Marketing Automation – a Technology that Supports and Combines Work of Marketing and Sales Departments

Abstract

Marketing automation systems emerged at the beginning of the 21st century as development of e-mail marketing systems and provided a new functionality that allowed for monitoring website users’ behaviours. From the perspective of tasks undertaken by marketing and sales departments, marketing automation systems are characterised by numerous advantages including the following: They:  enable automatisation of marketing and sales related activities by means of one database of present and potential customers that is available for all employees;  service all online customer communication channels;  adjust communication to the level of potential customer’s readiness to make a purchase;  create comprehensive databases of present and potential customers as a result of which communiqués are better adjusted to needs and expectations of identified target groups and communication gets more effective;  help potential customers get prepared sufficiently to talk to sales staff as a result of which the very contact takes place in the optimal time;  enable establishment of long lasting relationships with customers;  store all information concerning activities performed in the system and its users. Managers are provided with detailed reports that describe the course and costs of all marketing and sales activities. Additionally, information about effectiveness of each employee is available;  employees who do not have to perform simple but timeconsuming tasks may spend more time on conceptual work;  contribute to reduction of operational costs; and  lead to an increase in revenues as a result of implementation of marketing automation systems.