Being able to automate marketing tasks is a must for any business.
Marketing can be tough. There’s a lot to juggle, from sending emails to posting on social media and keeping track of everything. As a result, it can be very easy to feel swamped with all these tasks.
But automation helps you do your marketing work faster and better. It takes care of the repetitive stuff so you can focus on the big picture.
In this article, we’ll look at 25 of the most common marketing activities you should think about automating. We will also provide specific tools you can use to make your work a lot easier.
Content Tasks
1. Publishing Content
Publishing content involves sharing information about your business through blogs, articles, or videos. This marketing activity is crucial because it helps people discover and understand your brand, just like signs guide you to a shop.
Yet, creating and posting content consistently can be challenging. Thinking up ideas, writing, and keeping a regular schedule can lead to content fatigue.
Automating this activity offers relief by allowing you to plan, create, and schedule content ahead of time.
2. Posting on Social Media Platforms
Social media networks like Facebook and Instagram let you share content and updates while engaging with your audience. This activity lets you connect directly with potential customers, building trust and loyalty.
Automation tools can schedule posts in advance so that your content reaches your audience at the most optimal times, even when you’re not actively online. For example, a business can plan a week’s worth of posts on different platforms and have them automatically published.
By doing so, you save time, consistently post content, and get to focus on creating quality content rather than the logistics of posting it.
Lead Management and Nurturing Tasks
3. Nurturing Leads
Nurturing leads is all about keeping in touch with potential customers by sending them the right content at the right time. It’s important because it helps build a good relationship with them.
When done manually, it can take a lot of work to keep track of everything and make sure each lead gets the attention they need.
Automating this task can save a lot of time and make sure each lead gets personalized attention, which can lead to more sales.
4. Lead Scoring
Lead scoring figures out which leads, or potential customers, are most likely to buy from you. This is done by giving points to each lead based on things like how they interact with your website or respond to your emails.
The importance of lead scoring lies in its ability to help sales teams prioritize their efforts. Without it, you risk spending too much time on leads that are unlikely to convert, while potentially overlooking those that are ready to engage or make a purchase.
By automating lead scoring, businesses can significantly enhance the efficiency of their sales funnel. It ensures that sales teams are working with leads that have the highest potential for conversion, improving the overall effectiveness of the sales process.
5. Lead Segmentation
Dividing your leads into different groups for better marketing is important. This lets you create marketing strategies that are more personal and speak to what each group needs or wants.
But doing this segmentation work manually can be hard and you might make mistakes along the way. It’s not easy to get your marketing just right for each group when you’re doing it all yourself. This is where automating marketing tasks comes in.
Automation makes this whole process smoother. It accurately sorts your leads into groups, even if there are lots of them. This way, you can focus more on your marketing plans for each group, making your overall strategy much more effective.
Analytics Tasks
6. Analytics Reporting
Marketing is driven by data, and analytics reporting plays a crucial role here. These reports show how effective your marketing efforts are.
Doing this reporting manually can take a lot of time, and sometimes you might make mistakes or miss out on the latest data.
To automate marketing tasks, including analytics reporting, can significantly improve your business process. It brings in up-to-date data collection and analysis, giving you a clear view of how your marketing is doing right now. This not only saves a lot of time but also gives you accurate information to help you make good decisions.
Customer Engagement and Relationship Management Tasks
7. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) keeps track of important customer information. But handling all this customer info by yourself can be tough. It’s like trying to remember every single thing from every chat you’ve ever had.
That would be super hard, wouldn’t it?
That’s why it’s a great idea to automate marketing tasks, including CRM. Automation puts all your customer info in one spot, making it much easier to handle. It lets you quickly respond to what your customers need, keep an eye on important stuff, and make smarter choices.
8. Customer Onboarding
When you automate the onboarding process, every new customer is greeted warmly and gets all the information they need.
Automation in onboarding means every customer gets a special yet consistent welcome. You can use things like emails, videos, and guides that are interactive. This way, they get a friendly and informative start.
For example, you could send out a series of emails that explain your product’s features. Or, you might have an interactive guide ready for them when they first use your service.
9. Customer Feedback Responses
Answering customer feedback is very important for businesses. It shows customers that you’re listening and care about what they have to say. This can help in building trust and keeping them happy.
When you try to reply to all feedback by hand, it can get overwhelming. It takes a lot of time, and sometimes, you might not answer everyone the same way. This can confuse or upset customers.
But, if you use automated tools for common questions or feedback, things get a lot easier. These tools send quick, consistent replies, making sure customers get the attention they need without any delay.
10. Re-Engagement Campaigns
Re-engagement campaigns are like a friendly nudge to remind customers or leads that you’re still there. These campaigns are really important because it’s usually easier and cheaper to bring back someone who’s already shown interest in your business than to find someone new.
Automating these tasks can make a big difference. It helps you sort out who to talk to and send them messages that they’re more likely to care about.
Some good ways to re-engage people include sending personalized emails about new stuff or special deals, creating ads that match what they liked before, or offering special rewards. These strategies can work even better when they’re automated.
Marketing Operations Tasks
11. CRM Data Cleanup
With a CRM comes the need for it to be constantly cleaned up. Wrong or old data can lead to mistakes, bad decisions, and missed chances.
Automating your CRM data cleanup makes sure your customer information is always right, which helps with making good decisions.
This means your marketing can be more on point, your customer service better, and your overall strategy more effective.
12. Sales Notifications
Sales notifications are a game-changer for sales teams, acting as a timely alert system. These notifications let the team know when a customer does something important, like checking out a product or reaching a key point in their journey with your brand.
When you automate marketing tasks like sales notifications, you’re giving your team a big advantage. Let’s say a customer looks at your product page – the sales team gets an alert right away. They can then quickly reach out, which might just lead to a sale.
For businesses, automated sales notifications can lead to faster sales and better relationships with customers. They help the sales team stay informed and ready to act, which is great for growing a business.
13. CRM Integration
When you automate marketing tasks, including CRM integration, things get a lot smoother. Let’s say your CRM is linked to your customer support system. Now, every time a customer chats with your support team, this chat gets recorded in the CRM automatically.
For marketers, this is a big plus. They get to see the whole story of what each customer is going through. For example, if a customer just had a problem and talked to support, the sales team will know about it. They can then change how they talk to this customer. Maybe they can offer a special deal on a new product or send helpful tips related to their issue.
By having everything integrated and automated, businesses can make smarter decisions. This leads to more sales and happier customers.
Advertising and Marketing Tasks
14. Ad Campaign Management
Overseeing the ads you put out to reach customers involves planning, creating, and monitoring ads across platforms like Google or Facebook. These ads help your business connect with your audience and promote your products or services.
Managing multiple ad campaigns manually can be complex. You need the right tools that will help you with tasks like setting budgets, targeting the right audience, and analyzing performance.
Using tools that automate marketing tasks helps in the efficient management of multiple campaigns, reaching the right audience, and improving the return on investment (ROI). This ensures effective advertising strategies and business growth.
15. SEO Tasks
The main goal of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to improve your website to rank higher in search engine results. It helps ensure your shop’s sign is visible in the crowded internet space.
Some SEO tasks that you can automate include optimizing keywords, analyzing website performance, and fixing technical issues.
Automating this process efficiently optimizes your website, improves search rankings, and attracts more organic traffic. This ultimately boosts your business’s online visibility and potential customer reach.
16. A/B Testing
A/B testing is comparing two versions of a webpage or an ad campaign to see which one gets a better response. It helps find what works best for attracting customers and improving results.
However, manually conducting A/B tests can be time-consuming. You need to set up variations, track data, and analyze the results.
Automating this activity offers a solution by using tools that streamline the testing process. It saves time, optimizes marketing efforts, and improves conversion rates.
17. Landing Page Optimization
To attract more visitors, you need to improve your webpage and encourage your visitors to take action, like making a purchase or signing up. A well-optimized landing page can significantly increase conversions and sales.
Testing different layouts, headlines, or images and analyzing visitor behavior can be overwhelming.
You can automate these activities by using tools that streamline the optimization process. Find tools with features to create custom landing pages and track performance metrics.
18. Drip Campaigns
Drip campaigns are a series of emails sent to customers over time. It’s a process of sending a sequence of automated emails to nurture leads or engage customers. This helps keep your brand in front of customers by guiding them and building relationships.
With automation, you can set up a sequence of emails that are triggered by specific actions, like signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or showing interest in a particular product.
By automating this process, you can efficiently nurture leads, send targeted messages, and build stronger connections with your audience, ultimately increasing conversions and boosting your business’s success.
Engagement and Feedback Tasks
19. Surveys and Feedback
Asking customers about their experiences with your business is a great marketing move. It’s a way to listen to their thoughts, opinions, and suggestions.
This marketing activity is vital because it helps you understand what your customers like or dislike, allowing you to improve your products or services based on their feedback.
However, collecting and managing feedback manually can be time-consuming. Luckily, some tools gather, organize, and analyze feedback for you. These tools can save you time, gather valuable insights, and streamline the feedback process.
20. Social Media Listening
Tuning into what people say about your business online involves tracking conversations, mentions, and comments across various social platforms.
This marketing activity is essential because it helps you understand how people perceive your brand, what they like, and what they don’t.
Make use of tools that can sort through numerous conversations and keep track of trends. By doing so, you save time, capture valuable insights, and keep updated on your brand’s online reputation.
21. Cart Abandonment Emails
Cart abandonment emails are messages sent to shoppers who leave items in their online shopping cart without completing the purchase. It’s a gentle reminder for them to come back and finish buying.
Many shoppers abandon carts for various reasons, such as distractions or uncertainty. These emails aim to re-engage customers and encourage them to complete their purchases.
Manually sending personalized emails to each abandoned cart can be tedious. Employ tools that can track abandoned carts, draft emails, and send them automatically.
22. Customer Support Ticketing
Having a system to manage and address customer inquiries and issues is a big help to your business
This marketing activity is crucial because it ensures customers get timely assistance, resolves their concerns, and fosters positive relationships.
However, as your business grows, sorting through requests, assigning them, and keeping track of responses might become more difficult. Automating this activity offers a solution by using tools that centralize customer inquiries, assign tickets, and streamline responses.
23. Reputation Management
Taking care of how people see and talk about your business ensures it is seen in a positive light. This marketing activity is crucial because what people say about your business affects how others perceive it.
Positive reviews and comments can attract more customers, while negative ones can turn people away.
To automate this task, find apps and tools that help you monitor reviews, comments, and mentions across various platforms. Protect your brand’s credibility by using the tools mentioned below.
24. Influencer Outreach
If you’re seriously looking to boost your brand’s presence, you have to collaborate with influencers in your niche.
Using automation to handle influencer outreach makes this task a lot easier. For example, you can set up a system that sends personalized emails to influencers you want to work with. This way, you can reach out to a lot of people quickly and not miss anyone.
Automating follow-up emails also keeps the conversation going without you having to remember to send each email yourself. This makes the whole process more efficient and lets you focus on other important marketing tasks.
25. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a big part of how businesses reach more people online. It involves collaborating with affiliates – individuals or companies who promote your products or services in exchange for a commission on sales.
When you automate marketing tasks in affiliate marketing, it makes everything much smoother. Let’s say you have a lot of affiliates. Keeping track of their sales and making sure they get paid the right amount can be a lot of work.
With automation, this all happens on its own. The system keeps track of sales and works out how much each affiliate should be paid. This means fewer mistakes and more time for you to focus on other parts of your business. Overall, it saves time, reduces errors, and lets you see how well your affiliates are doing in real-time.
20 Tools to Automate Marketing Tasks
The internet is full of amazing tools that can automate marketing tasks and improve how visitors find your site. Not only that, it can directly boost your site’s traffic and improve the likelihood that a sale is made.
Here are some of the best tools to automate marketing tasks for any site:
1. HubSpot
HubSpot is essentially an all-in-one management tool that can automate marketing tasks for your business. From content to customer relations management, HubSpot is one of the best tools around.
It connects your marketing, sales, and content marketing teams in a single platform, making it easy to view everything from one tool. It also helps automate the connections between these teams, to help teams work together easier.
HubSpot can even utilize AI to help automize your marketing leads. For example, let’s say you generate a lead and get their email. The AI can register that email, schedule an email to be sent, generate the email to target that lead, and send it.
When it comes to marketing, HubSpot continues to be one of the best options available.
2. Quark
Quark is among the most long-lasting platforms on the Internet. Back in the 1990s, it was the go-to software for setting up magazines and such. Nowadays, it helps automate a lot of design elements to help you succeed.
This includes page layouts, digital publishing, and photo editing. You can even create modules using their exclusive tools like a Microsoft Word add-on for more authoring options when it comes to writing content.
And if you are more interested in content automation, Quark is betting on AI. It is used to automate simple processes inside of the content creation process to help you save time. The AI can make term recommendations, complete your sentences, and more.
3. Later
Later is a social media management tool that lets you plan and schedule social posts with ease. Complete with content creation, caption writing, and the use of a mobile app, you can keep your socials active with little effort on the go.
Social media has become a powerful tool for websites to take advantage of, but due to the sheer number of platforms to use, it can take a lot of time to create unique content for each. That’s where Later comes in with its post-automation.
You can create your posts in advance and Later will take care of the rest and automatically post them on the date you set. It also makes hashtag recommendations, locates user-generated content you can use, and more automatically.
4. Sprout Social
Sprout Social is another excellent choice to automate social media posts. It comes with large-scale data collection in addition to supporting the most popular sites. This helps you identify what is working best and where you need to double down.
This information can help you take automation tools to the next level. For example, analytics can help you uncover when your audience is most active on social media and can use that data to schedule posts for peak hours.
Another form of automation would be its chatbots. Your business is likely to receive messages from users, and a chatbot can be used to reply to them and collect data for your agents to respond to. It’s a great choice, to say the least.
5. CoSchedule
If you need an all-in-one for marketing, CoSchedule is among the most popular. The tool is focused on scheduling content across multiple platforms from your site to social media posts.
Naturally, it has automation tools that you can choose from to help with content creation. Mia, your AI co-pilot is the biggest standout feature. This AI assistant will help you keep track of your workflow, make recommendations to you, and more.
It also has plenty of other automation features like headline generation, email subject lines, TikTok captions, and much more. It’s a great all-in-one solution for adding automation to your marketing campaigns.
6. AWeber
You may have heard that email marketing is dead, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Email marketing continues to be one of the best investments for marketing teams around the world with one of the highest ROIs available.
Email templates, quick drag-and-drop builder, and email automation are all part of AWeber. Using the data offered, you can see what email campaigns work and which ones don’t.
Automating emails is great. It can detect an abandoned cart and send out a follow-up email reminding them about the cart. And that’s just one possibility. It also boasts a huge selection of integration options with over 750 tools to choose from.
7. Pipeline
Many businesses operate as an online store or have an online store component to their business. As such, the sales process is critical for their operations, and naturally, several tools can help you streamline and automate the process effectively.
Pipeline is one such platform. It is a sales solution service that offers everything from identifying lead sources to customizable stats to track customers during the sales process. It is also compatible with popular business tools like QuickBooks.
Pipeline helps automate the sales process by recommending the next step to sales staff that should be taken to increase the chance of a sale and increase the number of items that are purchased when a sale is made.
8. LeadSquared
LeadSquared is a full management solution to help automate marketing tasks. It’ll automate lead captures, help with lead distribution, include a built-in dialer, and provide over 135 reports to help you build winning strategies.
The tool is built to handle a variety of site archetypes from higher education to manufacturing and everything in between. If you have a product or service to sell, LeadSquared can help you reach your target audience.
It has several automation tools like WhatsApp automated responses for new inquiries, creates automatic chat communications segments using a drag-and-drop editor, campaign builders, and much more.
9. Brevo
CRM or Customer Relationship Management software is integral to building a relationship with your customers. By doing so, you can further monetize their interactions and build brand loyalty by understanding their needs and delivering on them.
Brevo has a lot of tools at its disposal including lead scoring. You can also create cross-channel campaigns quickly, automate messages to bring back inactive customers, and much more. It is a great choice in the CRM market.
The automation tools are great at delivering messages when they are most likely to be read and have the highest impact based on previous user behavior. If you’re looking to boost sales and build loyal customers, Brevo is a great choice.
10. ActiveCampaign
The ActiveCampaign platform is a relatively popular choice for many reasons. While it helps with lead scoring, it also comes with a feature-full management interface to create everything from landing pages to forms.
And when it comes to its marketing toolset, it offers a variety of automation options for users to take advantage of. For example, you can create a follow-up workflow that can dictate when emails should be sent and if a sales team member should contact the user or not.
Or you can use the classic and send an email to users who abandon their cart. There are a lot of options for automating marketing efforts that can help drive up your sales. Ultimately, ActiveCampaign is an excellent choice for boosting sales with targeted automation.
11. Mailchimp
One of the most popular automated email platforms on the Internet is Mailchimp. However, it goes far beyond just an email system as it can also help with content creation, marketing automation, and can easily integrate with most CMS.
It even offers free support for the first month to help you get started with email marketing, which is why it is the go-to solution for email marketing. Naturally, it is feature-loaded and includes tons of templates you can use to get started.
The real shining feature this tool offers comes from its automation. Using AI, you can detect the best time to send an email to individual customers, what terms are most effective, and much more. MailChimp is popular for a reason, so give it a try.
12. OptinMonster
Email marketing is one of the best options for marketing teams to focus on. While there are several ways to grow a subscriber list, one of the simplest is to just ask your users if they would like to subscribe.
That’s where OptinMonster comes into play. This tool focuses on allowing you to create impactful opt-in messages to entice users to sign up. And you don’t even have to start from scratch as the service includes over 100 templates.
You can even automate the system to display an opt-in message based on user behavior. For instance, if someone is about to leave your page, it can display a pop-up message asking you to subscribe as a last-ditch effort.
13. Keap
Keap is another excellent tool when you want to optimize and automate your email marketing campaign to potential leads. Once a lead has been found, you can create a workflow for the tool to follow.
For example, you could do something like send them a welcome email, then a follow-up email showing off your product or service, and based on how that goes either stop the emails or have your sales team contact the customer.
Once you build your workflow, the tool will execute it for you automatically, thus it becomes a case of set it and forget it. That said, you should pay attention to the analytics to see what works and what doesn’t.
14. Google Ads
When it comes to marketing your business, there is no comparison to building an advertising campaign with Google Ads. Google is the most powerful company in the world when it comes to targeted ad delivery with unparalleled reach and insight.
It can zone in on your target audience and deliver ads to them on most websites. As a customer, you simply sign up for the service, purchase the number of ads you want to display, and decide what your target audience is.
After that, the ads are delivered automatically over the period you purchased. When it comes to automating marketing efforts, nothing beats a Google Ads campaign, so be sure to create one.
15. Tableau
One of the most underestimated aspects of marketing is the research. Many beginners make the mistake of immediately building a campaign without understanding their target audience, or even knowing who their target audience is.
This is a colossal mistake as this information is the backbone of a successful marketing campaign. Many tools can help you with this, but Tableau is one of the best. It utilizes AI technology to help create insights from the data it collects.
Thus, unlike other tools where you just see raw data, Tableau gives you an idea of how you can use the data effectively as a marketing team. Research is the first and most important step when it comes to marketing, so don’t underestimate it.
16. Meta Business Manager
While Google is the king of advertising, it is fair to say that Meta is probably the next most important. Meta controls two of the most influential social media networks Facebook and Instagram and leverages that data to deliver targeted ads.
Naturally, any business can take advantage of this and build an ad campaign, and when it comes to doing this, the Meta Business Manager is the tool you will be using. It allows you to choose your audience and deliver ads to them automatically across their platforms.
What might make this even more effective than Google Ads, is the fact that happy customers may just share their findings with their followers, thus giving you free advertising all by itself.
17. Salesforce
For online businesses that focus on selling goods and services, it can be a nightmare for your departments to work together seamlessly. That’s where Salesforce comes into play. It can unite all of your departments to help them work efficiently.
Salesforce leverages AI to help identify and guide your agents into making sales. It analyzes the data collected from your business and customer base and helps agents close deals more consistently.
Naturally, it is compatible with most business tools you will use; thus, integration is a cinch. The best news is that you can start using Salesforce for free thanks to a great free trial. This gives you time to see if it is right for you.
18. SurveyMonkey
While collecting data has become incredibly easy over the years, that doesn’t mean that some of the older tactics are obsolete. In the past, if stores wanted to learn more about customers, they would conduct surveys.
And when it comes to creating surveys, no one does it better than SurveyMonkey. This service specializes in creating surveys from scratch for distribution to your user base. The information can be used to identify what users want and how you can improve.
The surveys can be delivered automatically based on user behavior or just placed in exact positions like at the end of a post or after a checkout has been completed. If you want to hear your customer’s thoughts, SurveyMonkey can help.
19. Zoho CRM
Zoho has so many awesome tools that can help with marketing but today we are just focusing on Zoho CRM. It leverages your customer information and habits to help you build effective campaigns and automate marketing tasks.
With it, you can build a full workflow for your staff to utilize with many steps like sending out follow-up emails being fully automated. Another example would be replying to them on social media after a purchase is made.
This way, you can potentially reach more customers who see the post. You’ll also have no problem integrating this CRM software with your existing business apps, as it supports over 800 integration options.
20. WalkMe
Closing out this list is WalkMe. This tool is designed to analyze your workflow and determine where your workflow is falling apart, how to improve it, and which applications you use are being utilized correctly.
It has become very common for businesses to purchase or subscribe to services that they don’t use, or at the very least, don’t use well. Yet, the business is still paying for them. This is all done by utilizing AI to analyze the data.
Not only does it show you which software is being used, but which departments are using the, and what the main features they use are. This can help you downgrade plans, so you only pay for what you need.
FAQs on How to Automate Marketing Tasks
Marketing automation improves the customer experience by sending personalized messages at the right time, streamlining interactions, and making sure that customers are consistently engaged across all touchpoints.
Because sales cycles are often complicated, customer journeys are unique, and leads need to be nurtured, marketing automation is often very helpful in e-commerce, B2B, and SaaS.
Adopting secure data practices, getting clear consent, and regularly checking processes to make sure they follow rules like GDPR are all ways to protect data privacy and compliance.
Ongoing maintenance like regularly cleaning up data, improving workflows, and keeping up with tool updates and industry trends helps ensure that the system stays useful and effective.
Marketing automation helps increase ROI and conversion rates by streamlining processes, making it easier to nurture leads, and sending messages that are relevant and interesting to the audience.
All business sizes will greatly benefit from marketing automation as long as you can set up your systems effectively.
Personalization in automated marketing lets you send customized messages, use dynamic content, and make sure that each customer has a unique experience, which builds stronger relationships and more engagement.
Automate Marketing Tasks To Optimize Your Business
The future of marketing is digital and automated. From email marketing to social media posts, automation is not just a luxury; it’s a necessity for efficiency and growth.
Automating these marketing tasks doesn’t mean losing the personal touch that’s so crucial to connecting with customers. With the right tools and approach, automation can help personalize your marketing, making each customer interaction more meaningful and impactful.
Embrace the power of technology to transform your marketing efforts and drive your business forward. Start automating your marketing tasks today and watch your business grow!