related to sales activities and visualizing and sharing this information.
Differences between CRM and SFA include gradual differences in customer relationships and differences in the direction of information. SFA is mainly useful in the phase of closing negotiations for customers who have become hot leads by MA, while CRM is useful in maintaining and strengthening customer relationships after closing negotiations. In addition, SFA is internal because it is information about sales, and CRM is external because it is information about customers.
By linking systems with different roles in this way, more comprehensive marketing activities become possible.
summary
Did you understand the main functions of MA? Based on tracking by tracking customer behavior, which is one of the great strengths of websites, deep understanding of customers enables policy formulation and automation, and improvement of customer experience.
In addition, in order to further advance this process, which is the basis of MA, there are website construction, channel utilization such as advertising, SFA / CRM cooperation, etc.
Understand the key functions of MA to help you carry out effective marketing activities.
