7 Features of Marketing Automation Which Can Change Your Business

In the age of Social Media and the enormous amount of incoming messages, choosing the appropriate marketing approach is a big challenge.

Customers are sometimes “attacked” by content which seems to be insignificant to them.

The solution that allows coping with these conditions is to automate your marketing activities. Such method helps to fluidize, accelerate, and successfully optimize these processes. What should one focus on when choosing the Marketing Automation system?

From this article you will learn:

• How to reach the proper target groups?
• How to tailor marketing communication to them?
• Why is it essential to implement Marketing Automation?
• How does Marketing Automation affect your business?
• How does implementing Marketing Automation translate into the number of generated leads?

What is Marketing Automation?

The concept of Marketing Automation includes a specific way of conducting marketing activities.

It involves taking over some of the actions of the Marketing Department with the help of the appropriate system, which offers features connected to the following areas:

• segmentation,
• campaign optimization,
• e-mail automation,
• content customization.

Today we are describing the features of SAP Hybris Marketing – Marketing Automation system that you can successfully use in your company.

Multichanneling – reach Customer from multiple sources

The Customer Journey from the moment of learning about the product to the moment of purchasing it is not immediate in most cases. For example, for most customers, it is not enough to just see the product on a website and then purchase it.

It is likely that they also need to compare prices on other websites, visit stationery stores and read reviews. They are most likely checking their e-mails and news on Social Media in the meantime.

Customer Journey is also a path that the customer takes after the purchase. SAP Hybris Marketing enables segmentation based on shared customer paths.

The target group selected by the system reacts similarly to the marketing message (for example, based on the frequency of e-mails being opened and purchase decisions made). After collecting the data and their segmentation, it is possible to customize the proper marketing message.

How to benefit from this situation and direct Customer Journey to the online or offline purchase? 

To increase the chances of making a purchase, you can consistently lead the customer through a series of channels that he is visiting either way and remind him about the product he searched for.

It is possible thanks to the following means of communication:

• Social Media (such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter),
• Websites (for example e-commerce, company website, landing pages, and banners),
• Push notifications on mobile devices,
• SMS.

Optimize tasks and campaigns

Every Marketing Manager wants their activities to be useful. To achieve this, it is necessary to continually adjust the operations to constantly changing external factors, such as current trends or customer reactions.

Some SAP Hybris Marketing environment features allow for continuous optimization. It is possible by automating campaign planning. It is sufficient just to plan and design the campaigns, specify the required areas and prepare the templates.

It is also possible to define target groups that respond better to given means of communication such as e-mails or text messages. This allows directing the appropriate content to a predefined target group. As a result, a customer does not feel like he is receiving SPAM.

It is also possible to design campaigns triggered by non-system events, such as customer interest in a particular product on a website. It can be expressed, for example, by clicking on a link or banner.

The reaction to this behavior may be sending an appropriate message (also recurrently) within the scope of one campaign. An example of such activity is sending e-mails daily to newly registered customers on their birthday.

It is noticeable by the example of Sentiment Engagement features of SAP Hybris Marketing:

Sentiment Engagement

This module that allows understanding the customer’s reaction using accessing essential data. It is possible through the use of sentiment analysis (currently available only in English, the possibility of analysis in The Polish language is obtained after integration with additional sources).

SAP Hybris Marketing shows graphically, in one view, the information covering customer responses to specific messages and studying their approach to the brand.

Owing to this module, the user gains access to recipients’ reactions on all of his channels in real-time and historical data as well. The user sees attitude changes over time and common customer attitude. SAP Hybris Marketing can determine whether a given reaction is positive or negative, thus analyzing the attitude towards the brand.

Base your actions on the specific data

SAP Hybris Marketing can make use of the company data. This enables to change the model of activities from intuitive to a model that is determined by verified information provided by customers themselves through their behavior and online customs. This enables efficient data management.

SAP Hybris Marketing gathers:

• Market data and events
• Sales and services data
• Financial data
• Social Media data
• Internet data
• Behavioral data
• Information connected to the particular website or online shop
• Basic Customer data
• Other data sources, specific to the specific market and/ or Customer

Contact Engagement – make use of the gathered information

This feature is used to transform data into a competitive advantage. It allows the user to access the analysis and visualization of specific customer interests.

It helps to understand their needs, thus allowing the creation of engaging content for every target group. It makes it possible to group the recipients into valuable segments, thus enabling to create campaigns with personalized content.

Reach adequate Target Groups

Why is it not efficient to direct messages to all recipients? The answer is simple – not everyone is interested in the same product. Every customer is different and requires a specific approach. Owing to the SAP Hybris Marketing tool, customers feel that the company is approaching them individually and directs the messages and offers only to them.

In this case, segmentation is invaluable. Recipients desire beneficial and personalized offers and messages. Therefore, when managing large customer databases, it is necessary to group them.

It is possible to significantly increase a chance for the customer to make a purchase and thus improve conversion rates of your campaign by tailoring a particular product or service to a given customer and then adjusting a special offer or even generating a new price depending on websites the customer browses. This can be achieved through integration with an e-commerce system such as SAP Hybris Commerce.

Increase your sale (Lead Generation)

The consequence of activities described above is the increase in customer base, resulting in increased loyalty, saving time and resources and increased sales. Optimized and automated campaigns allow doing a lot more activities faster. Their effectiveness is also significantly improved while minimizing the necessary actions.

The initial investment in implementing marketing automation software tailored to the needs of the particular company is relatively expensive but profitable. With this tool, it is feasible to quickly achieve a high return on investment (ROI) through the Sales Leads generated by them.

SAP Hybris Marketing enables efficient usage of a company’s marketing budget.

In this context, an interesting solution is the ROI Calculator on the SAP Hybris Marketing website. After filling in the company data, the tool returns the expected return on investment.

Build Customer Loyalty

When building the position and image of the brand, the crucial matter is to maintain positive and long-lasting relations with the customer. This results in gaining loyalty and attachment. Therefore, it is essential to create personalized, regularly sent marketing content. By doing this, the company evokes positive associations with customers, maintains continuous contact with them and increases the level of trust.

For example, an e-commerce store can regularly provide the customer with product recommendations tailored to his needs and interests. Proposals are generated, for example, basing on behavioral data, purchase history or predictive analysis.

Integrate Marketing Automation tool with your company’s systems

SAP Hybris Marketing certain advantage over other marketing automation systems is that it integrates with SAP systems. The environment can be instantly merged with solutions such as SAP CRM, SAP ERP, SAP Hybris Commerce, SAP CAR and SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer.

The integration with SAP C4C (SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer) is particularly important, which is a CRM class system in the cloud, used to manage customer relations. It allows expanding the SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer marketing module with features of the entire SAP Hybris Marketing system.

Thus, the user gains access to a range of activities such as creating leads and marketing campaign meetings from SAP C4C.

How to choose the right Marketing Automation platform?

SAP Hybris Marketing is the Marketing Automation platform for the lead generation. Thanks to the number of listed features, it can be quickly adapted to specific needs – it is possible to choose the required modules, and even create new ones that are tailored to current needs.