The Evolution of Marketing

We can’t speak about marketing automation without first taking a quick crash course into the evolution of marketing.

Marketing has been around since the beginning of selling goods and services. If you put that into perspective, it has been around as early as the beginnings of civilization. Of course, many things have changed since then, and no one could have predicted that something like marketing automation would have been conceivable at the time. Still oddly enough, we can trace many of the ideas we use today as far back as the Industrial Revolution.

Much like what we see today, it was a great time of rapid social change filled with innovation and technological advancements. With so many changes, it’s no wonder why a key goal in marketing is finding the simplest way to accomplish the largest tasks.

So what has changed? And how far have we come? To answer the first question, I’ll start with what hasn’t changed: the invaluable role of marketing in every company and sales cycle. We’ll dive deeper into the changes as we go, but the answer to the second question is REALLY far. To show this, we’ll explain where we started, how we got to where we are today, and how it got us to the need for marketing automation.

Looks like we’re taking a page out of the ‘Millennial handbook’ and jumping right back into the 90s.

Where Marketing Automation Is (and Where It’s Been)

With the growing consumer market came the need for mass production, or what we’d likely refer to more often as ‘scaling for the market’ or even ‘keeping up with market demand.’ Whatever the buzzword is now, with the population booming, the need for better infrastructure came, and along with that came mass media. This created a need to find new and innovative ways to sell and develop products that customers needed. Companies also needed to carefully craft ways to inform the population about all available options without overcomplicating the messaging. Sounds familiar.

One of the most important developments in the past 25 years has been the addition of automation to the workforce, and marketing is no exception.

Since the early 1990s, marketing automation has evolved and developed from a nice-to-have for organizations to a must-have for teams of all shapes and sizes.

Marketing automation is the technology that automatically manages marketing processes and multifunctional campaigns across multiple channels. It has grown from being something niche, used only by tech-centric companies, to its current status as a billion-dollar industry.

As well as reshaping marketing automation, the late 1990s saw the birth of Google and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Since then, trying to stand out in a saturated market has been a constant practice. Marketers are still asking themselves the same question: how can we stand out from the crowd and ensure our message is noticed and remembered? The goal is clear—stay ahead of the curve.

Why Has Marketing Automation Gained Traction and Importance?

As we’ve seen, the marketing world has changed dramatically in recent years, with 75% of professionals recently indicating that they use at least one automation tool to complete day-to-day tasks. That brings us to the present day when companies are still trying to implement marketing strategies to help them stand out. Social media platforms have shaken things up with new algorithms and ways to get your message straight to the consumer. As technology evolves, so must your Marketing team.

The automation solutions that are available with our Wrk Delivery Platform are more simplified and accessible than ever! Let automation take care of your monotonous tasks while you build your community and establish stronger connections to grow engagement and enthusiasm around your brand.

The Wrk Platform provides the technology enabling marketing teams to flourish in the new (and ever-changing) reality. The platform empowers you and your team by automating complex processes and building powerful Wrkflows in minutes. Whether you want to streamline your email nurturing campaigns or generate accurate market data research, automating these tasks allows your Marketing team to focus elsewhere as their repetitive tasks are transferred to our pre-configured, ready-to-deliver Wrk Actions.

Hybrid Automation technology can enable your team to focus on the big picture by saving you valuable time to strategize, analyze data, interact with your customers and community, and more. By shifting your monotonous day-to-day marketing tasks to automation, you’ll empower your team and provide time to customize and brainstorm creative solutions to reach your audience.

Contact us today to learn more about the Hybrid Automation technology behind our Wrk Delivery Platform.

Looking at the Future of Automation in Marketing

The past few years have put priorities into perspective and slightly shifted how we work. The areas of adaptation have been centered around the ‘new normal’ with the move to Work From Home (WFH), remote working, or a hybrid/flex work model. We are now balancing old technology and introducing new collaboration tools while some employees return to the office and some stay at home. This opens up more opportunities to implement strategies where in-person work is no longer necessary to collaborate.

So how do we shift to a new work approach to stay relevant, but also profitable (without demanding more work from your current team)? The answer is a hybrid approach to automation.

More specifically, automating the day-to-day, repetitive tasks to free up your time so you can connect with your colleagues as much as your customers to maintain the personal experience we’re used to with face-to-face interactions. It will also help you tackle some new difficulties arising from remote working. We provide a smooth transition to using our platform. And whether you work in-person at an office, remotely from home, or a mix of the two, it's easy.

As a marketing professional, your job relies heavily on collaboration. It can often be difficult to keep lines of dialogue open in a remote work environment. When teams are misaligned on messaging, campaign strategies, and the company's overall goals, it can lead to missed opportunities, and you end up sacrificing potential growth. Marketing automation can provide teams with more time to spend on value-added activities.

Constant communication with your teams allows you to easily exchange information about potential leads and share new insights and strategies. For example, when your Sales and Marketing team are aligned and working in tandem, you can generate up to 208% more revenue.

Our Wrkflows can help you organize your business processes. They do this by automating repetitive tasks like product ordering, sales efforts, and promoting your brand messaging and campaigns through tailored marketing outreach.

You can safely and easily leverage automation software to adapt your brand and product offering to what you need. Marketing automation can help by streamlining campaign publication, enhancing customer interactions, and ensuring everyone remains on the same page.

Turn the Uncertainty of Today into a Brighter Tomorrow

One thing is clear with the new reality of where marketing is today. Agility is vital to your new approach.

Unlike other automation platforms that merely link public APIs like Whatsapp and Salesforce to one another without actually delivering any end-product, Wrk’s mix of advanced automation and human ingenuity ensures the delivery of real work at the end of each day. And it provides your team with the invaluable asset of time.

Look at email marketing and email campaigns, for example. The frequency of outbound email campaigns has decreased. However, the demand for communication and touchpoints between sellers and customers has increased. Creating personalized email campaigns ensures that your engagements remain high. This means that even if you have fewer resources, your teams’ tasks are being redistributed to where it matters most. Simple solutions like our Email Marketing Wrkflows can help with that.

At Wrk, marketing today requires agility, personalization, and a completely optimized client experience. We can provide your team with the best tools for you to adapt and prosper year after year. Wrk helps you empower your Marketing team. It also helps you engage your audience with Hybrid Automation to be an extension of your team, not a replacement. We are looking at the future of marketing, which looks like automation. Automate what you can to give yourself invaluable time to customize. While simultaneously enhancing the journey and experience for your audience.

Want to learn more? Book a call with our automation experts today!