Marketing Automation or Inbound Marketing the two things are often mistakenly confused and it is important to differentiate between them.
But how does each one work?
This text is to help you better understand this confusion.
Inbound Marketing is a methodology for attracting potential customers to your company through the digital channels where it operates and converting them into leads through your website.
They are monitored and provided with information until they are at the right time for a commercial approach.
That’s when the sales team gets in touch to close the deal.
It is supported by a strong content strategy, mainly in the Blog and Social Media fronts, as well as online advertising campaigns to capture leads.
It also relies on so-called rich materials, such as ebooks, infographics, whitepapers, videos or others.
Inbound Marketing heavily uses the sales funnel concept.
In other words, the objective is to transform the lead from interested party to buyer, accompanying them throughout their purchasing journey.
In Inbound Marketing, there is a need for almost perfect synergy between the marketing and sales teams.
The objective, after all, is commercial.
The harmony between capturing, nurturing and approaching the lead must work 100% to guarantee the success of the strategy.
As the name suggests, it is done automatically.
It is basically based on email flows and automatic tasks, integrated with a CRM tool (see more about Inbound tools below).
In the case of Marketing Automation, the intention is for the marketing team to support sales.
In short: Inbound is a more complex and broad strategy, with longer implementation times and long-term results.
Marketing Automation is more practical, efficient, quicker to implement and delivers medium-term results.
How does Marketing Automation work?
Just like Inbound Marketing, Marketing Automation saves time for Digital actions.
It also offers better jamaica phone number list control over the flow of information and communication, as well as greater efficiency in actions.
Marketing Automation can be used for companies in any segment.
But it has its particularities tips for obtaining a mortgage loan and advantages when used within Digital Marketing:
- For B2B Companies: Lead Nurturing, Lead Scoring, Lead Journey and purchase cycle control (integrated with a well-stocked CRM).
- For B2C companies: Cross-sell, Upsell, customer relationships and loyalty.
In general, all companies chine directory that use a well-structured Marketing Automation strategy, following all good practices and supported by a dedicated team (internal or external, in the case of an agency), present more and better results with a clear measurement of their investment in Digital.
This allows for a deeper analysis of the ROI of the investment.
Curious about the main Inbound Marketing tools available on the market, I invite you to read our post 5 tools for your Inbound Marketing strategy.