With marketing being crucial for business success, entrepreneurs constantly look for innovations that could potentially optimize their operations. The solution is presented by technology, which allows automating a major portion of repetitive tasks, reducing the time spent on their completion.
With the help of solutions like email marketing management software, CRM automatic, or even something as simple as an event planning app, the marketing team might focus on curating a powerful message to your customers, increasing the marketing campaign efficiency and effectiveness.
Marketing automation is a necessity for each company – as your business keeps growing with the increasing number of potential customers, your marketing team’s capacity to manage 1:1 connections with manual tools becomes limited.
Currently, the market offers numerous tools that can streamline processes such as email marketing, lead generation, behavioral tracking, performance monitoring, and many more. As such, they can be useful for any kind of operations connected with an audience, be it an advertising campaign or government relations.
If you are looking for new solutions to push for the growth of your business in 2022, here are some of the best products that you can use this year.
HubSpot Marketing Hub
Being an inbound marketing software, HubSpot offers a wide variety of tools, making it one of the most well-known platforms for businesses. Aside from providing top-class marketing automation solutions, HubSpot creates opportunities for development through courses and certifications, where you can learn from experts. Additionally, any confusion or problems might be resolved with the help of 24/7 customer support.
With the abundance of features, the platform might be a little complicated and difficult to use at first. Still, HubSpot has been working over the recent years to simplify its product by creating a no-coding-required environment in which marketers may focus on the creation rather than technicalities.
Features:
- CRM
- Free email marketing tools
- Blogging tools
- Social media management
- SEO and content strategy applications
- Ad tracking and management
- A/B testing
Pricing
HubSpot comes in 4 packages – the Free Package, the Starter Package, The Professional Package, and the Enterprise Package. Depending on which you choose, you will be offered a different set of features.
The free package includes HubSpot’s CRM tool and a basic set of website features, but people with serious interest in marketing automation should look at the paid resources starting at $50/month in the case of the Starter Package. For the Professional Package, it is $800/month, and for the Enterprise Package – $3,200/month.
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Adobe Marketo Engage
Another software with a strong reputation, Adobe Marketo Engage offers a wide range of solutions, including marketing automation, lead management, email marketing, analytics, and more. It is praised for being intuitive and easy to use and also has a large and active community, which can be especially helpful for new users. It is also a flexible software as you may purchase separate products for marketing automation.
However, there have been reports of Adobe Marketo Engage being a little slow at times. What is more, analytics and reporting features may leave something to wish for, and they need additional extensions. Some also complain about steep jumps in pricing between different tiers of the software. Despite all of that, Adobe Marketo Engage remains one of the leaders in marketing software.
Features:
- CRM integration
- Lead management
- Ad targeting
- Email and social marketing tools
- Mobile engagement
- Content AI
- Web personalization
- Program and Campaign Analysis
- Anonymous Retargeting
Pricing
Marketo does not provide information about exact prices, and to learn more, you will have to contact the sales team. Currently, the software is divided into four plans – Jumpstart, Select, Prime, and Ultimate.
Generally speaking, though, Marketo’s prices are quite high, so if you do not plan to make use of all the tools available, it might be better to look for less expensive software. Still, it is not the most expensive option on the market, which means it is an ideal tool for medium-sized businesses with a hundred or so employees.
ActiveCampaign
Perfect for smaller businesses, ActiveCampaign is an easy and intuitive tool whose strength lies in marketing automation which is considered one of the best on the market. By integrating email marketing, marketing automation, CRM, and account management solutions, you may curate a personalized experience and bring your marketing strategy to the next level. What is more, you will be able to gain valuable insights from reporting, including page visits, geo-tracking, openers, eCommerce, and more.
ActiveCampaign is an advanced tool, and you will need time to familiarize yourself with all the features. Unfortunately, there is no free plan available and the free trial is only 14 days which may be a little too short to familiarize yourself with the software before making the decision. Moreover, sometimes it can become a little laggy with big automation.
Features:
- Built-in CRM
- Built-in automation goals and drop-off patterns
- Site and visitor tracking tools
- Spam-and-design-testing
- Bounce management
- Blocklist
- Integration options such as PayPal, Shopify, Google Analytics
- Monitor apps, memberships, and portal interactions
- Event tracking
- Test all customized content for automation
Pricing
ActiveCampaign is available in four plans – Lite, Plus, Professional, and Enterprise, and the price depends on the number of contacts you have. With a minimum of 500 contacts, the prices start at $9 per month for the Lite version, $49 for the Plus, $149 for the Professional, and $259 for the Enterprise. With higher numbers, ActiveCampaigns allows creating a customized plan that fits the needs of your company.
In Conclusion
As a business owner, you know that marketing is the key to success, as it is your responsibility to nurture your audience and make them aware of what you do. In order to accomplish this goal, you need an effective strategy, and automation tools will help you achieve that.
With the rapid development of technology, there are plenty of new tools that are designed to simplify marketing processes and boost your business. However, with so many options available, it is hard to choose the right one. Hopefully, this article will help you to narrow down your search.
Pay attention to the features that you want to see in the software and choose the one that meets your needs. At the same time, try to keep in mind that pricing may be crucial for some companies, so try to find a balance between price and quality.