With all you have to do as a small business owner, have you ever thought about automating your marketing programs? It’s a growing practice among small businesses and definitely worth considering.
To get started, take a little time to familiarize yourself with the concept. Alyssa Rimmer, marketing director at New Breed Marketing, has written a beginner’s guide at hubspot.com. Rimmer says that automating your marketing builds in tremendous efficiency without making your efforts seem robotic—if you do it right.
As you’ve probably guessed, marketing automation involves software that helps you prioritize and execute marketing tasks in a streamlined and efficient way. And while it doesn’t take you completely out of the process, it does make you more effective. Your goals are still driving traffic to your website, turning those visitors into leads and ultimately, converting them into customers. But where automation can really make a difference, Rimmer says, is in the last two steps of the process.
Think of using marketing automation to nurture leads throughout the buying process as opposed to just sending out multiple blasts (a common practice, so you’re certainly not alone!), which can be a real turn-off to your customers and prospects. Instead, the nurturing process delivers specific, targeted and personalized messages that address their own barriers to purchase.
For example, if recipients respond to your offer to download an e-book, your next email is a thank you, followed by another invitation to download a related white paper. With each step, these leads become more and more qualified and may warrant some personal follow up. The point is that you’ve been giving them valuable information when they wanted and needed it. Some, at least, are likely to ultimately buy.
Rimmer offers a number of specific dos and don’ts for your marketing automation efforts. Two really critical ones:
- Don’t just automate your current program. Revisit and rethink your goals to make sure your strategies make sense.
- Do integrate marketing automation with your overall inbound marketing strategy. Everything should be aligned with providing your customers valuable and relevant content when they need it.
Your wheels are turning. You may even be a little doubtful: Will marketing automation work for my company? I’m not so sure… In an article at marketingprofs.com, LeadMD CEO Justin Gray says he’s heard all the objections before: My company’s too small. My product’s too transactional. My leads don’t respond.
Don’t fall for it! Gray says. The technology is valid, regardless. What matters is how you’re applying it. Gray dismantles each of the most common objections. The best news: No business is too small to take advantage of marketing automation. In fact, small businesses may be among the best suited, because they must stretch their resources, find efficiencies and make use of repeatable business processes.
Ditto for transactional products, even things like toys or T-shirts. Marketing automation used to be associated with big-ticket items and long sales cycles. But no more. It’s applicable to pretty much any situation. But you’ll need your own customized approached, not a knock-off of a big-company strategy. And Gray is adamant that it doesn’t matter whether you’re B2B or B2C, as long as you remember that your potential buyers are people and communicate with them accordingly. And that means first knowing them, which is the basis for any effective marketing strategy.
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