In a recent interview, Mark Tonderai, who is the vice president of the digital marketing department at marketing automation software company All Clicks, said that Inbound Marketing is more important than ever. However, a new question has been asked: Has industry buzz about Inbound Marketing turned into business results? This is not a new question. Over the past decade, marketing automation has started to become an important part of the marketing mix. What has changed in recent years is the increase in collaboration between marketing and sales.

Typically, marketing teams at large corporations are separated from their sales counterparts and usually lack any type of inbound communication strategy. As a result, they are not prepared to create content that the business cares about. It would be simplistic to say that people on both sides of the divide must work together to make Inbound Marketing successful. Both have to give the other room for sharing. So what specific points can Inbound Marketing take advantage of?

To answer this question, you need to know some basic facts about marketing automation. By converting to automation, marketers are able to send more, more relevant and successful messages across all marketing channels.

According to Rob Casale, co-founder and CMO of marketing automation company Silverpop, “a great marketing automation system should be like an arcade gaming machine that will guide and enable you to make the type of marketing decisions that allow your company to engage in the most effective and efficient way possible.”

Here are some of the benefits of using an Inbound Marketing system:

1. Simplicity and Adoption

An Inbound Marketing system can be used by anyone, regardless of their level in the company. This means that it is affordable, scalable and can be used by everyone from the VP of Sales to sales associates. Thus, it creates an increase in reach, exposure and adoption.

It is especially helpful when used by the small team members. However, they need the support of managers in order to make it work. Another important aspect of using an Inbound Marketing tool is that, when used by small teams, it makes it simpler to navigate for information.

2. Cost-effective and Tailored Marketing

As mentioned above, an Inbound Marketing system can be owned by everyone from sales to users.

Considering that Inbound Marketing is such a wide term, you can see why the initial cost of a system can be expensive. Still, there are plenty of companies offering Inbound Marketing as a service. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) startups have an advantage because they do not have to make their marketing available to everyone. Instead, it is important for them to focus on each customer and offer a solution that a small team can easily adopt.

3. Versatility

In a SaaS company, a marketing automation solution can easily be customized to follow the needs of the team and the needs of each user. For example, you can sign up the user to follow certain accounts. You can also recommend the Inbound Marketing messages accordingly and make sure that the users will be able to find them on their smartphones.

4. Regulatory Compliance

In every different scenario, there are rules and regulations that companies must follow. For example, many companies are still working on compliance with the “do not call” list or working on submitting monthly marketing reports in order to stay in good standing with the government. A marketing automation system that can be used on the go, without many desktops, is a useful tool to protect users and comply with regulations.

5. Commitment To Mobility

The average lifespan of a personal computer is four years. Multiply this by 4,835 people and you can get an idea about the number of times people change phones every year. This means that marketing automation platforms have to be able to adapt to the mobile world. This way, marketing managers can send important messages to users without having to worry about the voice and data limits of their office PCs.

6. Increased Engagement With Smaller Teams

The average computer user spends 300 minutes a day on the Internet. Even if marketers may not make use of all of this time, marketing programs that are fully-automated have a better chance of engagement. For example, if you are the VP of marketing but don’t work for more than five hours a day, you can send the marketing team all the tools necessary for engaging with end users over the Internet.