The HubSpot 2014 State of Inbound Marketing report revealed that marketing automation is being adopted by B2B organisations at an increasingly fast rate. 

Marketing automation not only improves efficiency, it also leads to improved marketing effectiveness through better targeting, content management, nurturing, scoring and closed-loop tracking. The statistics speak for themselves: 

 

• B2B marketers who implement marketing automation software increase their sales pipeline contribution by an average of 10%. (Forrester Research)
  
  
• Companies who use marketing automation convert 53% more leads to marketing qualified leads, and report revenue growth 3.1% higher than non-users. (Aberdeen Group)

Is it time your B2B business considered implementing a marketing automation platform? Integrated marketing automation platforms such as HubSpot provide a number of benefits that are specifically geared towards helping marketers do more with less, making it the perfect solution for teams with limited time and resources, and making it easier to justify the investment in a new tool.

Here are some key benefits of marketing automation:

1. Automate repetitive, time consuming tasks – 

As a Marketer, how often do you feel like you’ll never have enough time to accomplish all that you need to get done in the time you have? Whether you’re just getting started or are a fast-growing business, time is the one resource that always seems hard to come by.  Marketing automation essentially adds another member to your team by automating more repetitive tasks - freeing you up to focus on higher-level strategies.

But what if you could eliminate some of the more tedious day-to-day tasks such as qualifying and assigning leads, sending out endless emails, etc.)?

What if you could communicate with your prospects and leads based on their buyer persona and stage of the buying process they’re at whilst still delivering personalised messages that speak to a buyer’s specific needs?

What if you could nurture leads along the buyer’s journey with content that really addresses their pain points?

Marketing automation essentially adds another member to your team by automating more repetitive tasks - freeing you up to focus on higher-level strategies. In fact, one of our customers reckons it will be the equivalent of adding TWO marketing heads to the team ….more of that to follow!

2. A one stop marketing shop – Having an array of marketing tools spread across multiple platforms doesn’t just waste a significant amount of time, it also prevents you from having a complete view of your prospect. Many businesses find themselves juggling the output from a combination of a blogging tool, a social media monitoring tool, an email package, website analytics tools and more.   There’s no need to do that! Marketing automation provides the functionality of disparate marketing tools into one comprehensive platform, using the data collected from each aspect to build a full picture of your prospects’ interests and target your campaigns more effectively. For Marketers, this means you can create, manage and measure your assets and results all in one place. 

3. Create a Sales and Marketing Powerhouse – A common misconception is that marketing automation will only benefit your marketing team. Not only does marketing automation free Marketers up to concentrate at a strategic level, it also allows you to work smarter in ways that will benefit both your marketing and sales teams.

Automated systems can show you every interaction that a prospect had with your organisation - from first click to being deemed a Marketing Qualified Lead, and beyond - providing your sales team with valuable insights into your prospects interactions, and allowing you to identify the warmest leads at a glance or those who need further nurturing.

4. Improved visibility and measurement – Constantly measuring and reassessing your methods and processes is a crucial element of modern B2B marketing. Reporting features of marketing automation systems provide better visibility and insight in to what is working in regards to your marketing campaigns and tactics and what isn’t and requires improvement.   Just imagine KNOWING which of your marketing assets – which blogs, emails, CTAs, social posts – result in the most closed business!

Also being able to easily report on marketing’s contribution to overall revenue doesn’t hurt either - particularly when it comes time to make budget requests.

To conclude, by using automated systems, Marketers benefit from being better able to use their time more efficiently and focus on the things that really matter while automated systems enhance measurement and analytic functions allowing Marketers to constantly review and improve effectiveness.

Needless to say, Hubspot can give you all of the above and more.  Find out more about the benefits of marketing automation and HubSpot here.