When Marketing Automation Meets Social Media
Drop your line where the fish are- this is the most fundamental rule of marketing and is largely applicable to the current day scenario
. Prospects are now typically reachable online, especially through social media. And these channels have become the primary target of marketers all over the world.The proliferation of social networks and their widespread usage has taken marketing to an all new level. Consumers have a wide array of options to connect online and seek out product/service recommendations on Twitter, facebook etc. They use LinkedIn to find executives in companies who may be able to give them better deals on purchase.
The frequency and volume of these cloud-based conversations makes one thing evident- social media offers a promising platform for lead generation, lead nurturing, and lead management. And the only way to leverage this platform is by integrating social media features with marketing automation software. This can be done in the following ways:
Enabling Sharing: Including share to facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn buttons in email messages and landing pages can make a huge difference in gaining prospects. And if the marketing automation software is further equipped with the capability to track who shared information and how this has increased website traffic, lead segmentation and scoring becomes even more easier.
Gathering Lead Intelligence: Social networks offer great potential for gathering insights about prospects. And by integrating features for gaining lead intelligence, marketing automation tools can identify prospects, and put their Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn profiles onto the automation system. This in turn can facilitate lead scoring and segmentation.
Social Media Monitoring: Some automation tools in the market also come with social media monitoring features. These tools track relevant discussions in social networks and suggest where marketing teams can join the discussion and generate quality leads.
Tracking ROI: Majority of marketing automation solutions in the market, come with an in-built ROI tracking mechanism, which can be easily extended to social media. Also, by analyzing the HTTP referrer or by posting a tracking link on social networks, it is possible to track social media as a lead source, which can clearly demonstrate the value gained from investing in them.
Integrating social media features with marketing automation software can prove to be highly beneficial. It empowers marketers by seeding social networks with track-able back links to the business website. Thus it makes it possible for marketers to measure the effect of social media marketing on their website traffic. It also helps optimize lead nurturing campaigns by enabling relevant, timely responses to conversations on the cloud.
by: brianwarren