Make the most of your marketing with automation solutions.
Marketing automation helps to simplify and streamline the marketing process. Here are some of the best tools available to help businesses plan, manage, and track their campaigns.
Marketing as a function of a business does a lot of heavy lifting. It helps grow brand awareness, showcase products and services, create interest, convert leads to customers, and keep current customers in the know to help build future business. Not only must marketers develop interesting campaigns that help capture the interest of consumers and showcase that they understand the needs of their audience, they must also manage the distribution of their message.
Marketing automation tools allow businesses to not only save time, but also see results from their efforts. A good marketing automation solution can help you automate emails to manage relationships with your customers, manage social media channels, and even more accurately test the response of different marketing campaigns.
Top 10 Marketing Automation Tools
Here are some of the best digital marketing automation platforms and email marketing tools to help you save time, nurture leads, and meet your goals.
HubSpot
HubSpot is one of the biggest names in automation. They have proven, powerful tools that help manage almost every aspect of inbound marketing. Their software helps companies design and publish blogs, send and test emails, find new prospects, manage leads, and schedule campaign components. They also offer many free resources to help businesses create better content and manage their marketing more effectively. They even offer a free trial of their services.
Marketo
Marketo advertises itself as the “best-in-class” automation solution and the “world leader in marketing automation for companies of any size.” Plenty of case studies from businesses of all sizes and industries help support their claims. Their digital marketing solutions include lead management, email automation, and mobile marketing among other things.
Microsoft
Microsoft, known for its operating systems, also has plenty of software solutions, including marketing automation tools. Their software makes it easy to connect business departments, such as sales and marketing, because it integrates with other software solutions, like Adobe Marketing Cloud and Dynamics 365. This helps to give a more complete picture of campaign success and create consistent messaging.
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is another well-known name in the automation game. They keep marketing campaigns organized without many extra bells and whistles. It’s a great tool for small businesses who don’t need advanced features and are looking for a straightforward software solution.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Formerly known as ExactTarget, Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a B2C marketing tool that focuses on connecting companies with their customers. One of their most interesting features is the ability to target marketing communications across many channels. This means they can customize messaging and communicate it to the exact audience they want to target.
Pardot
Pardot is also a Salesforce product, meaning it works seamlessly with the Salesforce CRM tool that many companies love. It’s a primarily B2B tool that goes beyond email marketing, and offers lead generation and management, social marketing, targeted mobile notifications, and robust reporting tools.
Eloqua
Eloqua, designed by Oracle, is a comprehensive marketing automation platform that is capable of targeting audiences, segmenting emails, lead management, measurement and reporting, sales and marketing alignment, helping to support campaigns in email, search, video, and much more.
ActiveTrail
Capterra, a company that ranks business software, gave the title of “Most User-Friendly Software” to ActiveTrail. Containing most of the features of any good automation platform, ActiveTrail’s software is intuitive for most users, making it a desirable choice for businesses looking for a solid start in marketing automation.
Customer.io
Another good choice for people who are just getting started in marketing automation is Customer.io. This software is affordable, flexible, customizable, and can be used for almost any size business to help grow sales and understand customer behavior.
Mail Chimp
Mail Chimp is a long-time player in marketing automation and email marketing. Its powerful email platform works well for many e-commerce businesses. It’s also a good fit for those brands with a need to engage with customers frequently by email, who want to communicate through specific landing pages, and who want to be able to easily track engagement.
While these marketing tools might be some of the best, most used, or widely recognized, there are many others. Deciding what marketing automation tool is right for your business depends on a number of factors including what customer relationship software you’re using for sales, what your marketing goals are, and your budget. However, having a comprehensive marketing automation system that helps you improve your reach through social media, email, and ads can help make dramatic improvements to your business.
