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B2B marketing is a full-time task that requires a lot of planning and dedication. If you can find ways to make your work (or the work of your marketing team) a little bit easier, you should grab them with both hands. Overworked and stressed-out marketers everywhere will agree that tools and methods that make their work less complex can make them more productive.

That’s why B2B marketing automation is so popular and recommended for marketing teams. If you don’t know what marketing automation is or how it works, stick around because we’ll be taking a closer look at it in this article.

We’ll also discuss how much is enough for a good B2B website because it really isn’t necessary for marketers to segment email audiences by hand when there are automation tools that can do it for them, faster.

What Is B2B Marketing Automation?

It can be a bit challenging to come up with a definition for B2B marketing automation. This is because it’s not static and is constantly changing. You can think of it as tools and software used to make certain marketing tasks automated.  That way marketers don’t have to do them manually.

For example, it can be very time-consuming for marketers to sit down and schedule marketing activities like social media posts one by one. So instead, this process can be automated. Posts can be created and set for specific dates on which they’re automatically posted.

Marketing automation can save marketing teams a lot of time. It gives them opportunities to work on tasks that can’t be automated, such as creating dynamic ad campaigns.

How Much Marketing Automation Does Your B2B Website Need?

This is a question that will have a different answer depending on who is asking. No two B2B companies are the same, so there is no ‘one size fits all’ answer to how much automation will be enough for a B2B website.

The right amount of automation can be determined by making a list of goals after doing some reverse-engineering and finding the problem areas.

Examples of Marketing Automation

To better understand B2B marketing automation, let’s look at a few examples of it in action.

Automated Scheduling

We start with a relatively simple example of marketing automation in the form of automated scheduling. Reminders are commonly used to make sure we don’t forget important tasks or dates, and setting them up manually can lead to mistakes because we’re only human and we forget. That’s why we need reminders in the first place!

Automated scheduling can help your marketing team keep track of every task without the added stress of trying to remember every little thing.

This kind of scheduling can also be useful for important tasks such as posting content and social media posts. You’ll link an automated calendar with other forms of automation so all your scheduling is done effectively and efficiently.

You can use a tool like Calendy and add notifications to Google Calendar to stay on top of all scheduled tasks.

Automated Web Chat

This is one of the most common and popular forms of marketing automation. It’s one of the top spots for a reason—it can make a difference to the kind of customer service you deliver.

Automated web chat, better known as chatbots, can ‘talk’ to website visitors. It helps them find the information they need or answer some of their basic questions. They’re especially good at answering frequently-asked questions.

Chatbots are able to take care of many tedious tasks. This gives your customer service time to focus on more important and urgent work.

Also, many website visitors prefer talking to chatbots rather than real people, especially millennials. They feel that they have a much more positive experience with automated chats than with physical customer service personnel.

Social Media Automation

This is one of the most important B2B marketing automations that a business can add to its ‘toolbelt’. Social media marketing isn’t always easy to get right, especially when content needs planning for specific times on different channels. Replying to comments and messages can be difficult to keep up with as well.

With social media automation, these worries can be something of the past. It can get rather complicated with all the opportunities available to marketers, so working with a B2B marketing agency might be a good idea, at least until your team knows how to make the most of automation.

Lead Nurturing

Email marketing and lead nurturing are very important for B2B marketers, whose responsibility is to guide leads through the customer journey. Lead nurturing and email marketing often go hand-in-hand. This is because of how good this kind of marketing is at efficiently nurturing leads.

Emails are easy to personalize and easy to track, and when you add automation to the mix, email marketing becomes even more attractive.

You can build complex and comprehensive email marketing campaigns with automation, ensuring everything runs smoothly.

Lead Scoring

Although lead scoring can be a bit complicated, it’s the process of ranking leads and their sales readiness based on certain techniques. Giving leads numbers can make it easier to categorize and track them. That way, your marketing team can find it less difficult to get the right content in front of them.  Therefore, they’re encouraged to follow your sales funnel.

Effective and efficient lead scoring can take time. With automation, a lot of time and effort is saved to be spent somewhere else.

Automation can happen when certain actions by leads are complete. This includes clicking on links, downloading resources, visiting your website, and social media interactions.

Request a FREE B2B Business Consultation!

Choosing the best B2B marketing automation can feel daunting because there are so many options to choose from. If you’re feeling a little bit overwhelmed, let GoingClear guide you in the right direction.

Our team of world-class designers, developers, marketers, and strategists is located in Boston, MA, and consists of experts when it comes to all things B2B and how to grow your website and online business, so give them a call today for a free consultation!