What is Marketing Software? Analysis of Features, Benefits and Pricing

The success of every business relies heavily on a company’s ability to attract and retain customers. Doing so, however, requires utilizing a cluster of processes such as data gathering, campaign management, lead nurturing, and market analysis among others. This is where marketing software comes in.  

So, what is marketing software? The definition of marketing software refers to a compendium of systems designed to optimize the way businesses tap into their target market, execute campaigns, and convert leads into ROI. Ideal for companies of all sizes, this technology is useful for eliminating mundane tasks and maximizing your resources. While the cost of marketing software may be steep, it’s a worthwhile investment for those who want to expand their reach and concentrate more on other aspects of their business. Not only does this type of software reduce the amount of time and effort you spend on manual marketing techniques; it can also help you yield more profit as your business grows.

Beyond defining the software category, we’ll expound on the other aspects of marketing software. In this guide, you’ll learn its benefits, key features and issues, as well as get a few examples of marketing software.

Over the years, many surveys and studies have been conducted to monitor the efficacy of marketing software utilization. Among these a report noted that 54% of companies experienced an improvement in their campaigns through marketing software, while 37% attributed the increase in their sales to this technology. Likewise, a VB Insight study showed that 80% of marketing automation users saw an increase in leads upon implementing a software and 77% observed a growing number of conversions.

The questions to ask yourself now are “what is marketing software supposed to do for my business?” followed by “how will I know if it suits my company’s operations?” There are many of them available—from applications that let you manage different facets of your business operations with just a few clicks to specialized systems that target specific aspects of marketing. So, if you want to automate some of your processes, rest assured that there are options for your company.

Benefits of Marketing Software

Why use marketing software, you might ask. Whether you are looking for ways to better manage your marketing campaign, make the most out of your resources, or improve your lead nurturing process, having a good marketing software is a great way to improve your operations. Here are some of the advantages of marketing software:

1. Reduces Tedious Tasks. If we focus on the definition of marketing software, we should be able to conclude that it is meant to eliminate repetitive duties that take up a huge fraction of your daily routine. Tasks such as compiling your clients’ information, sending emails to your leads, and scheduling the posting of content can be time-consuming and while they are important, they leave you with little time to focus on tasks that demand your immediate, undivided attention. By utilizing content marketing systems, resource optimization programs, and other marketing software; you can eliminate the hassle of juggling everything manually, allowing you to delegate more important responsibilities to your staff.
2. Streamlines Marketing Efforts. Marketing campaigns require the simultaneous use of multiple channels to communicate with your target audience.  Marketing software solutions are designed to help you coordinate various programs in a single, easy-to-manage platform. This means you no longer have to jump from system to system to execute your campaign seamlessly. Most of these applications also offer a full suite of tools that let you manage content, nurture leads, and measure your campaign efforts accurately, promptly, and efficiently.
3. Improves Accountability. When it comes to monitoring or analyzing lead conversions and marketing campaigns, accountability plays an important role. With the use of marketing software, you can eliminate the risk of human error and make sure you get all the statistics you need at a glance.
4. Makes Customer Management Easier. Developing relationships with potential clients at each phase of the sales process is crucial to helping your business thrive. However, this is not as simple as convincing prospects to purchase products or keeping them posted on your offers. Attracting and retaining clientele are extensive processes wherein you must pinpoint the people who will most likely need your services, listen to their concerns, and respond to them on time every time they contact you. By using a CRM software or lead nurturing system, you can effortlessly schedule email campaigns, reply to leads promptly, build a better online presence, and keep tabs on current customers.
5. Document Progress Faster. Tracking your leads, resources, content, and campaign success rates may sound easy at first, but it won’t be as simple when you are dealing with multiple campaigns, handling hundreds of customers, and creating an extensive amount of content all at the same time. Using marketing systems, your company can become more agile in its varied campaign initiatives. You can quickly create accurate progress reports that help you assess the effectiveness of your strategies and determine how to improve them in the future.

Key Features of Marketing Software

The purpose of marketing software is to make the jobs of marketers simpler and faster. Over the years, marketing software systems have evolved to stay up-to-date with modern business and communication trends. They are comprised of extensive features that you can use and modify to suit the needs of your business. Still wondering–how does marketing software work? Read on to learn more about its features.

1. Real-Time Alerts. Quick response time is an important factor when it comes to closing deals. With real-time alerts offered by marketing software, you and your sales reps can engage leads more quickly and provide prompt assistance to your existing clientele. Some applications may even offer trigger response features to help you identify and act on your customers’ key life events and transaction patterns.
2. Lead Management. Marketing software can increase sales efficiency and optimize marketing campaigns through the management of leads. With this feature, you should be able to closely monitor and nurture more potential buyers with less difficulty. Lead management applications can also provide you with the necessary information to make personalizing sales outreach a breeze. Additionally, these programs have tools to let you track sales activity and find pipeline trends with just a few clicks.
3. Campaign Management. Creating comprehensive marketing schemes need not be complicated. With countless campaign management systems available, you can get easy access to plenty of integrations and tools to help you organize, track, and analyze the progress of your marketing efforts.
4. Social Media Automation. In the modern age, using social media websites has proven essential when it comes to understanding and interacting with your target market, but studying when and what to post can be demanding. If you wish to simplify this process, social media automation might be the solution for you. Aside from helping you navigate through networks, this feature can inform you about the best time to post, allow you to queue the publishing of your content, and alert you when your brand is mentioned online.
5. Email Marketing. Fast and cost-effective, emailing is one of the best ways to increase brand awareness and stay in touch with customers.  However, increasing its efficiency and measurability can be a handful, especially when you have plenty of leads and customers to take care of. By implementing an email marketing software, you can take out the hassle of having to manually sort and send emails and concentrate more on producing targeted messages that pique the interest of your clientele. Numerous programs also have tools to categorize your leads according to demographics and interests, so that you can prioritize certain groups in your email marketing campaign with relative ease.
6. Analytics. Making critical business decisions is a vital step towards improvement, but it must be backed by facts. A marketing software helps in facilitating data-driven decision-making process for your company through analytics solutions. Designed to help you monitor your campaigns and measure your ROI, this feature will collect data for you and present it in a comprehensible manner, so you can take well-informed measures in adjusting your campaigns.

Examples of Marketing Software

There is a plethora of programs available on the market that you can utilize for your business. Some examples of marketing software are:

HubSpot MarketingVISIT WEBSITE

Focusing heavily on content marketing initiatives, HubSpot Marketing is a great option for companies that wish to increase their website traffic and improve their online presence. Their system provides a wide variety of search engine optimization options, social media suggestions, and dynamic email marketing solutions. This marketing software also has features for Salesforce integration, lead nurturing, and event-based segmentation. Offering affordable software packages, HubSpot can be accessed on Windows and Mac as well as mobile devices, so you can check on your marketing initiatives wherever you may be. If you want to know more about the features you can easily sign up for a HubSpot Marketing free trial.

mondayVISIT WEBSITE

Billed a work OS, monday adapts to a variety of business processes including marketing. You can configure its project management interface to manage marketing campaings and creative projects. The software is also suitable for content calendar and event management use cases. You can easily use boards to visually track tasks and their progress or view tasks on Gantt chart, timeline or calendar. Dashboards are also available to give you insights about your project like budget and the project’s progress. Moreover, you can automate processes by setting triggers and rules to streamline your workflow. monday integrates with key creative and productivity apps such as Adobe Creative Cloud, Slack and Dropbox. Pricing starts at $8 per user/month.

Maropost Marketing CloudVISIT WEBSITE

As a marketing platform, Maropost Marketing Cloud features a multichannel automation that helps you streamline and consolidate your campaigns. You can manage your email, text, mobile and web campaigns in one place. You can also create different buyer’s journeys abetted by trigger emails, unique coupons, and rule-based SMS messages and notifications. A spam checker and data-driven deliverability score help increase open rates of your push messages and, ultimately, increase your email marketing return. Maropost Marketing Cloud integrates with a wide range of ecommerce software, forms automation, affiliate marketing platforms and CRM tools. Pricing is by quote and based on your feature set.

MailerLiteVISIT WEBSITE

MailerLite boasts of a simple UI packed with powerful tools to boost your email marketing. You can design dynamic emails or use templates. You can also launch newsletters with ease using the software’s drag & drop, rich text or custom HTML features. MailerLite also helps you build landing pages, websites, pop-ups and forms for end-to-end email campaigns. Furthermore, it helps you optimize campaigns with insights through A/B testing, surveys or segmentation. Other key features include advanced email automation for personalized emails and newsletter monetization tools. The vendor offers live 24/7 support. The app is free for up to 1,000 subscribers. Beyond that, pricing starts from $10.

MaypleVISIT WEBSITE

Mayple is a talent platform of marketing experts ideal for companies looking to grow the business with the help of marketers in paid advertising, email marketing, social media management and SEO, among others. It claims to have the top 5% of marketing experts in its database, vetted for proven record and objective evaluation. As opposed to broad-based job marketplaces, Mayple focuses on marketing and uses a data-vetting process that classifies talents basted on key metrics like expertise, years of experience and platform. The talents are also evaluated for their actual work portfolio. 

Marketing CreatioVISIT WEBSITE

Marketing Creatio is a multichannel marketing CRM that helps you manage leads across different customer journeys. You can streamline communication across your channels, and access customer data from all your touchpoints and get a holistic picture of your customers. The software features no-code tools that help you create audience segments based on demographics and behavioral data. Likewise, it helps you manage complex marketing campaigns across various channels and boost demand generation. The result is, you accelerate conversions and reinforce customer retention. Other key features include email marketing, website analytics and marketing resource management. Pricing starts at $1,042 for 1,000 active contacts, the minimum volume.

OmnisendVISIT WEBSITE

Omnisend is marketing automation software ideal for ecommerce. It features pre-built email marketing templates and flows to help you optimize SMS and email marketing campaigns. A drag-and-drop editor makes launching email campaigns fast, on-brand and neat. Meanwhile, you can create trigger actions for welcome series, product abandonment, cart abandonment, order and shipping confirmation and cross-selling. Omnisend also has segmentation tools to help you target contacts based on metrics such as purchase history, lifecycle stages and other key customer data. Other major features are SMS campaign tools, popups and forms and reporting. Pricing starts at $16, although a freemium is available for 500 emails per month, 60 SMS and 500 web push.

Issues on Marketing Software

Plenty of companies that have been around a long time often have trouble adapting new technologies. They often ask “what is marketing software?” or “what does marketing software do?” but don’t invest enough time to learn enough about it. This is why we compiled the basic information they’ll need before selecting the best software for their business

While marketing software is unquestionably useful in optimizing business operations, it is not completely free from drawbacks. So, if you’re planning on purchasing one for your company, be sure to look out for the following issues:  

1. Security Issues. By using a marketing software, confidential information from your database is readily accessible to anyone in your company at any given time. This holds true especially for cloud-hosted applications. To prevent data breaches, you may need to implement security measures that prevent unauthorized personnel from being able to connect to your marketing system.
2. Difficulties in process integration. Marketing system solutions are created to cut down the humdrum duties that come with every campaign. However, that doesn’t mean that it can automate your tasks from the get-go. No matter how user-friendly this software may be, it still relies on the input of the operator. Meaning, a certain amount of training is needed to be able to integrate this program into your system. If you want to ensure the success of its implementation, you must proactively learn what the software can do and be patient as you adjust to it.
3. Underutilization of staff. Most marketing software can fully automate the various tasks involved in your campaigns. Because of this, overdependence on the program may occur, leading to employee underutilization. If qualified, trained employees are not being used to their full potential, it will have been a waste of your company’s resources. Make sure you wield your workforce wisely by giving them more responsibilities that hone their skills and challenge their creativity.