These days, any time anyone ventures online, they’re bombarded with personalized ads and other marketing tactics. We know that smart marketing strategies are imperative for every business, but with the number of ads each consumer sees every day, communications and marketing professionals have to keep on their toes to create messaging that stands out and successfully targets the right customers. It can be tough to decide what strategies or tactics will be best for your business. Do you need to increase the efficiency of your email outreach to current clients, or is it better if you focus on acquiring new customers?
Once you have started to figure out your business’ marketing strategy and needs, then it’s time to consider finding and using the right tools to speed up the process. Automation makes the marketing process easier and saves you time, but with the many marketing tools out there, how can you know what’s best to choose? Focus on the processes of your business that could most benefit from automation. Does it make the most sense to have a system for sending out automated and personalized emails, or do you need a customer relationship management (CRM) platform to keep things running smoothly? Take a look at the recommendations of these six Forbes Communications Council members when you are researching tools to maximize the efficiency of your marketing strategy.
1. Autopilot
I personally like Autopilot for two reasons. The visual journey editor makes it easy to verify how leads and customers are flowing through the experiences we want. We have an international audience of customers daily for our solutions for maritime, weather and aviation, so the entire suite of tools from Salesforce is becoming a vital tool for those of us working for very busy global teams. - James A. Pearson, Spire Global
2. HubSpot
HubSpot helps keep our marketing efforts streamlined. Through the use of automated workflows, a well-oiled lead scoring model and an integration to Salesforce, we’re able to consistently create touchpoints with our prospects and customers that keep them engaged and informed about all of our company news, product enhancements and updates, as well as share our thought-leadership content. - Amber Mullaney, QSR Automations Inc.
3. Pardot
We limit automation tools to the automation of processes, not necessarily content. We use automation campaign tools in Pardot to deliver predefined messages over a set period of time based on their behavior, but we try to use them sparingly. When used poorly, automation tools just distribute bad ideas at scale and annoy your audience. Just because a tool can do it doesn’t mean we should. - Ryan George, 1st Global
4. Drift
I’m a big fan of Drift. Long gone are the days when people were willing to find your contact page then figure out if they wanted to hold for 22 minutes or fill out a form and wait days to hear back. Today, it’s about a customer-centric approach to timing. I love Drift because it’s a great way to engage customers on their own terms. R.I.P., contact form. I won’t miss you. - Caroline Tien-Spalding, SymphonyAI
5. Mailchimp
When it comes to marketing automation for small businesses, Mailchimp is a fantastic option. You can automate personal messages for birthdays or anniversaries and create emails for abandoned carts, product recommendations and product retargeting. Mailchimp also offers creative and customizable email templates, so the messages you do send will deliver in visual impact and style. - Melissa Kandel, little word studio
6. Marketo
I consider Marketo a marketing automation juggernaut. It integrates with many commonly used platforms in play and allows a lot of flexibility when creating marketing campaigns: personalized email nurture streams, lead scoring, landing page creation, etc. I also like Pardot because it is a Salesforce product and we can have access to Salesforce support. - Anna Lee, CultureIQ
