TL;DR
– HubSpot offers an all-in-one suite with integrated CRM, automation, and analytics natively
– Marketo excels for enterprises with advanced lead scoring and sophisticated ABM
– ActiveCampaign combines affordability and comprehensive features for high-performing SMEs
– Pardot integrates seamlessly into the Salesforce ecosystem for existing CRM users
– LaGrowthMachine automates multichannel outreach on LinkedIn, email, Twitter with automatic enrichment
From SMEs to large corporations, marketing automation is a concept that appeals to more and more companies.
Using software, it consists of automating certain redundant marketing tasks to allow you to gain productivity while improving your performance.
How does marketing automation software work? What is the real added value for the company? What is the average price of a software?
In this article, we will show you how to use marketing automation to improve your processes with the right solutions.
What is marketing automation software?
As seen previously, marketing automation consists of automating certain of your daily tasks – such as sending automated messages via Gmail – using a solution.
Today, there are a multitude of solutions on the marketing automation market, each offering a more or less advanced range of features. This can range from simple prospecting email scheduling to advanced personalization of web content, including advertising campaigns, such as SEA or social ads.
To put it simply, we can classify marketing automation software into three main categories:
- emailing software: they allow automating email sending based on certain user-triggered actions (opening, clicking, purchasing…);
- CRM software: they integrate the necessary tools for customer relationship management, from quotes to after-sales follow-up, including invoicing and payment;
- web marketing software: they cover all the tools necessary for the proper functioning of an effective web marketing strategy, from SEO to conversion, including the analysis of user behavior on the site.
Unlike sales automation software, such as LaGrowthMachine, marketing automation software aims for a top-funnel lead generation objective. The best approach is to combine your marketing automation tool with a tool like LaGrowthMachine, which will allow you to activate your nurtured leads, as well as a CRM to allow you to track the entire lead generation process from cold prospect to customer.
Quick tip: with LaGrowthMachine, you not only have the ability to automate your prospecting – and start the outbound sales process continuously – but also to synchronize your CRM with the tool:
This way, you can track the results of your LaGrowthMachine campaigns directly from your CRM.
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Looking to improve your sales team’s performance? LaGrowthMachine allows you to generate an average of 3.5X more leads, while saving you a lot of time on all your processes. By signing up today, you get a free 14-day trial to test our tool!
Why use marketing automation?
The promise is simple: marketing automation allows companies to gain productivity and improve their ROI.
Indeed, automating certain repetitive or time-consuming tasks allows growth marketing teams to focus on strategic rather than operational missions.
In a way, try to see marketing automation as a machine that you need to control if you want to get the most out of it.
Furthermore, marketing automation software generally includes advanced analysis and reporting features, allowing companies to better measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and adjust their strategy accordingly.
Finally, good ABM or marketing automation tools are often integrated with a CRM, which allows for better management of customer and prospect data and better personalization of offers.
What is the price of marketing automation software?
The price of marketing automation software varies depending on its features and the size of the company.
The simplest solutions, suitable for small businesses, can cost between a few tens and a few hundred euros per month.
The most comprehensive software, intended for large companies, can cost several thousand euros per month.
There are also free solutions, but these are often freemium models that are generally limited in features.
How to choose your marketing automation software?
To choose your marketing automation solution, you need to consider several criteria:
- the budget;
- your objective;
- the tool’s features;
- the support;
- compatibility with your software infrastructure.
The budget
There are a multitude of marketing automation software on the market, suitable for all budgets and all companies. Before choosing a tool, it is therefore important to define a budget.
The amount you are willing to invest in your marketing automation software will indeed determine the features you will have access to.
Objectives
To choose your solution well, you need to define your objectives in terms of performance and efficiency, and select the software that best meets your needs. Do you need software integrated with your CRM? To do lead management? Email campaigns?
Features
Marketing automation is a constantly evolving field, and the tools offered by different publishers are becoming increasingly comprehensive. Therefore, the solution you choose may not offer the features you really need!
It is therefore important to verify that a software meets your expectations and allows you to scale your process to the maximum.
Support
Marketing automation software, like any software tool, requires support to be used optimally and to evolve: if you get stuck at any point, your entire process can be paralyzed!
Remember: behind the technology, there are humans. Find out in advance about the company with which you are signing a contract.
Therefore, ensure that the software you choose offers good documentation and responsive technical support.
This way, in case of a problem, you just need to leave a message on a chat or make a phone call.
At LaGrowthMachine, you can contact our support whenever you have a doubt about your campaign! We can help with both Copywriting issues and the technical setup of your campaign.
Remember: a good campaign is 60% targeting, 40% copywriting.
Compatibility
Finally, it is important to check that the marketing automation software is compatible with your existing infrastructure.
For example, if you already use a CRM, make sure that the software you choose integrates well with it to save you a maximum of manual actions (that’s the goal of automation, after all!).
Once you have defined all these criteria, all you have to do is make your choice among the different marketing automation solutions on the market!
What are the best marketing automation solutions?
As seen above, there are a multitude of marketing automation software, and it is not always easy to make the right choice. To help you in your selection, here is a list of the best marketing automation solutions on the market:
- Marketo;
- Sendinblue;
- Mailchimp;
- Plezi;
- Hubspot;
- Pardot.
Marketo
Marketo is a complete marketing automation platform that allows companies to engage their customers at all stages of the lifecycle.
Marketo offers a complete range of features, from lead management to loyalty, including email marketing, social media marketing, and content marketing.
Marketo is a very comprehensive but quite complex solution to install. By nature, it is preferred for large corporations.
Sendinblue
Sendinblue is one of the most widely used email automation solutions on the market.
The software offers an intuitive interface that allows campaigns to be set up in a few clicks. The solution is also quite rich in terms of features, ranging from newsletter design to campaign automation and performance analysis.
Sendinblue is an ideal solution for small and medium-sized businesses looking to get into marketing automation without breaking the bank.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is a very popular emailing service among small businesses.
Mailchimp offers a simplified interface compared to other solutions, making it easy to get started. The solution also offers a wide range of features, allowing for the implementation of complex campaigns.
However, like its competitor Sendinblue, Mailchimp is limited to email marketing.
Plezi
Plezi is a relatively recent but very agile and complete marketing automation solution. It is primarily a tool that will allow you to nurture leads, to move prospects through the pipeline and transition them from MQL to SQL according to a timeline you have defined in advance.
One of Plezi’s strengths is its native integration with Salesforce, one of the most popular CRMs in the world. Plezi therefore allows all customer information to be centralized in one place.
Hubspot
Hubspot is one of the most complete solutions on the market and arguably the broadest in terms of features: between sales automation, marketing automation, and CRM, Hubspot is truly a comprehensive solution for managing your entire business effort.
Hubspot is a SaaS-oriented solution and has very active support.
Pardot
Pardot is another very comprehensive marketing automation solution, highly oriented towards B2B. Pardot offers advanced features such as lead management, lead nurturing, and has a lead scoring system.
Pardot is a Salesforce group solution, which is therefore natively integrated with the CRM, allowing all customer information to be centralized in one place.
Conclusion
As you may have gathered, it’s not always easy to make the right choice when it comes to marketing automation software. It’s important to clearly identify your needs and make a choice based on your budget.
Don’t hesitate to test several solutions: most of these tools offer trial versions and very comprehensive onboarding, allowing you to understand the advantages and limitations of each tool before committing.