Lately, I’ve been hearing the term marketing automation (MA) a lot.
Up until now, most web marketing has been about using search engines and SNS such as
SEO
and SEM, but what is the difference between these and marketing automation? Let’s take a look.
What is marketing automation?
Marketing automation
(MA) is generally used in BtoB to centrally manage prospective customer information collected through advertisements, seminars, online SEO and SEM, and to communicate with prospective customers via email, SNS, website, etc. We will systemize the process to ultimately increase the closing rate by distributing appropriate information, automate routine tasks and large amounts of work that are normally done manually, and develop systems and software tools to increase efficiency. point.
Marketing automation as a software tool
Analyze website visitors, extract customers who are likely to proceed to business negotiations from collected prospects (lead scoring), increase interest in prospective customers, and explain your company’s advantages. This software integrates functions such as activities to increase the likelihood of business negotiations by presenting appealing content (lead nurturing campaign), campaign management, data analysis, and report creation.
I think it’s easier to understand marketing automation itself if you think of it as part of a “funnel” expressed in the marketing flow.
The diagram below is called a “marketing funnel” and is a model of the customer behavior process that leads to the purchase of a product or service, divided into phases.
The second half of marketing after acquiring prospective customers is marketing automation, which is the part that automatically determines the user’s attributes and automatically sends e-mail newsletters and DMs to retain them. I will use it.
As mentioned above, marketing automation uses various automatic and fixed approaches to prospective customers, but it is also very important to analyze data to see if these methods are producing results.
For projects and data analysis, it is necessary to set some kind of destination or goal.
In marketing, “KGI” (Key Goal Indicator) is set as an indicator to measure whether the final goal has been achieved, but in order to achieve the final goal (KGI), multiple You have to go through the process.
Pick up the processes necessary to achieve the final goal, and how well do you need to pass through the process to achieve the final goal?
The goals that serve as the basis for performance are called “KPIs” (key performance indicators).
Now, let’s think about setting KPIs for
lead nurturing
, the most important part of marketing automation.
About lead nurturing KPIs
In the “marketing funnel” diagram above, nurturing potential customers is called “lead nurturing.”
KPI (key performance indicator) for lead nurturing.
What should I set as an indicator for quantitatively evaluating a company’s goal achievement?
A commonly used KPI is
- Number of approaches: The number of points of contact with potential customers. Number of visitors to exhibition booths, number of accesses to company blogs, etc.
- Conversion rate: The rate of conversion into potential customers, such as the rate of e-mail newsletter registration for site visits, or the exchange rate of business cards for the number of visitors to seminars and exhibitions.
- Inquiry acquisition rate: Percentage that resulted in inquiries.
- Appointment Acquisition Rate: The rate at which appointments are made.
- Business negotiation rate: Rate of visits and business negotiations.
- Contract rate: percentage of contracts concluded.
And so on.
As an example of how to use these
- Number of document requests/downloads
- Number of copies of e-mail magazine published
- Email/mail magazine open rate, click rate, continuation rate (cancellation rate)
- Conversion rate from emails, mail magazines, LPs, etc.
- Number of actions such as notification emails received and replies by users viewing the content
etc.
As you can see from the above, in order for a single project to be successful, various goals must be met.
We will set each of these goals and achievement rates as KPIs.
summary
In order to accomplish a big project, you must set clear goals and objectives.
Lead nurturing KPIs are small goals towards achieving the overall project.
By setting detailed KPIs to achieve the project and measuring the achievement rate of each part, you will be able to objectively see the progress of the project and the areas that need improvement.