5 Marketing Automation Trends to Try in 2021

We’re all looking for ways to scale our digital marketing. Marketing automation makes simple or repetitive marketing processes more efficient, even effortless. Using software to automate your marketing tasks saves your team’s time and resources and allows you to focus on higher priority tasks. You may use software to automate tasks like social media posting, email newsletters, customer service chats, and more.

The marketing automation market is expected to grow from $3.3 billion in 2019 to $6.4 billion by 2024, according to a report by Markets and Markets. Are you using marketing automation to its full potential for your brand? This post explores some rising marketing automation trends to keep an eye on for 2021.

The Benefits of Marketing Automation

When you review and quantify the benefits of marketing automation, you can quickly justify its use.

Saves time and money

One of the most clear benefits of marketing automation is efficiency. When you set up an automated process for creating and publishing social media posts, for example, you spend less time brainstorming, crafting, publishing, and monitoring posts. Social media automation still requires audience research and content planning to ensure your posts perform well, but automating steps in the process frees up time and resources to spend elsewhere.

Grows and maintains your online presence

Your brand must have a consistent, engaging online presence in order to succeed. If you have poor brand visibility, an unfocused marketing strategy that isn’t tailored to your target audience, or inconsistent content, you’re missing the chance to connect with potential customers. Marketing automation makes growing and maintaining your digital presence easier, not to mention less costly and time-consuming.

Reduces room for error

Every marketing process comes with some risk of human error. Whether it’s researching metrics for a report, writing email newsletters, or responding to customers in chat, there’s always a chance that someone on your team can miss a detail or say the wrong thing. Automating certain processes lets you plan your brand’s content and responses ahead of time, to double and triple-check accuracy, appropriate tone, and on-brand language.

5 Marketing Automation Trends to Try

The value and demand for marketing automation is rising fast. To harness that potential, brands can test the following marketing automation tools in 2021.

Machine learning and AI

Machine learning and artificial intelligence, or AI, can help your brand learn more about your target audience and develop better marketing campaigns. When you collect data on your brand users and audience, AI software sorts it, analyzes it, and predicts the right steps to help you reach your marketing goals — in less time than a person could.

This trend isn’t meant to replace or take over human jobs; it helps your marketing team work smarter and more efficiently. To make the most out of machine learning and AI, determine what you want marketing automation to achieve. Do you want more robust insights into your users’ behaviors? More relevant marketing campaigns? Faster growth?

One use for AI is to personalize content for individual customers, which we’ll talk about next.

Customized content

Customized content goes beyond using a customer’s first name in an email newsletter. A truly customized brand experience relies on a detailed customer profile based on site behavior, survey results, past purchase history, and web analytics.

Customized content may engage your audience based on details such as:

Values and needs
Location
Hobbies and interests
Buying and browsing habits
Product search history
Brand preferences
Device use and behavior

For example, if someone on your furniture website searches for a leather recliner and leaves after ten minutes without buying anything, your AI software may look into this user’s search and purchase history, device use, and what day and time they usually make purchases. Based on the user’s data, a customized marketing campaign would then send an email on an early Sunday afternoon suggesting multiple options for leather recliners.

Automated messaging

Automated messaging, or chatbots, are an important customer service tool. Rather than waste time having a customer service representative answer common questions, a chatbot can be set up to answer them instead. You can write these responses ahead of time and make sure they’re correct and on-brand.

Automated messaging can be set up on your social media profiles, like Facebook Instant Reply or Instagram Quick Reply. It can also be set up on your website or through email. You might set up customer responses to frequently asked questions like promotion or sale information, product inquiries, or an out of stock item.

Mobile ads and campaigns

If mobile is your target audience’s preferred device for communication, browsing, and shopping, take advantage of automated mobile marketing tools, such as:

Push notifications from your brand app
SMS surveys
SMS updates
Mobile ads
In-app coupons, exclusive deals, or messages

Before diving into new mobile marketing tools, research mobile user information first as you would for customized content. Device type, location, browsing habits, and mobile behavior all matter. You can even include mobile data as a separate area when evaluating brand performance in a digital audit.

Automated marketing tools like ThumbStopper

An all-in-one turnkey solution that lets your brand post localized, customized content can save your team time and money. That’s what ThumbStopper’s Brand Manager™ does: distributes your brand’s high-quality content automatically by partnering with your retailers in local markets.

With Brand Manager^TM, you no longer have to waste time monitoring content deployment. You can focus on building engaging marketing campaigns, understanding your audience, and creating customized content. Learn more about ThumbStopper’s solutions for brands today.

Featured Resources

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How to Get Retailers to Participate in Your Channel Marketing Program

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Key Points:

Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.

Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.

Social Media for All

The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.

Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.

Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns.

Making Content Accessible

Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.

For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It's one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.

None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible.

Text

Use plain language that’s easy to understand
Avoid text in all caps
Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case

Videos

Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
Use captioning for live videos when possible

Graphics

Use color contrast checkers to make sure low-vision people can see images
Try not to completely rely on color to show contrast
Add alternative text on each social platform

Distribute Accessible Content

Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.

That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience - with your accessible, branded content - in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business.

Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.

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What Is Social Media Automation?

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10 Ways to Automate Your Marketing

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How Effective Is Your Social Media Strategy

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Key Points:

Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.

Social Media for All

Making Content Accessible

For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It’s one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.

Text

Use plain language that’s easy to understand
Avoid text in all caps
Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case

Videos

Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
Use captioning for live videos when possible

Graphics

Use color contrast checkers to make sure low-vision people can see images
Try not to completely rely on color to show contrast
Add alternative text on each social platform

Distribute Accessible Content

That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience – with your accessible, branded content – in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business.

Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.

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What Is Social Media Automation?

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10 Ways to Automate Your Marketing

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How Effective Is Your Social Media Strategy

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