Use of marketing automation systems in Finland
Korpiniemi, Heini (2022)
2022
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022060816581
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022060816581
Tiivistelmä
The adoption of marketing automation technology is increasing quickly. Marketing automation enables centralising and automating repetitive tasks that would otherwise take a lot of resources. One of its most important goals is the ability to generate automated personalised communication. Even though the use of marketing automation is becoming more common in companies in Finland, there is not much information available about for which purposes do companies use it. The objective of this thesis was to gather information about the most common marketing automation systems and their use in Finland. The thesis commissioner was a digital marketing company, Kasvuasiaintoimisto Kansleri Oy.
The theoretical section helps to understand the big picture in the change from traditional to digital marketing. It explores the methodologies of digital, inbound and content marketing which are closely connected to marketing automation. The main research method was a survey conducted through Microsoft Forms. The survey consisted of multiple-choice and open questions. The results from the multiple-choice questions were analysed with the help of figures and tables and the open questions were analysed with the content analysis method. In addition to the survey, existing studies were also reviewed in the research.
The survey results and the information obtained from available sources showed that the most common marketing automation system was Hubspot. Hubspot is the market leader in many countries and the research proved that it applies in Finland too. The findings from the survey and the existing sources presented that ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and Oracle Eloqua were also commonly used in Finland. Email marketing, automated workflows and analytics were the most useful features among the survey respondents.
There were big differences between the features and how useful they were perceived in the businesses. Lead generation and nurturing were very useful for B2B companies while B2C companies did not perceive them as useful. Further research could investigate whether B2B companies used marketing automation differently compared to B2C companies. This could be carried out as a qualitative study where companies from both B2B and B2C markets would be interviewed.
The theoretical section helps to understand the big picture in the change from traditional to digital marketing. It explores the methodologies of digital, inbound and content marketing which are closely connected to marketing automation. The main research method was a survey conducted through Microsoft Forms. The survey consisted of multiple-choice and open questions. The results from the multiple-choice questions were analysed with the help of figures and tables and the open questions were analysed with the content analysis method. In addition to the survey, existing studies were also reviewed in the research.
The survey results and the information obtained from available sources showed that the most common marketing automation system was Hubspot. Hubspot is the market leader in many countries and the research proved that it applies in Finland too. The findings from the survey and the existing sources presented that ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and Oracle Eloqua were also commonly used in Finland. Email marketing, automated workflows and analytics were the most useful features among the survey respondents.
There were big differences between the features and how useful they were perceived in the businesses. Lead generation and nurturing were very useful for B2B companies while B2C companies did not perceive them as useful. Further research could investigate whether B2B companies used marketing automation differently compared to B2C companies. This could be carried out as a qualitative study where companies from both B2B and B2C markets would be interviewed.