Marketing is the currency of any business, no matter its size. It is what keeps businesses moving along. However, the process is time-consuming. There’s no endpoint to marketing. So anything that can help take some of the strain, marketing automation for example, is to be welcomed.
What you will learn in this article
- What is marketing automation
- Advantages of marketing automation
- The 5 top benefits of marketing automation
- 15 secrets about marketing automation
- How small businesses can get started with CRM automation
What is marketing automation?
The marketing of any company encompasses all the activities you do to promote your product or service to customers. These activities span advertising, selling, and delivering them to consumers or other businesses.
Until now, this has relied solely on manual efforts. But the advent of CRM technology has allowed the donkey work to be automated. Automation involves creating or applying a technology solution to take control of processes. This automation frees up your team to concentrate on more lucrative activities.
Advantages of marketing automation
You may be wondering if automation means losing the personal touch. This is natural, but counter-intuitively automation means being able to bring greater personalization, not less.
When implemented correctly, even small businesses can reap substantial results. Indeed, marketing automation drives growth in small and emerging enterprises. When used to its full extent, marketing automation will help you:
- Generate more leads
- Close more deals
- Achieve better customer service and satisfaction
- Improve overall customer experience
5 major benefits of automating marketing
Effectiveness: Kick-starting business processes with no human intervention will save you time, energy, and money.
Increased revenue: Having better insights into your customers increases revenue. Marketing automation drives customer follow-ups, up and cross-selling.
Reduces staff costs: Automating marketing will put a significant dent in your staffing costs.
Data insights: Automation ensures no customer data gets lost or overlooked. Reports mean sales and marketing can make better data-driven decisions.
Lead scoring precision: Marketing automation removes the guesswork surrounding lead scoring. A CRM system will tell which leads to prioritize, when to contact them, and which pressure points to address.
15 secret ways to get results from marketing automation
Personalization
Segmenting customers allows you to serve up tailor-made content at the optimum time. Personalization is key to providing a class-leading customer experience.
Automated follow-ups
Generating leads is just the first step. The next step is converting them into customers. Automating follow-ups ensures you never miss a single opportunity by forgetting or getting distracted.
Optimized lead generation
Take charge of your sales funnel. Marketing auto lets you manage content and deliver what adds value for users. Leads are then optimized to allow optimized lead nurturing.
Ensuring content remains the king
Content continues to be what drives customers. CRM technology ensures automation keeps content relevant to users in the sales funnel. It does this by recommending content that educates leads and customers.
Email drip campaigns
These are essentially pre-prepared communications scheduled to go out at specific times or based on a lead’s action. They are designed to keep the lead warm and maintain contact.
Database contact updating
Automation ace-up-the-sleeve is the continuous updating of contact information. A clean database ensures the data is optimized for customer communications. This way you don’t end up with duplicates or missing information.
Lead scoring
Automated lead scoring gives you intelligence on which leads to prioritize and when. Obtaining qualified leads like this optimizes the time of your sales team. It also enhances the chances of success.
Real-time team collaboration
Avoid left-hand-right-hand scenarios. You can automatically share all your information across the organization to ensure smoother customer interactions for everyone.
Insight into what your industry’s top performers are doing
The best CRM systems are now sharing the marketing automation strategies of top performers. Intel like this reduces the guesswork about what will work and what won’t.
Lead nurturing
Not all of your visitors become customers. You can set up automated messaging to nurture these potential leads for later. This functionality also sorts out the most promising leads for you to concentrate on.
Outline customer lifecycle stages
Typically, visitors become leads, then long-term customers, or part of your wider community. These stages vary by business type but knowing who’s who is vital for sustainable growth.
Multi-channel campaigns
This type of campaign can often feel like plate-spinning. But marketing automation lets you manage and monitor campaigns across social media and your other channels simultaneously without tearing your hair out in the process.
It’s never been more important to keep a close eye on social media and your company’s reputation. Marketing automation lets you monitor what’s being said about your brand online.
Community building
As growth hacks go, this is a beauty. Effectively, you are converting customers into cheerleaders for your product or service. And obtaining access to a broader potential customer base. Sweet!
Visitor retention
Reducing your bounce rate is critical. Automation such as pop-ups can often help stop visitors from heading for the exits. Reducing bounces increases the likelihood of conversion.
Getting started
Marketing automation is not just for the big boys. Indeed, the greatest impact is often felt by small businesses. The next step is getting started. As challenging as it may sound, marketing automation is probably one of the best practices you will make in 2021.
Verdict
When resources are tight, marketing automation is the way to get maximum bang for your buck. Small businesses, too, can derive substantial benefits. They just need to choose the right CRM. Let us know if you would like to upgrade your business with our CRM to improve your marketing automation.
