Challenges Of Marketing Automation

Introduction:

Marketing automation in Canada is gaining popularity due to the many advantages it offers. It helps increase efficiency and productivity at the workplace by cutting off on repetitive tasks. As a result, marketers can focus on the creative aspects to nurture leads effectively and promote sales. 

However, marketing automation comes with its own challenges. So, before you choose to automate your marketing process, know about them. In this blog, we will discuss these challenges and tell you how to overcome them. This way you will be able to utilize the technology most efficiently.

What are the challenges of marketing automation?

Before we get into this topic, you need to understand, “what is the biggest obstacle to marketing automation?” The answer is simple. The biggest obstacle to marketing automation is the incapacity to use the technology to reap its benefits. So, despite many small businesses complaining that marketing automation is too difficult and is giving no returns as such, you have to understand this. SMEs are likely to need it more, especially because of the limited number of employees and they ought to gain the most out of it. 

Read this quick blog to know how you should and how you should not use it. 

Listed below are the challenges of marketing automation: 

1. Choosing the right platform:

Choosing the right marketing automation platform is tough. This is where most marketers go wrong. 

Your marketing automation platform should integrate quality data from different platforms into a single storage. Authorized personnel should be able to easily access this storage to analyze the information. Moreover, it should be feature-rich, highly configurable, understandable, and easy to operate. 

2. Lack of proper knowledge and guidance:

Although marketing automation in Canada is almost becoming a norm, most companies jump into it without knowing the basics. Assuming that marketing automation is easy is the biggest mistake you can make. It is not as easy as purchasing automation software and thinking that it will take care of everything. 

You have to integrate data, parameters, and process customization. Most small companies take several months to adapt to the use of the new technology, while some take even a year. The worst part is that, without proper structuring, you may not be able to reach your goals at all. Your marketing executives may think that the strategies are not effective and start building new ones from scratch. Not only is this time-consuming but you may also lose out on the best strategies. 

So, when you choose a marketing automation platform, ensure that the company covers the following:

• Software training support
• Onboarding protocols
• On-site demonstration workshops
• Online doubt-clearance
• Assistance with technical setup and CRM integration

Helium CRM offers above-par customer support both on-site and online. We ensure that you acquire the level of skill you need to use your marketing automation technology to the maximum.

3. No clear-cut goals:

First and foremost, you need to set a well-defined goal for automating your marketing process. Of course, revenue generation is a must. But how you plan to do so or how you want your marketing automation software to increase your ROI is something that you have to decide. You may either use marketing automation for increasing website traffic, lead generation, or increasing engagement rate among others. 

Only when you have a realistic goal, you will be able to measure your progress or regress. Accordingly, you can modify your strategies or integrate parameters, etc.   

4. Using outdated data:

When was the last time that you checked your data relevance? We bet you don’t remember!

While you may think that purchasing email addresses is the way to lay hands on quantity data, it does more harm for your brand than good. How? Let us show you. 

• Most of these email addresses are non-functioning. As a result, your email automation campaign has a high bounce rate and poor deliverability rate. 
• Sending unsolicited emails (to those who never opted for it) could result in the blacklisting of your company email address. As a result, every time you send emails, it invariably goes to the spam folder. 

At the end of the day, it just results in wasting resources and even creates a negative brand image.  

Keep your data up-to-date and strike off email addresses from your list that are:

• Defunct
• Unresponsive 

5. Not tracking the outcome:

To understand whether marketing automation is profiting your business or not, you have to scale the results. Or else, you could be exhausting your effort, time, and resources on useless strategies. 

6. Automating tasks that should not be automated:

Sounds paradoxical? It really isn’t. 

While marketing automation aims to automate manual processes, it does not apply to everything. Marketing automation should complement your marketing strategies, not take full control over them. If the creative aspects are automated, your content loses out on the human touch. It fails to reach out to your target.  

For example, you may automate your social media schedule. But the content should have a personalized approach.

Whether it is for social media marketing, email marketing, SMS marketing, or the like, personalized content results in increased engagement rates. In return, this contributes to higher lead conversions. 

7. Non-integration of related teams:

Sales and marketing processes go hand in hand. Hence, if companies do not integrate sales and marketing workflows, it will hamper the outcome of marketing automation.

For example, marketing involves moving a lead down the sales pipeline. So, if sales workflows are not integrated into it, your business will lose out on lead conversions.

8. Inefficient lead management:

Marketing automation helps generate and nurture leads. But you have to track these leads and classify them based on their position in the sales funnel. This will allow effective lead management and nurturing of leads. 

Is marketing automation worth it?

Marketing automation in Canada is expanding for a reason. Companies of all sizes should adopt this technology. However, you need to keep in mind that only when you choose the right marketing automation platform and correctly operate it, you will notice substantial results. 

The majority of marketers have reported an increase in revenue generation by 800% after implementing automation in marketing. 

This guide will serve as a foundation for leveraging its use.
If you are looking for a marketing automation platform that is easy to use and effective, contact Helium CRM. Our software uses the latest technology that allows easy integration of several platforms. We provide extensive training sessions both online and offline. Our customer service is always available to attend to your queries and doubts. We ensure to assist our clients till they start getting scalable results.

For more details about marketing automation in Canada, visit our website. 

Follow us on

Facebook | Instagram