Marketing automation vs ESP

When starting a business, one has to think about various marketing strategies. Two of the most common approaches are to use marketing automation, or to put your trust in email service providers (ESP). The goal of this article is to look at marketing automation vs ESP and help you to figure out which one is better for your moving business. Moving companies need a perfect marketing strategy because they almost never work with returning customers. However, the customers will leave references to their friends and family. With that in mind, let’s evaluate these two approaches and see which one works best for your marketing needs.

What is marketing automation?

In a few simple words, marketing automation is a piece of software that handles marketing tasks without any human action. It includes an array of operations, from managing social media, to sending emails and a lot more. One of the easiest ways to do marketing automation is with the implementation of CRM software. We will talk more about how CRM email integration for movers works, but first, let’s see what ESP is.

What is ESP, or email service provider?

An email service provider focuses on providing services of email automation and email marketing. One example would be MailChimp. The software helps you to create and manage email lists and campaigns, and send emails to customers. As you can see, both marketing automation software and email service providers do similar things. But, what is the main difference between the two?

To answer this question, we will take a look at a few different segments of running a business:

• lead generation;
• driving new sales;
• return on investment;

Lead generation with marketing automation

Lead generation is crucial for a moving company. Finding new leads means everything to the business, and this is how marketing automation can help.

• First of all, it allows you to import a list of contacts for your email campaign. This is the very first step necessary for any marketing campaign.
• Second, with the help of email CRM for moving company, you can schedule email delivery for your clients. Send the emails at exact times to increase the rate of open emails.
• Third, marketing automation software also generates unique Visitor IDs used for tracking web traffic. This is a good way to know how many visits your website gets every day.

When it comes to building forms on your website, the software has support for dynamic integration. You can also add simple CSS to make the forms blend in naturally. Furthermore, the software also helps you to connect with your customers via social media and get all the necessary data for reporting. This all leads to better understanding customers, which will only improve the lead generation process. And, you can also track leads through the sales cycle, and define their exact position.

Lead generation with an email service provider

The email service provider focuses solely on the email campaign, without any of the additional options. With it, you can import a list of contacts and that is pretty much it. This can work well if you already have the list of your leads. But, if you need some help finding leads, marketing automation software is definitely a better choice.

Driving new sales with marketing automation

Marketing automation offers an array of basic and advanced sales tools. It helps with driving new sales in a lot of different ways. To start with, you can easily integrate any marketing automation software with CRM. We spoke earlier about the importance of CRM integration for your moving business. CRM is important for driving new sales because it tracks the complete purchase history of your clients and helps with forecasting reports.

The email designer is easy to use, and it comes with built-in CRM email tracking for movers. Email tracking is also very important for driving new sales because it tells you how the customers interact with your offers, and what actions they take. You need to know how emails affect their purchase decisions. You can then segment your leads based on their behavior, and send targeted messages.

Another amazing feature is the notification center. The software sends notifications to the sales agents regarding actions that their leads take. Tracking lead activity is a necessity.

Driving new sales with ESP

When it comes to the email service provider, the software does allow CRM integration. And, the email designer is easy to use. However, the lack of features that focus on more processes outside of the email campaign is the main reason why ESP comes second.

Return on investment with marketing automation

Marketing automation also positively affects ROI. You can track the open rate and click-through rate, and generate various website behavior reports. Understanding how customers interact with your website and emails is crucial. Furthermore, you can identify your contacts in the sales process, and monitor lead activities. Return on investment depends on how the resources are used between different steps in the sales process. With the help of this software, you can do precise calculations and make sure you are not overspending or underspending at any point.

Return on investment with ESP

This is another area where ESP comes short. Besides tracking the open and click-through rates, email service providers cannot help much with ROI analysis. It is a completely different business segment, and it has nothing to do with ESP.

Marketing automation vs ESP – the conclusion

After analyzing marketing automation vs ESP, we can tell that the email service provider offers fewer options. That is because ESP focuses only on the most basic specifics of the email campaigns. Some providers do offer advanced options, but they don’t go beyond what is necessary for an email campaign. That’s why you should purchase marketing automation software, and get two deals for a single price. Your business needs full service, and the best way to get it is through marketing automation.