Every business owner and entrepreneur knows that marketing is one of the most crucial aspects of brand promotion for any organization. Marketing is a complex domain that comprises multiple elements, each serving a unique purpose for brand marketing. Naturally, it is a challenging job to incorporate all the components of marketing into a well-structured marketing strategy.
Now, the question is, what can you do to ensure the smooth functioning of your marketing strategy?
Adopt marketing automation.
What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation is an advanced marketing approach that makes use of software and tools to automate marketing activities. Today, organizations and enterprises are readily adopting marketing automation in their marketing departments to automate repetitive tasks like email marketing, social media posting, and ad campaigns to boost workplace productivity and efficiency. However, that’s not all. Marketing automation also allows companies to create more personalized experiences for their customers, a trait most valued by the modern-consumer.
According to the latest statistics, the marketing automation industry is projected to grow from US$ 3.3 billion in 2019 to US$ 6.4 billion by 2024, at a CAGR of 13.9% during the forecast period.
This only goes to show that marketing automation is here to stay.
And that’s why you should start using marketing automation tools (if you are already not using one) right away! We’ve compiled a list of the seven best marketing automation tools that you should check out for your enterprise.
7 Best Marketing Automation Tools
HubSpot is a globally renowned and used inbound marketing tool. With a focus on inbound marketing, particularly content and search marketing, HubSpot contains an entire suite of tools, including sales software, marketing software, and support software, all of which can automatically integrate with HubSpot’s free CRM. Since HubSpot allows you to keep all of your data and growth activities in one place, it brings forth numerous possibilities for creative automation. Furthermore, HubSpot’s power to harness customer sentiment is unparalleled. Not for nothing does it occupy the upper right portion of the G2 Crowd quadrant:
You can access and use HubSpot’s easy-to-use visual to create both sophisticated or simplistic conditional workflows.
Pricing: It has three offerings – starter ($50), professional ($800), and enterprise ($2,400) per month.
Recently acquired by Adobe, Marketo is a best-in-class tool in CRM lead management. Being an Adobe offering, Marketo’s features have both enhanced and multiplied significantly. It is designed to handle everything – right from digital advertising and social media marketing to account-based marketing. What’s interesting is that you will have two compelling tools at your disposal – Adobe Analytics for data measurement and Adobe Target for experimentation and personalization.
However, one thing to remember about Marketo is that it is more inclined towards catering to enterprise-level needs of large organizations, and hence, it is not exactly a feasible option for small businesses.
Pricing: It is primarily based on the number of contacts. Pricing starts at about $895 per month for 10,000 contacts and full-feature pricing goes up to $3,195 per month.
Ontraport is an automation solution designed to cater to the unique needs of solopreneurs and small businesses. Its solutions include marketing automation, business process automation, SalesForce automation, CRM, email marketing, landing page optimization, marketing analytics, and e-commerce services. Being a comprehensive business automation tool, Ontraport makes the creation and launch of automated marketing campaigns a seamless task.
Apart from helping with your marketing and promotional campaigns, Ontraport also focuses on reporting and insights. With Ontraport, you can access detailed guides, marketing blueprints, use cases, compare software products, calculate ROI, and much more!
Pricing: It has four offerings – basic ($79), plus ($147), pro ($297), and enterprise ($497) per month.
Zoho Office Suite is an Indian web-based online office suite offered by Zoho Corporation. It is a comprehensive software suite containing over 40 integrated applications designed to seamlessly run an entire business. For instance, Zoho has remote-ready CRM, home-office toolkit, CRM plus, finance plus, people plus, and IT management. Together, all the Zoho apps cover the six core areas of business – sales & marketing, email & collaboration, finance, IT & help desk, human resources, and business intelligence. Apart from that, it also has unique apps to let you build custom solutions for your business.
In other words, Zoho is a tool that allows you to manage, connect, collaborate, and automate business processes across the various parallels of your organization from one central platform. It is a comprehensive and customizable platform that helps overcome the barriers between departments and boost overall business performance.
Pricing: Zoho pricing is different for all the products. Zoho CRM has three offerings – standard (₹1,080), professional (₹1,800), and enterprise (₹2,700) per month. Similarly, Zoho Creator has three offerings – basic (₹400), premium (₹800), and ultimate (₹1,400) per month. You can check out the official site for the pricing of specific products.
Pardot is a B2B marketing automation solution that enables companies to establish meaningful relationships, boost sales, and create enhanced business pipelines. Now a part of the SalesForce realm, Pardot is explicitly designed to address the needs of B2B marketers.
Pardot lets you monitor and track all interactions on your website and create predictive lead scoring based on the parameters set by you. It has multiple solutions under marketing automation, including lead generation, lead management, email marketing, ROI reporting, sales alignment, and even Artificial Intelligence. The goal is to streamline business marketing automation by leveraging these tools along with B2B marketing analytics, SalesForce Engage, and account-based marketing.
Pricing: It has three offerings – growth ($1,250), plus ($2,500), and advanced ($4,000) per month.
ActiveCampaign is an integrated automation tool that is packed with tools for email marketing, marketing automation, messaging, sales and CRM, and Machine Learning. With an aim to deliver excellent customer experience, ActiveCampaign does not eliminate the human element completely but rather reinforces marketers by enhancing their productivity. ActiveCampaign can handle a host of marketing needs, including email segmentation, creating dynamic content, split testing, contact and lead scoring, site tracking, event tracking, automation goals, automation map, site messages, predictive sending, and win probability, to name a few.
Although ActiveCampaign has a pretty steep learning curve, once you get the hang of it, it can be one of the most powerful automation tools in your toolbox!
Pricing: It has four offerings – lite ($15), plus ($70), professional ($159), and enterprise ($279) per month.
If you are looking for a visually appealing marketing automation platform that can take your marketing efforts to a whole other level, it is Autopilot! The tool is so colorful and attractive that it will make you want to spend hours on the platform for creating top-notch marketing strategies. The visual editor is super easy-to-use (also, fun to use!).
Autopilot is loaded with attractive email automation sequences that you can spice up by using emojis, stickers, and quirky explanations. You can use Autopilot to design customer journeys to capture and convert new leads, send customized messages to new contacts, craft engaging customer experiences to build a loyal customer base, and, most importantly, automate the complete customer journey by integrating with some of the most popular apps. Thanks to these useful features, you can always stay connected with your customers and prospects on every channel!
Pricing: It has three offerings – silver ($49), gold ($149), and platinum ($249) per month.
At the end of the day, the marketing automation tool you choose must meet your marketing goals, roadmaps, and pricing aspects. For instance, small and mid-sized businesses can use tools like ActiveCampaign, Ontraport, and HubSpot. However, larger enterprises having more expansive goals and bigger budgets can use solutions like HubSpot, Pardot, and Marketo.
Are you still confused about which will be the best marketing automation tool for your business?
Don’t sweat it! Just connect with us, and we’ll deploy the right automation software for your business.
