Not too long ago, a portable music player that could store literally hundreds of songs was the big leap in technology. Today, technology continues to progress at a rapid rate, forcing us to reconstruct how we approach not only our personal lives but also our business practices.
One of the most impactful technological developments for businesses has been the ability to automate marketing tasks. It's helped prevent leads and customers from falling through the cracks, identified the most viable opportunities and delivered highly relevant content to the right prospects.
Enter: Marketing Automation Platforms.
Marketing automation platforms are the machines that make automating these things possible. Some are feature-rich while others focus on being budget-friendly. Some focus on user-friendliness and others on being highly customizable. They all have their place in the market so the question becomes, which one is right for you?
We’ll cover all the features to consider in a marketing platform so you can choose one that fits your business’ needs. Plus, we’ll compare the top tools on the market right now (if that’s what you came here for, use the handy table of contents below to skip ahead)
In the old days, it wasn't difficult to keep up with every lead that came in. All your team needed to ask themselves was "did that new prospect reach out by phone or email?"
Technology has only become more ingrained in our lives as time has gone on, and that means your prospects are more likely to interact with you digitally than through other channels. Now, you have to take into consideration social media, online paid advertising, texting, online reviews and many other factors. There's only so much time in a day and so many spreadsheets that you can keep up with before information starts getting lost. Having a central, digital location where your team (both sales and marketing) can operate out of will be crucial to making sure no lead falls through the cracks.
A customer relationship management tool (CRM) is great for keeping up with your leads, but that alone isn’t always enough. Depending on the size of your business and the marketing initiatives in your plan, you might need software that can send email or manage your social media or any number of other digital functions.
In addition, your team is limited in how much they can accomplish in 24 hours. That’s where marketing software, particularly marketing automation solutions, is really making an impact in businesses. Technology allows us to automate many of the tasks that get pushed to the side or overwhelm our day. Marketing automation continues to be a game-changer for sales and marketing teams because they are discovering how much time it saves them, allowing them to just focus on the highest impact leads.
The good news is you don't have to be a Fortune 500 company to take advantage of marketing platforms. There are literally hundreds of marketing platforms available for all budgets and sizes of business. Whether you are looking to run drip campaigns, social media management, or a variety of other multi-channel marketing options, there’s a tool for it out there.
Price is determined by a few major factors:
Options range from $15 per month to thousands per month.
How do you decide what features you actually need? Here are a few of the most important tools to keep in mind when determining the best marketing automation software for you.
There was a time when email was king. It was new. It was exciting. It was the sure-fire way to grow your business. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan convinced us that love was only one inbox notification away.
And to be honest, email can still be effective, it’s just not quite as romanticized. Most studies show that it takes around 8 touch points with your brand for a consumer to make a purchase decision. So, to stand out to your customers, you have to find new ways to get their attention beyond their inbox. Email marketing software helps bring all those different touchpoints together so you can track them and make informed decisions about your future initiatives. Plus, it automates the sometimes arduous task of staying in constant contact with your prospects.
Many small businesses start with a simple email marketing platform. These platforms will have a varying range of features, but a good email marketing tool will have the ability to run email campaigns as well as have a library of email templates or a drag-and-drop email editor tool. That should be considered the bare minimum. In the world of online marketing, we have to remember that email marketing campaigns are just one source for lead generation and nurturing.
Some might wonder "aren't landing pages just a simplified web page, and if so then why should they be considered such an important feature for achieving marketing success?" However, landing pages play a very specific role in your marketing. HubSpot says it best, "Landing pages have one chief purpose: to generate leads for your business. Whether you're providing a free trial of a product, holding an event or webinar, or offering a resource such as an eBook or whitepaper, landing pages provide you the ability to measure specific metrics and gain valuable insights into your target audience. Most importantly, they are designed to provide the biggest conversion potential for users. Good landing page tools allow easy editing of text and images, and the best ones offer A/B testing so you can constantly and objectively optimize your pages.
This is where the real magic happens and why marketing automation platforms provide so much value to both sales teams and marketing departments. How are you expected to provide meaningful lead nurturing and real-time follow-up when you cannot work every hour of the day? With the development of some amazing marketing automation features, you and your team no longer have to choose between quality lead nurturing or a healthy work/life balance.
Marketing automation tools can input data on your behalf, segment contacts into customized lists, and build out reports so you can focus on the areas of your business that will have the biggest impact. Imagine having an additional salesperson, intern, and administrative assistant all in one that works for you 24 hours a day and never gets sick? Sounds pretty amazing right? That’s basically what marketing automation offers business.
Alas, not all marketing automation tools are alike. Just because two tools say they have "marketing automation" does not mean they will be able to achieve all of the same outcomes. Think of marketing automation as a genre of features. You still need to investigate and consult to make sure your platform can accomplish all the things you want it to.
Remember at the beginning we talked about the importance of having a central place your team can operate out of? To do that, you need to make sure your marketing tools connect with your CRM. Why? Because all the data about your leads and customers should live in your CRM. If you can connect that data with your marketing platform, you allow your marketing initiatives to leverage that data. A quality CRM integration will have a larger impact on lead management than nearly anything else your company does.
There are a lot of tools out there that specialize in social media management so you may wonder why this plays such an important role in determining your marketing automation platform. Social media marketing is its own beast. The real issue though is that there will always be a new social media platform coming. All it takes is your Aunt Linda tagging you in one picture of yourself as an eight-year-old dressed in sequins and you'll too want to find a new platform to call your home. We've all be there...right? Anyway...
Whether it be to monitor all your content going out, seeing statistics on what's working, or whatever features of social media your company uses, having a tool to centralize all of your social marketing is key to maintaining your company’s presence and reputation.
Ahh, the elusive and magical world of "SEO." This is a term you've probably heard plenty of times but still feel like you only somewhat understand it. Well, that makes sense, because the fact is how to optimize your website for search engines is constantly changing. As regulation increases and algorithms continue to change, this will always be a moving target to try and hit. Google Analytics is an amazing tool, but sometimes it can either be a little overwhelming or inconvenient to have to open up one more tab in your browser. Having SEO tools integrated into the platform you are using allows you to do much more than simply see how many "impressions" your site is having. It allows you to compare how different pieces of content your team is using are performing in relation to SEO. You also can start associating your actual leads to the numbers you're seeing as opposed to simply wondering who those mysterious 1,000 website visitors are. This allows you to continually improve your prospect's experience and in turn improve your business growth.
Speaking of having more data, a team cannot be successful without good reporting. Numbers don't lie. Without reliable reporting, it's impossible to identify what is and isn’t working. Ask yourself these questions, and if you don't know the answer, we'd encourage you to find a platform that can help you find out.
Paid Advertisement is the Wild Wild West in the content marketing world. Whether it be Google pay-per-click (PPC) ads, social media, or the ads you often see on the side of the article you're reading or on an e-commerce site, paid advertisement is an incredibly lucrative industry. In 2020, social media advertisement alone brought in 43 billion. When nearly every company is vying for consumer's attention, how do you know if your efforts are working or if they are even worth it?
While most marketing platforms don’t offer the best tools for running your ads, many will track and integrate your ad performance into the rest of your data. This allows your team to recognize trends across the entirety of the funnel and adapt quickly to ensure you’re getting a return on your investment.
Let's be honest, not all leads are created equal. We’re not a parent who doesn't want to choose a favorite between their children. Some leads are worth putting more effort into because they’ve shown interest before they’ve even entered a sales conversation.
How do you know the quality of lead without diving deep into a conversation with them? Lead scoring is a powerful tool that teams can use to help them determine which leads should be prioritized. You provide criteria that your team has agreed indicates how qualified (or unqualified) a lead is for your business. Each criterion gets a value assigned to it. The higher the score, the better fit for your company. Criteria can be budget, services they’re interested in, how they’ve engaged with your content, or a host of other things. The best part is, this marketing feature can be easily translated no matter if you have a b2c or b2b marketing strategy. Don't miss that million-dollar deal because you've spent the last hour providing phone support to a lead who just wants some free advice.
Modern consumers are being inundated left and right with content and advertisements. The newest development in digital marketing is providing a custom, personalized user experience. Not all people will come to your website for the same reasons. Prospects might have different priorities or questions that need to be addressed before they convert. If they don't see what they are looking for then they very well might leave and look elsewhere. How then do you make sure they are being shown the information they want to see? Through personalization.
With the development of "dynamic content," companies can dictate what people see when they visit their site. Instead of marketing the same thing to a brand new prospect and someone who has already downloaded an eBook from you, you can show them different content.
Founded in 2001, MailChimp got its start in developing into one of the largest email marketing brands in the world. This platform may be known first and foremost for email, but don't let the cute monkey fool you because over the past few years MailChimp has sought to expand its services drastically by working to become more of an all-in-one marketing platform for businesses.
MailChimp's smart advertising led to much of their growth in the early 2010s and has proven to be a company to reckon with in this space. Although not a tool we'd recommend for certain sized businesses, it's a solid option for those needing to keep marketing costs low.
ActiveCampaign was founded in 2003 and has been a veritable fixture within the marketing realm for some time. Though perhaps slightly less versatile than other marketing automation providers, Active Campaign is considered a sound and largely reliable platform, perfectly suitable for smaller or medium-sized companies across all industries.
Active Campaign has its strong suits and one or two shortcomings. Aligning its broader functionality with your specific needs is key to understanding whether the platform can support the marketing efforts you intend to undertake.
Taken as a whole, ActiveCampaign is very much as advertised: A solid marketing automation service geared largely towards the middle-market economy. Strong service reviews and attractive pricing render it very much deserving of your consideration, provided your integration needs are, at most, modest. At Lone Fir Creative, we recommend ActiveCampaign for small to medium-size businesses where budget is a limiting factor.
SharpSpring was founded in the relatively recent year of 2012. SharpSpring has undeniably benefited from the foundational knowledge produced by its forerunners, which is evidenced by the quality-life-features they introduced early on. Things like a drag-and-drop email builder and design-friendly landing page interface were at the top of the list.
Not overly different in terms of its primary offerings, SharpSpring positions itself as something of a lean, cost-effective, flexible alternative to the juggernauts (and their copycats) within the industry. A close look at their business suggests there may be considerable legitimacy to that framing.
SharpSpring has actively worked to contend within a very crowded field of deeply entrenched competitors. Their approach is to adhere closely to lean business practices while consciously pricing their products and services below the market average. Combined with their solid approach to customer service, this company is arguably punching a pound or two above its proverbial weight. If costs are a significant factor for your marketing plan(s), SharpSpring might just fall within the budget.
Formerly known by many as Infusionsoft, Keap has kicked off the 2020s with a new online platform to match their competitors. They might have a new name, but they continue to focus on being a platform for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Keap may not be the best option for certain sized companies, but they have proven to be a reliable and adaptable platform for the past two decades. More of a lower to middle of the pack in pricing, Keap shows a lot of promise as a platform as a whole.
One of the biggest names in the marketing automation platform space, Marketo (and Adobe company) has been one of the pioneers of this industry. Due to its price, you won't find many small or even medium-sized businesses using this tool, but Marketo is an automation powerhouse that understandably deserves to be one of the leaders in this space.
Marketo will always be one of the biggest players in marketing automation platforms and for that, they certainly are worthy of being included in this list. We, however, would recommend looking at some of their competitors who for around the same price provide significantly more tools for the price point.
Pardot was acquired by Salesforce in 2013 as a way for Salesforce to further expand their solutions beyond sales teams and into marketing departments as well. Salesforce may be one of the largest household names on this list and for good reason. They are one of the leaders in sales automation and CRMs and have continually worked to stake a similar ground into the online marketing world.
Pardot by Salesforce is without a doubt one of the top tools for any company looking to build out their strategy online while keeping their platform on a marketing cloud. Not a tool that everyone can afford, but certainly a good option to consider when determining what platform will be right for your team.
HubSpot was founded in 2006 and in many ways it continues to drive the industry it helped create. As the leader in the world of inbound marketing, HubSpot is one of the top authorities for not only online sales and marketing, but in how teams develop their processes internally. Being early to the game is not always an indicator of subsequent marketplace resilience (ask MySpace), but HubSpot has maintained a strong competitive edge throughout its 12-year run and is regarded as a sort of “benchmark” against which fledgling marketing solutions are measured.
Familiarity alone will go a long way towards engendering favorable impressions amongst clients, both prospective and active, but the fact remains that being competitive requires any software company to keep pace with technological developments and changing consumer demands. While the competition has burgeoned in recent years, HubSpot does remain something of a metonym for the automation software space.
Like all software companies, HubSpot has several core proficiencies with which it is closely identified and many secondary/tertiary capabilities which its customers use to varying degrees. Though reflexively characterized as the industry gold standard, HubSpot should nevertheless be subjected to a SWOT analysis to better understand what it does well and where customers find it wanting.
We may be biased, but we choose early on to work with HubSpot as a certified partner agency because to provide the best for our clients we wanted the best tools to do the job. As an agency that spends every day in this tool, we have not simply used it to help our clients grow their business but are users and advocates of the tool ourselves.
So you might be thinking, "wow that was a lot of information and I'm still not which platform I should go with." Take your time, experience some demos, and make sure you can take advantage of all that your chosen platform has to offer.
If you're not looking for an all-in-one solution or are just curious what else is out there, check out our roundup of the best digital marketing tools for growing your business.