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In this fast-paced, “always on” world, a good workflow spells the difference between business success and failure. An efficient workflow enables you to move several tasks forward simultaneously and coordinate with your team without micromanaging them. This is why businesses of all sizes use workflow tools to organize tasks, establish clear responsibilities, set priorities, track progress, and define deadlines.
Current marketing workflow platforms allow you to streamline and automate repetitive, time-consuming work duties such as manual data entry and scheduling. As a result, your team can experience better collaboration, fewer errors, and lower costs.
But with so many workflow solutions in the market, how will you determine what responds best to your business needs and goals? To ease your search and selection, we listed 12 of our most recommended platforms.
Marketing Workflow Trends
You're not alone if you've just begun using marketing workflow tools and continue to face challenges implementing automation. In fact, according to Insightly, only 12% of marketers consider their teams "fully automated." Meanwhile, 20% find it hard to build effective customer journeys using their platform. Nevertheless, 70% of the poll participants plan to raise automation budgets this year.
Ascend2's State of Marketing Automation 2023 report shows similar figures—25% of marketers surveyed don't agree that their automation platforms have helped them develop better client journeys. Still, almost 60% of these respondents expect higher fund allocations for such software in the year ahead.
Top Marketing Workflow Platforms
These 12 recommended solutions are for different user types. The first half is geared toward businesses that are relatively new to automation, while the second half has more advanced features that might suit the needs of larger businesses.
1. Keap
This “small business automation” platform boasts increasing users’ revenue by 39% and lead volume by 53%. Keap also reports that its client-triggered automation for sales and marketing reduces its users’ work time by 10 hours weekly.
Its popular features include its CRM’s lead capture automation, which collects, organizes, and segments contacts after form completion, and its automated follow-up text message and email sending. Other automation features include “sales nurture” to inform new leads about offers and promotions, “appointment reminders” for clients who have booked appointments, and “purchase follow-ups” to remind clients of unpaid invoices and thank them for settling payments. You can choose from pre-built automations or create your own.
Keap allows you to integrate with over 4,000 apps using Zapier. You get 15 hours of free migration services for email templates, landing pages, and sales pipelines. Meanwhile, eCommerce and credit card data migration are available for a fee.
Keap, which offers a 14-day free trial, has a Pro Plan for two users and 1,500 contacts and a Max Plan for three users and 2,500 contacts.
2. EngageBay
Engagebay is an all-in-one marketing and sales solution that has helped small to mid-size enterprises grow their revenues three-fold. Its marketing suite includes a visual designer for automating workflows, a built-in CRM, customer segmentation, an email personalization and drip campaign feature, a landing page builder, and predictive lead scoring.
As its name indicates, this platform also contains functions for converting casual web visitors into happy customers through personalized pop-ups for greeting subscribers on their birthdays or visits to particular web pages. Free live chat form customization and help desk service automation are also available.
The Marketing Bay free version can accommodate up to 15 users and 250 contacts. Meanwhile, the paid options (monthly, annual, or biennial) for Engagebay’s marketing suite include Basic (3,000 branded emails), Growth (25k branded emails), and Pro (50K branded emails). Subscriptions are also available for the entire service stack or a combination of Marketing Bay plus other services—CRM and Sales Bay or Service Bay (free help desk).
3. Integrify
Integrify is an “efficiency machine” that features five components for creating repeatable processes. Its drag-and-drop process builder lets you assign tasks, set exceptions, and designate routing with business rules and approver roles.
Using Integrify’s service portal, you and your team can test the process design and get your team members’ feedback about its operations. You can personalize this dashboard for notifications, reminders, timeouts, and task progress tracking after everyone agrees on the workflow. Moreover, Integrify can integrate with your existing applications, such as Salesforce, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Slack, Tableau, and many more.
The platform also has a form designer for formatting reusable forms that display properly on mobile or desktop. Once your workflow is up and running, Integrify’s reporting feature provides real-time data that will reveal if your process design has achieved your expected outcomes. You can produce visual reports, which your team and partners can view via guest accounts.
Integrify doesn’t list specific subscription rates on its pricing page. It also has a 14-day free trial with a free coaching session.
4. Process Street
Workflow generation takes only a few seconds with the AI-driven Process Street. After you type instructions or upload a document about your business process, the platform can produce a workflow with due dates or timelines, assignments, prerequisites, approvals, and task-related data. You can also use AI to “write” concise task instructions for your team and automate team emails.
Process Street’s AI can generate workflows for project management efficiency, quality control, sales pipeline acceleration, client onboarding, marketing content creation and publication, and more.
Moreover, the solution ensures data security, stressing that any data you create within or transfer to a workflow is exclusive to that process design—the software doesn’t record it to train its AI. It uses encryption and data anonymization techniques to protect your user identity.
You can choose from Process Street’s Startup, Pro, and Enterprise plans. The Pro plan has a 14-day free trial.
5. Next Matter
Next Matter is an “operations orchestration” platform that uses a no-code drag-and-drop workflow builder and “building blocks”—such as checklists, work instructions, custom forms, data fields, direct camera access, and others—you can incorporate into your process. With these user-friendly features, the solution claims it can make your workflow go on autopilot in 60 minutes or sooner.
Progress is trackable in real-time, whether managers want to view a business process from end-to-end or individual team members need a singular task view for work instructions. You can also create custom reports in a summarized stages view or a more detailed progress view.
Next Matter can integrate with your tech stack and internal team. Moreover, you get an operations expert with over 10 years of experience during onboarding.
You can also set access permissions for customers, suppliers, and other external partners to view your output—albeit with limited visibility—for secure approvals and faster product or service delivery. The GDPR-compliant platform archives team and external communications, including data or file exchanges for up to five years (if necessary) for easy access and review.
Next Matter’s most basic Starter plan covers 50 users, followed by Professional (50 to 250 users), Enterprise (250 to 500 users), and Enterprise+ (over 500 users) plans.
6. Flokzu
Business process management experts developed Flokzu as a cloud-based solution that non-IT professionals can use. The platform’s form builder lets you customize and automate the steps to complete a work process. Among Flokzu’s unique functionalities is its substitution feature, which identifies the person who takes up a task on behalf of the original assignee for a certain period in case of absences or unavailability.
The solution also allows you to incorporate timers, databases, and email notifications at any point within your process. You decide which form fields are read-only or editable and which ones to hide or make visible to the entire team. The Sandbox feature lets you test your process and launch the workflow once you and your team are satisfied with its operations.
You can integrate your processes with external systems via Zapier and Web Services (REST & SOAP). Over 14,000 organizations subscribed to its plans report a 100% ROI in three months and a 100% reduction in document management and paper expenses.
Flokzu has Standard (1k process instances monthly and 10GB storage), Premium (unlimited process instances and storage), and Enterprise (custom billing) plans.
7. Wrike
Wrike highlights its productivity benefits, saying it can reduce email exchanges by up to 90% with its in-app collaboration tools, such as live editing. Furthermore, pre-built templates help you build automated workflows faster for the simultaneous execution of entire campaigns, events, and creative asset production. This marketing planning platform’s automation engine syncs related tasks and updates automatically, sending notifications about new projects, task status changes, potential risks, and more. Gantt charts and conflict monitors provide visual aids to track progress and spot scheduling conflicts easier.
Wrike integrates with over 400 applications, such as MS Teams, Adobe CC, and DAM, and allows custom integrations.
You can create 200 active tasks (including subtasks) with Wrike’s free account. For paid subscriptions, select from its Team (two to 25 users), Business (five to 200 users), Enterprise (unlimited users), and Pinnacle (unlimited users with analytics) plans.
8. ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign offers customer experience automation that facilitates conversations with your clients across email, messaging, social media, chat, or SMS throughout the lifecycle.
Although top industry groups such as M3AAWG and TrustRadius recognize the platform for its high email deliverability, the solution has other features to help you boost engagement in every stage of the customer journey, from reach and nurture to conversion and growth.
Besides ActiveCampaign’s drag-and-drop email designer with a customer segmentation feature and over 250 templates, it also has a landing page builder with a web chat feature, customizable web forms, and over 900 app integrations, including Facebook, Google Analytics, Salesforce, Shopify, Unbounce, WordPress, WooCommerce, and Zapier.
Moreover, you can choose from over 800 automations pre-built for various sectors (eCommerce, events, accounting, online training, travel and hospitality, and real estate, to name a few. Your team can also boost sales with the platform’s lead nurture, lead scoring, engagement tagging, win probability, and other CRM automations.
Over 180,000 small businesses and B2B users in 170 nations use ActiveCampaign. It offers Plus (three users), Professional (five users), and Enterprise (10 users) plans, but you can try it for free for 14 days. Its professional plans include split-testing and eCommerce automations.
9. Pipedrive
Designed as a customer relations management (CRM) solution “by salespeople for salespeople,” Pipedrive has an AI-powered Sales Assistant to guide you through your workflow creation. On the basic level, the platform allows you to establish “trigger events” for automated actions, such as sending personalized emails to prospects and customers and scheduling actions or activities to move leads to the next phase of your pipeline. Pipedrive also lets you automate Slack, and Microsoft Teams notifications when you add a new lead or a deal moves to a new stage.
But to give your sales process a lift, tap the Sales Assistant to track email opens and community discussions. The AI’s intelligent notification uses segmentation and analytics to alert you with insights into lead prioritization and sales opportunities.
The platform has over 350 integrations and a mobile app version, giving you access to your Pipedrive dashboard while on the go. Pipedrive claims its team management tool increased new accounts by double digits and revenues by over 40%. Over 100,000 subscribing companies sealed 16.5 million deals in 2022.
Pipedrive’s five plans—Essential, Advanced, Professional, Power, and Enterprise—come with a 14-day free trial. However, automations are only available when you sign up for an Advanced plan or higher.
10. Nintex
Nintex is an enterprise-level solution used by over 10,000 public and private sector entities, including over half of Fortune 500 businesses.
Your workflow creation starts with process discovery, in which the solution generates visual representations of your current process and provides scores that help you identify aspects of your operation that are top candidates for automation.
Nintex has automation templates and pre-built process maps. However, you can start from scratch using its drag-and-drop visual design canvas. This tool allows robotic process automation (RPA) for repetitive, rule-based tasks, connects with most company-wide software such as CRMs and ERPs, and features e-signature capability. You can access the process builder, send automated messages, and submit forms on any device.
You’d also be able to personalize the platform’s dashboard, which displays your process “health summary” that covers your team’s real-time engagement stats and task progress. Meanwhile, Nintex Insights shows you how your workflow performs, spotting bottlenecks and suggesting actions to optimize your process. It also measures your efficiency and ROI on automation.
Custom and out-of-the-box integrations such as SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Salesforce, Dynamics CRM, Azure AD, and more are available.
Nintex offers Pro (recommended for your first automation project), Premium (suggested for departmental use), and Custom (best for organization-wide use) plans.
11. Teamwork
Teamwork is a collaboration platform for projects and processes trusted by over 6,000 professional services worldwide. The solution lets you assign and define work details, set privacy settings, and monitor time and resources through its task management feature. View your tasks as a list, table, board, or Gantt chart, and communicate with colleagues using Teamwork to move work forward more quickly.
Copying workflows for other similar and frequently performed processes can save time, applying lessons from past projects to help you meet deadlines.
Teamwork also allows you to grant collaboration and viewing access to your customers to improve transparency and credibility. This client management feature is accessible via browser and mobile app.
Teamwork offers a 30-day free trial. Although there’s a free version, automations are only available with paid plans. The Starter and Deliver plans are for teams with at least three users. Meanwhile, the Grow and Scale plans are for workgroups with at least five members.
12. Kissflow
Kissflow prides itself in offering digital workplace solutions, including workflow and process management automation tools that over 10,000 businesses and over 2 million individual users currently enjoy.
The platform’s analytics is one of Kissflow’s strongest selling points besides its feature-rich Process Builder, integration-ready forms, and user-friendly interface. Its analytics reporting service includes workload metrics showing time and status summaries, pivot tables that point to patterns, charts that offer various visualizations, and business intelligence connectors that link Kissflow with Tableau, Power BI, and other similar tools.
Moreover, the solution provides non-IT or programming professionals with a no-code, rule-based app builder for creating, testing, launching, and perfecting automated workflows. Ready-to-use app templates for processes, such as performance management, professional services, and others, are also available.
Companies with 20 to 100 employees can try Kissflow’s Small Business plan. Meanwhile, larger businesses can go for Corporate (100 to 500 users) and Enterprise (over 500 users) subscriptions.
Frequently Asked Questions
What factors should I consider in selecting a marketing workflow platform for my company?
First, identify the tasks you currently do repeatedly and manually, so you can determine the features you need once you start your search. Discuss and list your needs with your team, then decide who will join your software selection committee. Take advantage of solutions with a free trial so you can dive deep into their functionalities and automations. Finally, make a cost-benefit analysis to establish whether a platform is a worthy investment. Read our detailed discussion of these points and five other tools in "Top 5 Task Management Software (+ What to Look For)."
What solution will work for my remote employees located in various nations worldwide?
A digital workplace might be a more suitable option for your business. Read our guide, "Top 20 Digital Workplaces for 2023."
