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Evaluating HubSpot, Marketo and Pardot as options for your martech platform will leave you with a sense of awe in response to features and integrations that promise to save you time, make you more efficient and productive, and maximize your ROI.
And all of those things are indeed possible, but only if you’re using the platform to its full potential — and most marketers aren’t. According to a study by the Content Marketing Institute, 52 percent of marketers say that lacking an effective strategy for making the most of the marketing automation platform of choice is the foremost challenge that they face.
So which features should you be using to dramatically transform your business and maximize your ROI? Here are three of our picks.
1. Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
Account-based marketing shares some characteristics that are similar to inbound marketing, but its difference lies in the strategy of targeting several decision-makers at a company instead of the one person who filled out a form. This strategy makes it crucial for powering up B2B sales.
It’s also more challenging than typical personalization measures employed in traditional inbound marketing strategies. Each decision-maker has individual preferences and dislikes, which means putting the platform to use differently.
A highly customizable and agile marketing automation platform will allow you to be flexible with how you use its tools for ABM, from collective profiles to AI. This will help cut down the time and increase the efficiency of ABM efforts. Read more here about why we think inbound marketing and account-based marketing are the perfect team.
2. Email Marketing with Dynamic Content
Email marketing isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, with 269 billion emails sent and received in 2017. And it’s even more powerful with paired with dynamic content: Email marketing giant Campaign Monitor found that strongly segmented dynamic email campaigns increased revenue 760 percent over typical email campaigns and A/B testing.
With dynamic content, your email's content will change depending on who’s opening it as well as the time of day, or any other parameters that are set. Think about a dynamic email set up to change content according to the time of day in which it’s opened. A recipient feeling sluggish after lunch would open an email and likely respond to a different call to action than when they’re beginning their day fresh first thing in the morning, and marketing automation platforms can seamlessly make this happen.
3. Chatbots
Chatbots are frequently under-utilized in both B2B and B2C marketing, and there are countless ways to use them beyond just programming them then putting them on your website.
Initially used to relieve the strain on customer service resources for information not found easily in FAQs and product databases, chatbots can also be used to drive sales and improve the customer experience.
For example, chatbots can be integrated with social media, which is how Valassis used Facebook chatbots to get a stunning amount of offline sales for car dealers. While this case study is B2C, the long sales cycle and vast amount of touchpoints involved in the purchasing of a car mimics a typical B2B customer journey.
Creating new sales funnels through chatbots is now possible, and automation with a human touch at the end of the sales cycle may be just what your prospects need to close. Your martech platform should include chatbot support and integration on both your website and social media accounts.
The marketing automation platform that’s right for your business ultimately depends on the features that resonate the most with your prospects. Each platform also requires a different level of technical prowess, so you also must determine whether you have those resources in-house or whether you’d be better off outsourcing to an experienced inbound marketing agency. But when you choose the right platform and get maximum utility out of it, you can completely revolutionize your business. 
