Benefits of Marketing Automation in E-commerce, Monogo E-commerce News, 41
Definition
Let's start with what content marketing automation in e-commerce is. This term refers to the use of technological tools in optimising various aspects of the content creation and distribution process. In short, we plug in various tools to automate parts of the customer experience process.
Why is this important?
Anything that involves manual work that a human does (I don't even know if a human can't do that…) also consumes time. And time is crucial, because besides the obvious cost, there is something else that in my opinion is more important. To meet a deadline. In the case of content marketing, sending the message to the customer at the right moment is crucial. Because an offer that arrives too late will not generate sales. That's why you need tools that automate parts of the entire service process to serve a customer who browses your shop at their convenience, not when you're working.
In essence, there are four main pillars of e-commerce content marketing that need attention.
- content preparation
- content distribution
- personalisation
- analytics
Each of these areas can be automated in part. Yes, in part, because full automation makes no sense. Human involvement, at least at this stage of technology development, is necessary.
To be sure you need to see the numbers? No problem. Research by Shopify says that around 20% of customers click on an email sent after an abandoned cart and 11% make a purchase. Find out how much those 11% of abandoned baskets might be worth with you. I bet it's worth looking into.
Where to start?
Depending on where you are in your content marketing automation, I always recommend the small steps method. If you are at the beginning of the journey, then start by sending a welcome email to your customers. Send from software that allows you to track clicks. You will then know how effective your content is. After a while, you can use the A/B testing function and prepare several versions of this email to see how many people click on which version.
The next steps depend on your business and existing processes. And the implementation company. Because implementing tools of this class requires an experienced partner. Although it is a necessity in today's reality, I do not recommend implementing it yourself. By doing so, you will avoid many of the problems that the implementation company has probably already gone through.
Best e-commerce content marketing automation software
The short answer is, there is no one tool that can be said to be the best. All areas of an e-commerce business, are so broad that companies that focus on a narrow area will always offer more options and capabilities in their software because they only do that one thing.
Let me start by giving you examples of the tools I have been exposed to in my work. Of course, this is a subjective list, so it may look different in your case. What I want to do is give you a starting point from which to guide your selection process for the best software for your organisation.
An e-commerce engine is none other than Adobe Commerce (Magento). It offers a free version and a paid version. It's a very mature software that not only has a lot of options, but also has a software giant behind it for a living. This provides a sense of security that Magento will not disappear from the market. Adobe Commerce has another huge advantage that may not be noticed at first. It is part of the Adobe Experience Cloud suite. A set of tools that allow you to automate many e-commerce processes. The best example is personalisation. Despite a certain price to pay for a licence, you can't go wrong with Adobe.
CRM, is another block that is or could be relevant to you. At Monogo, we use Zoho CRM. This is, again, a mature tool that allows you to automate processes without the need to involve IT. Will it work well for B2C? Of course, because it has quite a few options for BOK, complaints, quoting and segmentation.
Campaigns and marketing automation (email, SMS, etc.). Once the customer is there, you can start communicating with them. The aforementioned Adobe Experience Cloud offers several programmes that will take care of this area. If, on the other hand, you want to look in another direction, Zoho also offers this possibility. In addition, there are other options such as, mailchimp or hubspot.
When we think of analytics the first thing that comes to mind is Google Analytics. However, this is not the only option we have. Because there is also Adobe Analytics. Admittedly paid from the outset, but one that offers huge possibilities for automation, due to its use of Adobe Sensei (AI from Adobe). It's also Google Analytics' biggest competitor.
Content creation and distribution. CMS (Content Management System) class systems are responsible for creation. To begin with, the free wordpress will work, but over time, this will be quite a limitation. It is better to choose something that allows you to create and distribute content to different channels right from the start. At Monogo, we have relied on two solutions. Builder.io and Adobe Experience Manager. I will admit that builder.io is more popular with our clients. This is because it is more modern and fully headless. On top of that, the price per licence is much lower than with Adobe.
Distribution, on the other hand, depends on several factors. Publishing to social networks can be automated by scheduling publications for a specific day and time. My preference is for solutions that give you the ability to upload posts to all social media, not just a selection. This is why we use Zoho. Other channels should easily be addressed by a CMS to start with.
Key takeaways:
- Content Marketing Automation is the use of technology tools to automate some of the processes involved in content creation, distribution, personalisation and analytics.
- Studies show that content marketing automation increases conversions, e.g. by eliminating abandoned shopping carts by around 11% in the case of the Shopify platform.
- Depending on your budget, you will find many content marketing automation solutions on the market. These range from free or low-budget licences to professional tools such as Adobe Experience Cloud (Adobe Commerce, Adobe Target, Adobe Analytics, etc.).
- It is worth checking for your needs what tools will work best. Sometimes buying a bundle will be of less value than several licenses, but such software that focuses on one thing.
- Start your foray into Content Marketing Automation in small steps, learn, change and improve the automations you already have in place.
Sources:
- https://medium.com/startup-stash/the-7-must-have-ecommerce-marketing-automations-a203b745491e
- https://www.ecommerce-nation.com/content-marketing-automation-benefits/
- https://www.ecommerce-nation.com/ecommerce-marketing-automation/