Marketing automation tools aid you by delivering smart content and earning valuable information in return. But can this information afford to stay buried in your tool? And is your content still smart if it does? No and no.
Your other apps need the information your marketing automation tool gathers, to play their parts well.
Let’s suppose you run a brilliant email campaign using your marketing automation tool. Your CRM has to know the list of leads this campaign generated so it can start off sales activities. Your accounting app needs the details of converted leads to send invoices. Your event management app should know leads that have signed up for upcoming events.
Then, your marketing automation tool also requires follow-up for the data it sent—did those contacts pay for the invoices, and did the leads actually attend the events they signed up for? Only with this information can the tool accurately segment your audience, and engage them with content that's truly smart.
Maybe all of this information does reach these apps, eventually—at the cost of hours of manual work. But by the time you direct and distribute data among your apps and get ready for your next move, you’ve already lost those leads. So what's the point of generating detailed information when you can't act upon it?
This is why your marketing automation tool needs to integrate well with the other apps you use—so it can gather and deliver timely, actionable insights that help you sell better.
Here are a few to get you started:
Forward webpage analytics to your team instantly
Let’s say your blog has seen good traffic in the last month, or a specific webpage is showing a high drop off rate. Should this information sit behind bar charts in your marketing automation tool till you discover it? Instead, integrate your tool with apps like Slack or Zoho Cliq, so your team is immediately in the know. That way, they can quickly promote the page or rethink its content to make it more accessible to the right audience.
Keep up with your buyers’ preferences
Understanding your buyer is key. In fact, 3 out of every 4 leads believe that non-personalized interactions are a deal breaker. So it's necessary that the information you collect about your potential—at every digital touch point—is routed to your marketing automation tool.
For example, suppose a lead didn't engage with any of your emails but attended all your events and webinars. Your email tool would only sense a low open rate (and imply low interest). In reality, they are a viable prospect whose preferences are still locked up in your event management app. When you integrate your tool with apps like Eventbrite or GoToMeeting, this insight reaches you automatically. Your tool knows more about the lead now, and puts them in a segment that receives more visual content.
Likewise, integrations with other lead sources can bring in more comprehensive information on how exactly to segment and reach out to your buyers.
Take prompt action once potentials give you the nod
Once a potential is convinced by what you're offering, how quickly you take the next step is crucial. And the more integrated your apps are, the better informed your steps will be. If a potential filled out the contact form on your pricing page—and your tool is integrated with Expensify, Calendly, and Asana—you can automatically send them a proposal for your service, schedule an appointment to discuss details, and assign them to a suitable team member. So for the one time a potential showed intent, you can initiate the next three most suitable actions almost instantly.
That’s the combined power of marketing automation and integrations.
Improve your customer experience
Customers almost never cut ties suddenly—they drop hints that you probably miss because they're scattered across the different apps you use. Frequent help desk tickets, multiple cart abandonments in your e-commerce app, or thumbs down for your videos, are all signs of unhappy customers. So set up an integration that picks up hints from all these apps, and informs your tool just when it's needed most. For example, if a customer has repeatedly submitted complaint tickets, and abandoned their cart twice in a week, it’s time they receive emails that focus on addressing their problems.
Automated marketing is not only about delivering the right content to the right audience. It is also about bringing back the right insights to the right apps, so you can deliver even more targeted content the next time. Integration platforms like Zoho Flow can help you achieve this by connecting your apps and ensuring that they exchange information seamlessly.
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