The marketing automation market could double by 2025. If your company doesn’t have a solution in place, this is the time to get on the bandwagon or get left behind.
Is marketing automation on your priority list this quarter? The newest research says that if it’s not, you’re about to be left behind. Right now, the market for marketing automation solutions stands at a lucrative $2.58 billion,and it’s only expected to grow from there.
Last week, Frost & Sullivan published a bold prediction that the marketing automation solutions (MAS) market could see serious growth in the next five years up to 50%.While this marketing has been affected by the COVID-19 global pandemic, like every other industry, it’s still one of the top four investment priorities for all enterprises.
Data is increasingly important to understanding the customer experience and improving marketing impact and ROI. It’s only going to become more essential over the coming years as marketing automation grows more and more ubiquitous among business tech stacks.
How demand is growing for marketing automation
The Frost & Sullivan report is named Post-Pandemic Growth Opportunity Analysis of the MAS Market, and it predicts marketing automation industry growth over the next five years according to two scenarios:
- The aspirational forecast: COVID-19 is contained by August 2020. The global market recovers by the end of 2020.
- The conservative forecast: COVID-19 is not contained until a vaccine is developed. The global market recovers in 18 to 24 months after the development of a vaccine. The total cycle leading to market recovery could take 36 months.
If global market recovery follows the aspirational forecast, then Frost & Sullivan expect MAS to reach $6.21 billion by 2025.That’s a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.7%over a period of five years, or over 50% growth overall.
On the other hand, if the global markets follow the conservative forecast, the MAS industry could reach $3.62 billion by 2025 with a 5.8% CAGR.
Why marketers are turning to MAS en masse
Marketers are using marketing automation more than ever because the data shows it works. Regardless of the COVID-19 forecast, Big Data is more important than ever, and automation is the best way to harness it. Simply using a MAS is linked to a 14% increase in sales productivity and 12% drop in marketing overhead costs.
But that’s not all. These statistics from Invesp illustrate the benefits that marketers reap from using marketing automation:
- 91% of marketers say their MAS is a very important factor in their marketing performance
- 4 out of 5 MAS users saw an increase in leads
- 77% of MAS users saw an increase in conversions
According to Invesp, the most common reasons marketers turn to MAS include:
- Improving qualified leads (92%)
- Customer retention (81%)
- Nurturing leads (66%)
Plus, Marketta found that marketing automation provides significantly more pipeline, more sales productivity, and more revenue, which translates to more ROI.
Consumer data is more available than ever
Part of the reason for the marketing automation hype is the growing availability of consumer data. It’s increasingly common for consumers to use chatbots or online channels to connect with your brand, and it’s almost unheard-of for those channels to lack data collection.
Chatbots are growing fast. By 2021, 85% of customer interactions are expected to occur through a chatbot channel. Over 25,500 consumers use a chatbot each month,and virtually all of those interactions utilized data collection.
In 2020, most chatbots integrate with marketing automation. The prevalence of chatbots is still driving the rise of consumer data collection, opening more opportunities and channels for customer engagement.
But that’s not all. Other sources of consumer data include:
- Customer service records
- Purchase histories
- Location-based advertising
- Social listening
- Surveys
What’s driving MAS market growth over the next 5 years?
At first glance, it may seem surprising that marketing automation could grow 50% by 2025 given the global pandemic. With a closer look, it makes perfect sense that this is the golden age of MAS. Here’s why:
- Marketing automation products are more user-friendly than ever: For the first time, Big Data is available to marketers who aren’t also experts at data analysis. Most businesses can benefit from MAS without having to hire a data expert.
- Marketing is more data-dependent than ever: Successful marketing campaigns start with data. That’s been true since the first days of digital marketing, but deeper data is far more accessible now.
- Integrations are more common than not: Some enterprises held off on marketing automation because the solutions didn’t always integrate with CRM systems and other critical parts of the customer lifecycle management process. Today, it’s rare to find systems that don’t integrate with MAS.
- MAS is the gold standard for data collection and analysis: MAS is the only all-in solution for collecting and analyzing massive amounts of consumer data. And in 2020, it’s impossible to run a successful marketing campaign without using consumer data in some form.
It’s easier than ever to use MAS, and the benefits are too great to ignore. Over the next 5 years, expect to see the rest of the marketing world come on board.
Adopt these marketing automation practices now, not later
Marketers who want the most benefit from a MAS should start adopting it now. Customer relationships are increasingly data-driven from the pipeline forward. You can start those relationships on the right foot by following a few best practices:
- A/B test marketing strategies by sending different content to customers based on their data profile
- Develop customer personas that are more detailed and closer to your real-life ideal customer
- Personalize offers based on your audience’s unique interests
- Nurture the right leads by identifying ROI throughout the customer lifecycle and following up on the ones that are ready to convert
- Streamline engagement marketing by tracking customer behavior and tying it to their wants and needs
- Track ROI by automatically collecting information on content performance, campaigns, and more
This is only a glimpse of what you can accomplish by implementing a MAS. The possibilities are endless, but these practices are a good place to start for marketers who are new to marketing automation. (You’re not alone: Invesp says that 27% of businesses consider themselves new to MAS despite its growing popularity.)
Driving human connectivity with data is the gold standard going forward. At BDEX, our data marketplace makes it simple to explore our quality-scored data and find the perfect audience. Contact us today at BDEX to learn how our data can nurture your customer connections.
