Marketing Automation Trends You Absolutely Must Follow
Marketing Automation is the technological innovations , it is not surprising to find similarities with the main directions of digital in 2020. In fact, we see the influence of:
- The uses of micro moments: providing relevant information to prospects when they need it.
- Artificial intelligence: as a powerful technology to automate and personalize customer relationships.
Between productivity gains, process automation and advanced personalization, 2020 promises to be a pivotal year for marketing automation.
1. Artificial intelligence and machine learning, for more automation and personalization
In 2017, Salesforce’s famous “State of Marketing” report predicted: “marketers surveyed anticipate that their use of artificial intelligence will grow by more than 50% in the next two years.” The main motivations of these experts to use these advanced technologies were then:
- Carry out highly targeted advertising campaigns.
- Create increasingly intelligent and relevant personalization.
- Improve their ROI.
Marketing automation software publishers have understood this well. They have now integrated machine learning into their tools, fed and organized their databases (for big data), and strengthened their algorithms to offer “smart” functionalities.
2. Predictive lead scoring, for better transformation.
Predictive lead scoring is an offshoot of standard scoring with a good dose of algorithmic added. It is this technological part that makes it one of the promising trends in 2020.
Classic scoring could be considered subjective as it was based on criteria determined by sales and marketing teams themselves, to assess a prospect’s level of maturity.
Thanks to known data on your prospect (his number of visits to your website for example), as well as known data for your sector (the opening rate of an email in the automotive industry for example), your marketing automation will be able to “predict” the contacts closest to the transformation.
3. Personalized content per person, for a tailor-made customer experience.
Most businesses today build their email campaign with just one version of an email or newsletter. Sometimes two versions to do A / B testing. In 2020, you will have to decline your email for each buyer personas (sometimes ten versions!) To meet their specific needs.
It is no longer just a question of personalizing the [LAST NAME] and [FIRST NAME] fields, the challenge of tomorrow will be to automatically select the appropriate content to its needs while automating the sending of your email at the most opportune moment, via your marketing automation tool.
4. Chatbots, imitation of the human, without the human.
You might think that Chatbots are the essence of marketing automation: replacing humans with machines to answer and process simple, repetitive, and low value-added requests. Their integration into progressive marketing automation software suggests that this new relationship channel should take an important place in 2020 to industrialize your relationship strategy.
Cases of marketing automation for which chatbots will be useful to you:
- Interact with visitors to your website. This support role allows you to optimize your resources
- Qualify your leads. The Bot can take care of qualifying beginnings and have the user clarify their request before switching to human contact. It can also directly operate actions such as scheduling a demo, for example.
- Personalize an offer or content. Like a form with many drop-down menus, the Bot asks the Internet user to determine the content or the offer that best suits him.
5. 100% Cross-channel, so as not to miss any productivity gain.
This is a long-term job that will continue in 2020: move towards integrating 100% of the channels and tools to benefit from the marketing automation process:
- Sales, lead scoring, lead nurturing.
- Email marketing.
- Tracking & analytics.
- CRM, segmentation, profiling.
- Forms, landing page.
- Content marketing, social media.
- SEO.
Make your checklist. We bet there are still some missing!
6. Data confidentiality, transparency made easy.
Like the arrival of the GDPR on May 25, 2018, “automatic” access to personal data will become a real issue. While all companies have appropriately appointed a Data Protection Officer (DPO), very few, except GAFA, have an automated data recovery and deletion process.
7. Lead nurturing, reactivation of cold contacts.
Businesses spend twice as much money on finding a new lead than on retaining a customer. In an ROI approach and economy of means, lead nurturing will continue to grow. It’s an effective way to re-engage and convert prospects without spending more.
8. Qualification of content, by expert actors.
From an inbound marketing perspective, we are witnessing an appreciation of content for its quality and accuracy. Marketing managers will be increasingly careful about the choice of their partner when it comes to content creation. No more keyword stuffing for SEO. We are witnessing a sectoral specialization of agencies to produce highly qualified content.
9. The automation of social media management.
Whether it’s for content curation, publication, planning, or growth hacking, community managers will never work without tools.
You still have to choose them from the 50 most used in digital marketing, and use them correctly.
