Free marketing automation software is a platform used by businesses and marketers to automate email marketing, social media posting, sales engagement and other marketing tasks. The software makes it easier for marketing teams to seamlessly perform their work even if they have multiple projects lined up.
As processes are automated, this type of software cuts time spent in completing relevant tasks. These include email marketing, social media posting and sales engagement. It can also help increase and convert leads, which is one of the major goals of marketing campaigns.
Likewise, integration is an integral factor of marketing automation software. As such, it is a central system where different marketing departments and marketers join forces and collaborate.
Startups and medium-sized enterprises benefit the most from free marketing automation software since most of them do not have enough manpower or resources. The free platforms are often comprehensive and provide everything needed to conduct proper marketing processes.
HubSpot is a comprehensive marketing and sales automation tool that covers a vast array of features and capabilities. The software can be used to carry out, track and measure all your online marketing activities such as blogging, email marketing and social media marketing.
Most free solutions come with the features that are most needed by your business. Even if the software is a free version, the standard features and add-ons can be essential in helping you accomplish your marketing tasks in the most convenient way possible.
There are many types of free marketing automation software, all of which focus on different areas of marketing processes.
Marketing automation tools for internal tasks are what you use for streamlining tasks that need to be done by members of your team. The tools allow everyone to coordinate with each other easily. These marketing tools assist you and your team in accomplishing tasks related to project management and customer support. They’re also useful for improving personal or individual productivity.
Marketing automation tools for external processes are important for properly and efficiently communicating with clients and prospects. Likewise, these tools are used for content dissemination, as well as for products and services delivery.
These external tools are what most businesses and marketers spend a lot of money on. They use these for email marketing automation and for other tasks related to email marketing.
Some platforms available are also similar to CRM platforms in their features and capabilities:
Automation planning tools are essential for planning your campaign strategy. Some examples that businesses often use are digital workflow builders and mind mapping tools. The central software will allow you to share files and workloads with your team, making it easier for all of you to work on your strategies seamlessly.
Automation tools for social media will guide you and your team in ensuring a successful marketing campaign using Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. They offer features for posting, curating and responding to messages or comments on various social media networks. Likewise, monitoring the number of tweets or mentions of your business or brand on Twitter and Facebook is also possible.
Automated analytics tools allow you to monitor and track the performance of your website, all your assets and your marketing campaigns as a whole. Most marketing automation platforms, including the free ones, include this feature. Normally, you will be provided with a code for tracking webpage/website activity.
Central marketing command area tools integrate a variety of marketing tools so you and your team can coordinate, share and exchange data and communicate with each other. As such, you’ll be made aware of whatever action is happening in the platforms you are connected to.
There are also key features that should be included in your platform of choice, including:
The software uses particular criteria for scoring leads, including the customer's and prospects’ behaviors and demographics. It also uses their interaction history for identifying and getting leads.
Free email automation tools connect businesses and marketers with their audiences by sending out mass emails. The tools allow you to choose from a set of templates for your newsletters and emails.
The software acts as a smart form; it gathers customer and prospect information by analyzing their actions on the website. All captured data is then used for creating customer and prospect profiles.
This is specifically for your prospects only. The software will collect relevant information like the number of webpage visits and clicks and downloads on emails. These leads will then be sent to a central customer relations database, where they will be analyzed and segmented according to profile. This is essential for lead generation.
Collected leads are forwarded to a CRM database. Sales teams will be able to work more efficiently as a result of this.
Most free marketing automation platforms do not require you to have technical skills. Using a WYSIWYG editor, you and your team can personalize and create simple landing pages using a website builder. You can make them as interactive and engaging as you want them to be.
Free marketing automation software allows you to establish and develop good relations with your customers and prospects through lead management. This can be done by making use of your email list and regularly sending emails to those listed there. This will not only help inform them about your product or brand but also give you the chance to establish trust.
Analytics coming from your visitors’ website activities will give you an idea about what they want or how you can increase their interest in your business, as well as data that gives you information on what you like most about your product or brand.
A large number of your customers and prospects are probably more comfortable using their smartphones and tablets, so free marketing automation tools are optimized to work on mobile devices. As such, you can send emails that are optimized for mobile devices. Your landing pages will also be as visually pleasing on smartphones and tablets since your automation tool is mobile interactive.
All these features are available in most free marketing automation tools. HubSpot, for example, offers a free marketing tools package that comes with the most essential features for the success of your campaigns. Free HubSpot marketing features include email marketing, analytics, social media integration, contact management, live chat and forms, among others.
There are many benefits for businesses of all sizes when using free marketing automation software, including:
When using free marketing automation software correctly and efficiently, your business can benefit greatly. First off, since the entire process is automated, errors will be minimized and potentially eliminated. Secondly, it will improve efficiency as teams can manage tasks and processes between them better.
Likewise, the marketing tool will improve communication with your team and with your customers and prospects as well. This will help you work better together; especially since everything you need to successfully run your marketing campaigns are included, email marketing and lead generation being the two most important ones.
The greatest benefit free marketing automation software can offer your business is higher marketing and sales success rate. When this type of software is used properly, more positive conversion rates can lead to profits.
Best of all, free marketing automation tools can complete even the most complicated tasks for even the smallest of businesses. The simplification of certain processes and tasks ensures that marketing teams can focus on more important tasks and not waste time and resources on previously time-consuming tasks.
When used effectively, Free marketing automation software can help businesses of all sizes improve marketing processes and automate tasks as well as assist with the creation of more engaging marketing campaigns.