Email Marketing or Marketing Automation? Is there a difference? Many businesses we talk to at TechnologyAdvice are under the impression that marketing automation and email marketing are the same thing. Buyers often find themselves comparing two systems that are designed for different jobs. First, let’s talk about Email Marketing: Email marketing is a proven way to build trust with prospects, enhance relationships with current customers, encourage loyalty, and deepens relationship with your audience by moving the business conversation to a personal level… The Inbox.
Email Marketing traditionally costs less than marketing strategies like direct mail, print --advertising, and trade shows. For that reason it can also have a hefty return on investment. Email Marketing does have some unique challenges. It’s difficult to send personalized communication.
Customers aren’t all the same, but email marketing often treats them like they are. This is where Marketing Automation performs. The reason Email Marketing and Marketing automation often get confused is the fact that both are rooted in email. Marketing automation, however, does much more.
It goes beyond the inbox to let a business nurture leads and automate an email campaign. A good Marketing automation platform includes more than just Email marketing, it also includes Lead Scoring and Grading Website Visitor Tracking A centralized marketing database Native CRM integration and Closed Loop Analytics Marketing automation software helps you identify which stage of the buying process your prospects are in, and helps guide them to the next stage until they eventually convert into a customer. Instead of a marketing campaign with a single email you can design drip campaigns that can convert customers from a series of emails. This means you can send an initial email.
Then if a prospect takes an action like downloading a white paper, reading a blog post, or viewing a pricing page, it will trigger another email to be sent. If they don’t take action, then it can trigger a completely different email. More advanced setups can even trigger other media such as text messages or a phone call from a sales rep. The ability to track and nurture customers through the buying process allows you to determine the exact impact each campaign is having on your bottom line.
Having this level of granularity with your analytics allows you to make well-informed decisions on where to focus your marketing efforts. So the question is, should you make the switch? Let’s consider pricing. The difference in pricing can be substantial. Email marketing providers generally price based on mailing list size and number of emails sent.
Marketing automation is usually broken down into a monthly fee based on the number of contacts in your database and the features you need. A good example is Pardot’s standard plan, which only offers basic features at a price of 1 thousand dollars per month for 10, 000 contacts. For an additional 10, 000 contacts the price goes up by $150 dollars per month. It is also beneficial to note that there are a lot of free email marketing options out there that do just fine for smaller businesses who don’t have many leads they need to nurture yet.
So which should you choose? Email Marketing or Marketing automation? It all depends on your situation. How many leads you have, your budget, and your potential ROI. Marketing Automation has the power to save time and increase revenue, while still offering all of the functions of most email marketing services. If you aren’t ready to make the jump into Marketing automation full steam, companies like Boingnet and Drip offer lightweight marketing automation that might be a good starting point for newcomers.
To find out more about email marketing and marketing automation, check out our website where we can help you find the technology that fits the needs of your business.
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