The 2020 lockdowns due to COVID-19 showed that having a strong online presence is a must for a business. Since people cannot go out physically from their homes, they check if a business has a website or social media page. This shows that people are becoming research-motivated buyers. This is why having a solid digital marketing strategy is vital for business growth.
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The Marketing Trends In 2022
The current trends in marketing are rapidly changing, especially in 2022. Here are some marketing trends you may want to consider:
- Video marketing is rising and doesn’t appear to be slowing down. There is a prediction that video marketing will play a vital role in the marketing industry in 2022. Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts are video-based content platforms that capture attention and engagement.
- Influencer marketing is estimated to grow into a $15 Billion industry. Facebook even announced its funding of $1 billion to content creators in 2022. With this, more businesses can find content creators that will alight to their niche.
- Conversational marketing engages with the audience to improve customer experience and shorten the sales cycle. This is possible through a live agent, chatbots, voice assistants, and video chatting. Frequently asked questions or FAQs can now be answered through chatbot automation and AI chats are becoming smarter and more human-like.
- Inclusive marketing shows a diverse perspective at different levels within the company. Tell stories that positively inquire about common stereotypes and assumptions. This type of marketing adapts a variety of cultural contexts to make the brand inclusive to the different cultures around the world.
What is a Marketing Automation Tool?
A marketing automation tool is a software technology that helps marketers manage marketing processes and campaigns across multiple channels. It mainly automates repetitive tasks such as sending marketing messages through email, SMS, and chats. It uses personalization to the audience as any action taken is added to its marketing strategy. It can identify strong audience engagement and the likelihood of becoming a qualified lead. Lastly, it builds a strong foundation for long-term customer relationships as it nurtures through the customer lifecycle.
Reasons For Using Marketing Automation Tools
Improved efficiency – a live marketing agent can only send a handful of personalized emails in a day. Marketing automation can segment email addresses for retargeting. One of the most common ways to do that is by sending them email newsletters that are relevant to their search topics. Your audience reach would become wider with marketing automation thus increasing the efficiency of your marketing campaigns.
Comprehensive reporting – since marketing teams usually use different communication platforms, reports from these platforms can sometimes be in disarray. Marketing automation tools can deep dive into your metrics, extrapolate data, present them in charts and graphs, and compare analytics from different communication channels.
More qualified leads – sometimes marketers think that a lead is qualified because of the lead’s interest in the business. However, that’s not always the case. Marketing automation helps marketers make informed decisions through customer touchpoints and milestones in the marketing funnel. More qualified leads that can be converted into paid customers in sales.
Better marketing strategy – not only does a marketing automation tool streamline marketing workflows, it can also give marketers the ability to forecast marketing trends based on collected data, customer behavior and responses, and other metrics. This can make your marketing team work on the best marketing strategy for your business.
Best Marketing Tools To Use In 2022
MailChimp: Email Marketing Automation Tool
MailChimp is an email marketing tool that helps you design, send, and track email campaigns. Their marketing tool is built for all business types, especially for eCommerce and SaaS. Mailchimp provides customizable purchase paths that deliver relevant messages to customers based on profile and interaction.
Their automation can determine the optimum time to send emails. You can use API or SMTP to personalize transactional emails. It can be integrated with CRM, social media, SMS, and other platforms. No demo is needed as you can sign up for free. Marketing tool pricing starts at $11 per month to $299 per month. Mailchimp highly recommends the Standard plan which costs $17 per month.
Other features include:
- AI-powered user-friendly tools
- Audience-centric automation
- Targeted ad campaign template workflows
- Reporting and analytics tool
Drip: Multi-channel Marketing
Drip is a powerful multi-channel marketing automation platform that is suited for marketing campaigns. It uses customers data to create campaigns and leverage eCommerce data to run its marketing strategies. Their target industries are fashion and eCommerce sites.
It features the ability to collect and analyze customer data, create personalized content for social media, and build behavior-based automation across email, SMS, and social media (Facebook and Instagram). Popular marketing integration tools are YotPo, AutomateIO, BigPicture, Call Loop, CustomerLabs, and Deadline Funnel, among many others.
Getting a demo needs your full name, company, email, company website, phone number, and the number of contacts you have. The email plan starts at $19 for 500 contacts and the SMS+Email plan starts at $22 for 450 contacts and 200 messages.
Other features include:
- Email automation
- SMS automation
- Facebook and Instagram
- Third-party integrations for direct mail and more
- Automatic revenue attribution
- Insights Dashboards
- Workflow split testing
HubSpot Marketing Hub: All-in-One Inbound Marketing Software
HubSpot Marketing Hub is a content marketing software and workflow solution tool that helps marketers and salespeople automate, streamline, and scale their entire inbound marketing process. Lead nurturing becomes visible with email building, making it tied to a clear goal. Workflows can be visible, customizable, and personalized through their visual editor. Tasks such as web forms, lead magnets, lead scoring, and managing bulk data can be automated.
HubSpot marketing automation can be integrated with a sales automation and phone system from Aloware to ensure leads can be passed down to the sales team seamlessly. The integration allows real-time syncing of data between the phone system and HubSpot marketing software. The HubSpot setup can also be optimized for CRM in order to get more sales for your team.
You can get a demo through their webform and chatbot by providing your full name, phone number, company name, website URL, and the number of employees. You also have to subscribe to their marketing blogs. The price plan starts at $45 per month up to $$3200 for the Enterprise package both billed annually.
Other features include:
- Blogging optimization
- Landing page
- Email marketing sequences
- Lead management
- Analytics
- Partitioning
- Social media monitoring
- SEO for content strategy
SharpSpring: All-in-one Revenue Growth Platform
SharpSpring is an all-in-one marketing platform and a CRM platform that aims to generate leads, increase sales and revenue, and optimize sales and marketing funnels. This is done through targeted communication, dynamic content, and landing pages. Their platform is suitable for businesses of all sizes, from small to enterprise-level companies.
The platform has nine features which include: email, ads, form, automation, visitor ID, CRM, landing pages, blogs, marketing analytics, and social media. For example, the visitor ID feature can set a unique identifier to each lead which can be enrolled to lead tracking. SharpSpring has its own app marketplace that can be added to their platform. Three categories of integrations are available for API, native integration, and Zapier apps.
To get a demo, you have to provide your full name, phone number, email address, company and how you found out about their platform. Pricing starts at $399 for small businesses with an initial amount of 1000 contacts. Other plans for enterprise and agency are to be negotiated during the demo.
Other features include:
- Email Marketing
- Social Management
- Campaign Tracking
- Landing Page Designer
- Marketing Automation
Klaviyo: Email And Sms Marketing Automation Platform
Klaviyo is an email and SMS marketing automation platform that is dedicated to boost customer engagement for eCommerce businesses. Their platform works for small businesses and startups who are looking to grow their leads.
The platform has SMS automation and an SMS platform for managing an inbox, testing messages, uploading images, etc. It also comes with email automation to automate email newsletters and segment lists based on preference. Furthermore, Klaviyo can be integrated with popular eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, and PrestaShop.
You can request a demo by providing your full name, work email, company details, phone number, number of contacts, product preferred, and the eCommerce platform you are currently using. You’re also required to sign up for their marketing newsletters. The free trial starts at 250 email contacts for email automation and 50 contacts for SMS automation. Price may vary depending on the number of contacts.
Other features include:
- Automation
- Segmentation
- Consumer Profiles
- Forms and Personalization
- Reporting
- Templates
Your Takeaways About Marketing Automation Tools
Marketing processes can be a huge task to take on alone. You have to deal with massive amounts of information about your audience, prospects, content, social media channels, and other relevant data. Finding the right marketing automation tool can help you deal with the data overload to make your marketing tasks easier to execute.
People are busy and constantly doing something. Having the right marketing automation tool can help your marketing team keep your audiences engaged. Now that you’ve had a glimpse of the best marketing tools to use in 2022, you can decide which tool can be best implemented to your marketing goals.
