Intro
Today, this blog post is going to show you the 4 top tools for marketing automation. These tools are being used by thousands of businesses for their marketing campaigns.
It is not news that a good marketing campaign can increase your leads, your conversion rate, and your revenue. According to VentureBeat, businesses that use marketing automation tools experience an increase in leads by 80% and 77% increase in conversions.
If you are struggling to win more customers, and get more sales for your business, I got good news. This post would reveal 4 amazing tools for marketing automation that will save you the stress of manually reaching out to customers.
Before proceeding, I will quickly reveal the meaning of sales and marketing automation, and how it works.
What is Marketing Automation and how does it work?
Automation refers to the tools use of digital tools to carry out tasks faster with little human contact. So, marketing automation is the act of using a platform to reach out to your target personas faster. This means less human touch, but faster interaction with clients.
With a good marketing automation tool, you’ll worry less about constant social media updates, manually sending emails to new prospects, segmenting your list, and so on. These tasks can be boring, stressful, and yield fewer results for businesses. That’s where sales and marketing automation platforms can help. They help marketers simplify their day-to-day operations.
Now you may be wondering, “how can marketing automation apps help me with my campaigns?”
Well, we have already established that these softwares carry out repetitive task for you. That is to say, digital marketing tools help you save time. All they do is to help you send relevant content and prompts to the right person at the right time. This automation software software are triggered by customer behaviours and data.
For efficiency, you have to create a CRM, develop specific content, and use sales funnels. The CRM contains your lead’s data. Then the sales funnel is for journey mapping and tracking progress. Any of the tools for marketing automation that you pick would need to use customer information. All in all, the marketing automation platforms are to help you sell more (easily).
How do you choose the best Tools for Marketing Automation?
You have learnt how marketing tools work and how they can benefit Nigerian businesses. However, you need to know the precise features you should look for in sales and marketing automation tool.
Well, you are in the right place!
I would give you a checklist of features that will help you select the best tools for marketing automation. Even if you are a small business in Nigeria, you still need these features for a successful marketing campaign.
Below is a list of the top features of modern marketing automation;
- Landing Pages/Forms
- Contact management
- Email scheduling
- Broadcast messages
- Email list segmentation
- App Integrations
- Tracking Prospects
- Lead Automation
- Lead Nurturing
- Web Visitors Tracking
Many of the great tools for marketing automation offer the aforementioned features.
Now, let’s continue by reviewing the best tools that will help you actualise your marketing goals.
Recommended Tools for Marketing Automation 2021
Tools for Marketing Automation #1: Hubspot Marketing Hub
Provides separate Hubs for Increased Growth and Revenue
This is a marketing automation tool popularly used by tens of thousands of marketers. Hubspot is one of the superb tools for marketing automation. From their platform, you can attract leads, nurture them, and increase your conversion rate.
The marketing automation platform segments its products into 5 distinct types. They include; Sales Hub, Marketing Hub, Customer service, CMS, and Operations. Under these hubs, you will get three plans. They include; Starter, professional, and enterprise plans.
The marketing hub plan starts from $45, and you can manage up to 1000 marketing contacts on it. With this plan, you can create 10 dashboards, 25 segmented email lists, and send up to 10000 emails monthly.
Hubspot is amazing and relatively powerful.
Favourite Plan: Hubspot Free CRM tool
The tool is free to use. Moreover, you don’t need your card to start using it. There are no hidden charges neither is it a demo.
This Hubspot Free CRM tool is a combination of the other hubs, but with limited features. So, if you are a small business in Nigeria with a little budget for marketing, then you should jump on this.
With the Free CRM hub, you could add your teammates, and manage your accounts. You could also use this tool for marketing, sales, operations, and so on. You can manage 1000 contacts and their properties, segment list, and automate emails. For a free tool, It has amazing benefits.
Side Attractions: You could manage all your leads anywhere. Simply Download the Mobile App
If you want to learn to use these tools for marketing automation, you can do that from HubSpot academy. So, take a certification course and improve your marketing skills.
Tools for Marketing Automation #2: Keap (formerly known as InfusionSoft)
Manage all your business growth strategies from one platform.
This is a very powerful all-in-one tool. The software integrates email marketing, marketing automation, sales, CRM, customer service, and so many others into one hub. With the Keap software, small and medium scale businesses have to worry less about managing and making payments for diverse tools.
Unlike other marketing automation platforms, Keap created a plan that is strictly targeted at solopreneurs and small businesses. This is a good tool for Nigeria solopreneurs. So if you run a small agency, social media-based business, or freelance business, this is the best tool you should use.
Keap has three plans which are: Lite, Pro and Max.
Keap’s basic plan features quick automation, CRM, email marketing, and lead capture. Keep also has mobile for its subscribers. They also provide you with a unique business line in which you can send automated text messages to the contact list. You can also integrate and track your payment systems. This is an amazing tool to use.
This amazing tool for marketing automation offers all new subscribers 50% off. This offer is valid for three months. This means Keap’s discounted monthly price for Lite, Pro, and max, are $190, $235, and $250, respectively. Unfortunately, the prices are very expensive in comparison with other similar tools.
Favourite Feature: Keap’s plan for solopreneurs
Social Media Automation Tool #1: Social Pilot
Download Social media reports
This social media tool for marketing automation can be used by different sizes of businesses. With Social pilot, you can handle all of your social media needs from one platform. It saves you the stress of constantly monitoring your posts, ad analytics, and engagement rate.
You can also create a content calendar, schedule posts, and manage your clients, all from one software. This is a powerful tool for marketers. You can integrate and manage all your social media handles with the app.
Favourite Feature: Social media Analytics and Reports.
With that feature, you can see the health of your overall social media health.
You can begin by using the tool’s base plan – SocialPilot at $30 monthly.
Social Media Automation Tool #2: Buffer
Schedule your Content
This is an amazing social media automation tool. It allows you to schedule different content. With the buffer, you can manage Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram account from one place. However, only customers on its paid plan can use Pinterest.
Favourite Features
With the free plan, you can schedule posts in different ways.
If you are new to buffer, you can either use the default schedule provided by the app, or you can edit it. With the buffer tool, you can create content for as many campaign slots as you want.
You can either use the web-based version or download the mobile app for convenience.
For analytics and social DMs, you will need to purchase the tool’s premium plan. This condition is also applicable if you want to add more than 3 accounts or collaborate with a team. Aside from this downside, Buffer is an amazing tool to add to your marketing kit.
Outro
This post has revealed the most helpful tools for marketing automation. We categorised these tools into all-in-one growth platforms and social media marketing platforms.
Now it’s your turn!
Which of these tools for marketing automation are you going to start using?
Tell us your choice in the comment section.