Do you know that there are tools which can do your marketing job even in your absence? Using marketing automation software can help you take a break.
Whether you’re feeling sick, need to take a vacation, or just don’t feel like staring at your computer/mobile screen all day, you can rest easy without worrying about losing customers.
In this article, we will explore the best marketing automation software and how to integrate them with your business.
Key Insights
- Marketing automation is fast becoming the norm for businesses and marketers alike.
- It can save you time, give a better user experience, and increase conversions.
- There are a handful of marketing automation software for different use cases.
- Choosing the right marketing automation software and integrating it with your business requires setting clear goals and drafting a marketing process workflow.
What is Marketing Automation Software?
Marketing automation software is any tool that can handle different marketing tasks without the help of a human. Once you set it up, the tool will follow your instructions and carry out tasks repeatedly unless you stop it.
Marketing automation means setting up your marketing to handle itself automatically. An example of a marketing automation software is WhatsApp Autoresponder. You can use it to sell in your absence. Whenever customers send you a message on WhatsApp, the autoresponder will reply, ask them what they want, give them your price and payment details, and confirm orders.
Other examples of marketing automation software are HubSpot and Buffer, which you’ll see below.
Marketing automation has been around for about 32 years, but it started gaining widespread attention in the late 2000s. It was pioneered by Eloqua.
Why Marketing Automation is Important
The main goal of marketing automation is to use tools for repetitive tasks in your marketing so you can focus on other areas of your business and marketing process. Instead of waking up everyday at a particular time to post on social media, you can get a tool to do it for you, so you focus on studying your market and analyzing customer data to create better posts.
Also, marketing isn’t an isolated part of your business. It is essential for sales and also works hand in hand with your customer support system. Therefore, you need to automate your marketing if you want to keep up with the basic standards of what customers expect from businesses in the 21st century.
With technological advancement giving us high-speed internet connection, super fast mobile phones, and real-time apps and social networks, every customer expects business to be fast too. They want to reach out to a business and get a response immediately. They want to place an order in the heat of the moment and get their goods delivered within 24 hours.
A research showed that customers are more likely to buy if they get an instant response, with fast responders winning up to 50% of sales. Replying to messages within a minute can increase conversions by a whooping 391%. To keep up with such standards, you need tools that don’t get tired. Software that never sleeps, so you’ll satisfy your customers effectively.
It’s no wonder about 7 out of 10 successful businesses use automation. Clearly marketing automation is becoming the normal thing to do if you want your business to survive now and in the future. The purpose of marketing automation software is to ease your marketing load.
Whether you’re a small business, or a large enterprise, marketing automation can help your business excel in this age.
Benefits of Marketing Automation
- Increase sales: Research observed that businesses who use marketing automation are more successful in selling than those who do not. Some reasons include the consistency, instant response, and 24/7 availability.
- 24/7 marketing: Imagine having a marketing system that doesn’t sleep or go offline. Whether someone stumbles on your product at 2am in the morning, you have something to attend to the person and cash in your sale.
- Instant response: How many times have you lost interest in buying a product because the seller took too long to reply? Or perhaps you just went somewhere else. By automating your marketing, you can respond to customers instantly, no matter the weather or time of day.
- Work less: When done right, you can stay away for weeks and not worry about your business. Your major task will be planning and monitoring the results from your efforts, while your tools handle the repetitive tasks that usually drain your energy.
- Save time: Marketing automation tools increase productivity by 14%. Marketers have been able to cut down time spent on certain tasks by hours each week. This time can be devoted to improving other areas of your business.
- Data integration: for the savvy business owners who realize the importance of data. Marketing automation software makes it easy to collect data from multiple sources. This makes it easier to understand your customers on a deeper level and remove the obstacles that hinder your sales/customer support process.
How Does Marketing Automation Software Work?
Basically, marketing automation software carries out specific tasks that you normally do during your day to day marketing activity. Think about what you do everyday to attract customers. It most likely includes:
- Creating content
- Posting on social media
- Replying comments
- Answering questions about your product or service
- Sending emails
These tools handle almost every task involved in your marketing process. Instead of repetitively spending hours creating content, posting 3 times a day, replying over 50 comments on each post, trying to keep up with customer enquiries across different platforms, you set up the software to do it for you by
- Writing content
- Scheduling posts
- Creating auto replies
- Using chatbots
- Automating emails
- Connecting different apps
By the time you automate most part of your marketing, you’ll find out that you barely have anything else to do other than monitoring and assessing progress made towards your key results.
Furthermore, with the advancement of AI, it’s easier to personalize each encounter with a customer, so it doesn’t feel like a generic, lifeless conversation whenever they reach out to you.
Top 15 Marketing Automation Software to Consider in 2024
Here’s a list of the best marketing automation tools in 2024.
Whether you’re into affiliate marketing, email marketing, or other forms of digital marketing, there’s a tool for you on this list.
| Marketing Automation Software | Best use | |
| 1 | HubSpot | Complete Marketing Automation |
| 2 | HootSuite | Social Media Marketing |
| 3 | Buffer | Social Media Marketing |
| 4 | Zoho Marketing Plus | Complete Marketing Automation |
| 5 | ConvertKit | Email Marketing Automation |
| 6 | Whatsapp Autoresponder | Whatsapp Marketing Automation |
| 7 | Tweet Hunter | X (Twitter) Marketing Automation |
| 8 | Zapier | Marketing Integrations |
| 9 | Simplified | Bulk content creation. Scheduling |
| 10 | Marketo Engage | Complete marketing automation |
| 11 | ClickFunnels | Affiliate marketing automation |
| 12 | Klaviyo | Email and SMS automation |
| 13 | Sendlane | Email and SMS automation |
1. HubSpot
HubSpot is one of the most popular marketing software brands in the world.
They have many tools that can help you attract leads, nurture them consistently, and ultimately convert them to paying customers.
Their flagship software is the HubSpot customer relationship management (CRM) tool.
HubSpot is one of the best software for marketing automation. It can easily integrate with your website and social media accounts. You can also manage your email marketing right from your dashboard, and you can set up automations.
Additionally, it has a chatbot that you can deploy as a customer support agent on your website.
Pros of HubSpot
- Powerful marketing tool
- Can automate various marketing tasks
- Integrates with other apps
- Tools for tracking and analytics
- On-going support
- Learning resources available
Cons of HubSpot
- High cost to unlock all features
- Complex tool
- Takes time to learn how to use it effectively
Pricing
HubSpot has a free forever plan that lets you use its basic tools. They also give a free 14-day trial to unlock all their powerful tools.
The paid plan starts at $890 per month, with an additional $3,000 compulsory onboarding fee for first time users.
On the side, they also offer a $20/month plan that gives access to basic marketing tools. But you can’t automate your marketing with it.
2. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a social media marketing tool. It offers many features that can help you automate your social media marketing process.
You can schedule up to 350 posts at once, and 29 days ahead. You can pool all your social media comments into one interface, so as to reply from one spot and not run around across different platforms. It has an AI assistant that can help you create content and write captions.
You can set up automatic replies to your comments on social media.
Pros
- All-in-one social media management tool
- Schedule posts, reels, and carousels up to 29 days ahead
- Set auto-replies to boost engagement
- AI tools to help with content creation
- One inbox for all your social media
- Powerful insights like best time to post
Cons
- Limited to social media marketing alone
- Pricey
Pricing
No free plan, but they offer a 30-day trial period. Paid plan starts at $149 per month ($99/month if you pay annually).
3. Buffer
Buffer is a social media management tool, similar to Hootsuite. It also lets you schedule social media posts, and has an AI assistant to help you write social media posts and captions.
Pros
- Affordable pricing
- Creative tools
- Easy to use
- Flexible pricing
Cons
- Limited to social media alone
- Doesn’t have all-in-one inbox
- Fewer integrations and automations
Pricing
Buffer has a free plan that lets you see what you can expect from the tool. Paid plan starts at $6 per month for 1 social media channel. One advantage of Buffer is that it offers flexible pricing plans. You can pay for only the social media channels you use often.
4. Zoho Marketing Plus
Zoho is a maker of many business tools.
Zoho Marketing Plus is an all-in-one digital marketing platform that takes your marketing to a whole new level. It offers many tools for various aspects of your marketing, including social media, email, website tracking, and paid advertising. With Zoho Marketing Plus, you can automate your entire marketing process, from social media, to email, and beyond.
Zoho Marketing Plus is perfectly suited for Nigerian business owners, as it offers competitive pricing for powerful features. If you’re looking for a more affordable alternative to HubSpot, Zoho is your go-to platform.
Pros
- All-in-one marketing platform
- Affordable
Cons
- Slower than HubSpot.
- Fewer integrations, compared to HubSpot
Pricing
Zoho Marketing Plus offers a 15-day free trial, and no credit card is required for signing up. Paid plan starts at $9 per month.
5. ConvertKit Email Marketing Automation
When it comes to email marketing automation, ConvertKit is one of the leading names.
With ConvertKit, you can easily capture emails into a database, write an email sequence, and nurture your leads from your welcome email to when you sell, upsell, and cross sell.
You can write an email sequence once, and use it repeatedly for each new lead that gets into your marketing funnel.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Free plan for starters
- Affordable
Cons
- Limited to email marketing alone
Pricing
ConvertKit is one of the most generous email marketing tools out there. They have a free plan that lets you connect with up to 10,000 subscribers/month, and gives you a basic automation path. The paid plan starts at $25 per month, offering more advanced automations for your email marketing.
Alternatives to ConvertKit include MailChimp and MailerLite.
6. WhatsApp Autoresponder
WhatsApp autoresponder is one of the best marketing automation tools, especially because many people don’t mind businesses connecting with them on WhatsApp.
WhatsApp marketing is quite effective and has been seen to increase conversions by 45 to 60 percent.
By connecting your WhatsApp Business to your website/landing page and leading potential customers to your WhatsApp, you can send automated messages at intervals, share marketing messages on your status, and ultimately guide customers to make the purchase whenever they’re ready.
Also, the chat bot responds to customer queries in a timely fashion, giving customers 24/7 support.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Affordable
Cons
- Limited to Whatsapp alone
- Can only be used on mobile (Android devices)
Pricing
Paid plan starts at $3.33.
7. Tweet Hunter
Tweet Hunter is a social media marketing tool that focuses solely on Twitter (X).
While Hootsuite and Buffer can integrate different social media into one tool, Tweet Hunter is only for X. If your business mainly markets itself on X, then it’s worth the investment as it gives you a powerful tool to schedule posts, set automatic replies, and direct customers to your landing page.
Pros
- Suited for marketing on X
- Auto reply and auto DM features
Cons
- Only used for marketing automation on X (twitter)
Pricing
They offer a 7 day free trial. Paid plan starts at $29 per month.
8. Zapier
Zapier is known for one thing – “Automation”. It’s not designed specifically to be a marketing automation software due to its powerful features and ability to integrate with many apps.
You just have to create a workflow and use Zapier to connect different apps and customer touch points.
If you’re using free tools like Google Sheets to store customer data and free email marketing tools for outreach, Zapier can help you automate your process.
Pricing
Zapier has a free forever plan with basic automation features. Paid plan starts at $29 per month.
9. Simplified
Simplified is a platform for creatives, from writing, to design, video making, and editing.
Although it’s not typically a marketing automation tool, it has many features that can help you do your marketing faster. From content creation, to graphic design, and post scheduling
Using Simplified means you can create and ship content of various formats (videos, podcasts, blogs, social media posts) on autopilot.
10. Marketo Engage
This is another complete digital marketing automation software that integrates different workflows. From emails, to social media, and tracking website activity.
It is best suited for large enterprises and established brands.
Marketo doesn’t reveal pricing publicly, therefore you have to contact one of their sales reps to get a quote.
11. ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels is a platform that enables you to build automated sales funnels from lead capture, to nurturing and conversion. Additionally, this tool easily integrates with many other marketing and business tools, helping you build a fully automated marketing process.
ClickFunnels offers a 14-day free trial. Pricing starts at $97 per month.
12. Klaviyo
Klaviyo combines email marketing and SMS with monitoring purchases, reviews, and customer feedback.
It makes it easy to automate marketing workflows by tracking customer activity at different touchpoints with your business including your website, checkout pages, emails, and review pages.
13. Sendlane
Sendlane is similar to Klaviyo. For most part, they only differ on pricing. One thing Sendlane boasts of is having real humans as their support agents to help you overcome any challenge you encounter during your automation process.
Sendlane is quite pricey though, with paid plans starting at $500 per month.
How to Integrate Marketing Automation Software with Your Business
In case you’re wondering where to start with marketing automation, we’ve got you covered.
Follow these 7 steps to implement marketing automation for your business.
1. Set goals and objectives
The first step to successful automation is effective planning. You need to lay down your objectives and highlight what you want to achieve over the coming months. For example, your goal can be to generate 100 leads in 3 months for your coaching business. Once you’re clear on your goals, you can strategise on how to achieve them. Your strategy will answer questions about your medium (whether paid ads or organic marketing) and the amount of resources needed to achieve your goals.
2. Outline your marketing workflow
After concluding on your strategy, you need to create a draft of what your marketing process will look like. This will serve as a guide for every action you take. It’s like how movie makers write scripts for actors before ever recruiting them and bringing the movie to life.
So for example, let’s say you decided to combine organic marketing and paid ads to achieve your goal of 100 qualified leads in 3 months (90 days) for your coaching business.
The outline for your workflow could look like
- Create and share 2 posts on social media about the importance and benefits of coaching everyday for the first 30 days.
- Create 1 video about how to achieve success with coaching every week.
- Start Facebook ads offering a free ebook from day 31
- Direct visitors from facebook ads to landing page
- Capture emails and phone number in exchange for free ebook
- Send welcome email
- Send nurturing emails over 21 days
- Offer a low cost strategy session
What I’ve given is just a rough sketch of a marketing workflow. Think about your own use case and what you currently do in your business.
3. Identify the tasks you can automate
After drafting your workflow, identify the tasks you can automate. From the workflow I gave, video creation isn’t something you can automate. Setting up the Facebook ads can’t be automated either. Asides those two, most of the other tasks can be automated. In addition, creating great content that appeals to your audience takes effort.
4. Select tools to automate the tasks you identified
Once you’ve concluded on which tasks to automate, choose the tool that fits your needs. From our example, I would choose a tool that can schedule posts and reply comments, and another one that can capture email contacts, direct visitors to download pages, and send automated emails at regular intervals.
I’ll most likely need a complete marketing automation tool, or a combination of social media and email marketing tool.
5. Implement automation
Next up is the actual implementation. You can create posts and schedule them ahead of time, write your email sequences, create your free ebook or any other lead magnet, build your landing page, and voila, you’re all set.
6. Test your automation
Finally, you want to test what you’ve implemented whenever and wherever possible. You can tell a friend to sign up, so you ensure the email sequences are being sent as intended. Or if you prefer to keep everything to yourself, you can sign up with another email.
7. Monitor
Monitoring what you’ve done from start to finish will help you detect any unforeseen roadblocks in your process, ensuring what you tested is working in real life. After the first successful cycle, you can rest easy knowing that your marketing is now taking care of itself for the most part.
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Conclusion
Automating your marketing by letting powerful tools handle the repetitive tasks can save you hours of work and wasted energy. But making the initial switch can be overwhelming. Ensure you have a plan and outline your marketing workflow before ever deciding which software to use.
Choosing the right marketing automation software requires significant upfront investment in time, energy, and money and a certain level of expertise to make it work.
“Do you want to be ahead of your competitors with our bespoke digital marketing automation services? Reach out to us on WhatApp!.”