Marketing can be a daunting part of running a business, especially when you’re responsible for every aspect of the operation. When you’re the business’ CEO, accountant, manufacturer, shipping clerk, and CSR, it’s pretty tough finding time to create ads, send out sales letters, and post to social media.
It only complicated things that digital marketing has become a fairly time-consuming discipline. To really make the most of it, you’re expected to make yourself heard on all of the major social networks, maintain a blog, publish videos . . . and all while supporting these efforts with keyword research and split testing.
It’s not unheard of for a small business owner to see all of this stuff piling up and then shuffle marketing down to the bottom of the pile. In fact, one of the major mistakes that small businesses have been making since before the advent of the internet is to skimp on marketing. Ever notice that small businesses which were planning to survive based on “word of mouth” don’t usually last for very long?
If you’re still thinking that a business can grow without a solid marketing plan, then you’re fooling yourself! (I’m following this up with some great news, so don’t despair.)
Automation!
Yes, the great news comes in the form of a single word. It’s a word that had factory workers grinding their teeth in the 1970s, but now the concept is empowering entrepreneurs in ways never before imagined. Take solace, overworked small business owner! You’re going to love marketing automation.
What is Marketing Automation?
There are only a few aspects of a business that can be automated, but thankfully, marketing is one of them. Granted, you can’t expect computers and software to do all the work, but automation will greatly reduce the amount of time that you need to budget for advertising.
The basic idea behind marketing automation involves the use of software to manage some of the work involved in promoting your product or brand. This usually includes everything from basic tasks (such as posting to various social media channels) to more involved things like extrapolating data from Google Analytics or Piwik Pro.
Remember those concerned factory workers from the 70s that I mentioned? Well, marketing automation won’t completely take over job as lead marketing exec for your business, but it will make you more efficient. This means that you’ll be able to reach your goals more quickly and with less direct effort. Most importantly, it means freeing up more time to manage your business without sacrificing your marketing efforts.
Your marketing strategy will need to cover a few different aspects of the sales conversion process. It must drive traffic to your website, turn that traffic into leads, and then close the deal by converting those leads into buyers. Marketing automation can help you to execute any or all of those steps.
Taking Good Care of the Leads You Have
Before we get into the many, many things you can do with marketing automation, I want to talk about a critical quick-fix that can seriously help your business . . . and it can do so right away.
If you’ve been in business for a while, you’ve already got a contact list. If you’ve been taking your email marketing seriously, that means you probably have an extensive list of email addresses that you’ve collected through your newsletter sign up form or capture page.
It’s wonderful if you do, because such a list can be leveraged into revenue, but only if you’re using it correctly. This is where you have to ask yourself if you’re honestly making the best of your email list.
If you’re just blasting out sales letters and promotions without a whole lot of thought, you could be scaring away more leads than you’re converting. After all, most people don’t like to see spam email at all, much less when it comes in tidal waves. You might also be wasting your time (and possibly your money, depending on how your email marketing provider charges you) by sending emails to leads that have no real interest in your product.
There’s a better way to turn that email list into profit. It involves far less guesswork, but a bit more actual work. But that’s where automation comes into play.
Using automation software, you can create a completely self-managing email work flow that maximizes your marketing power without eating up any more of your time.
You can customize your own emailing strategy to suit your needs, but as an example of what you can accomplish, let’s look at this possible solution:
- Your automation software sends out a tickler email – possibly containing a free eBook, report, or something that falls under the content marketing umbrella.
- The software sends a follow-up message to every lead that actually downloaded the attachment. It could be something simple that just says “Thank you for reading our report. Please let us know if you have any follow-up questions!”
- In a few days, the software then sends those same leads an email that includes a link to a related document. It could be a case study or even an infographic that offers additional information on the topic.
- The software then takes note of every lead that chooses to follow that link. These leads have now been qualified several times and are probably very close to making a buying decision. To take advantage of this, the automation software notifies you of which users have progressed all the way through the process so you can contact them directly.
It should be readily apparent why this method of “drip-feeding” your marketing material is much better than sending out generic email blasts. Not only does it handle much of your qualifying for you, but it also ensures that your most worthwhile prospects are getting content that’s relevant and useful to them. That gives you a major advantage in the realm of both email and content marketing.
Making the Most of Automation
You’ve probably caught on to the underlying advantage of this method by now. Automation allows you to groom your leads slowly rather than attacking them with a hard sell. You don’t need a marketing degree to know that the former method is going to give you much better results than the latter.
The fact that all of this is being handled behind the scenes is just a bonus! Sure, automation takes some of that workload off your hands, but just knowing that your marketing efforts are going to result in more conversions (and more revenue) should give you reason to try it out.
Tips for Putting Marketing Automation to Work
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- Automating a bad system is just going to make it fail faster.
Before you set your marketing campaign to autopilot, it would behoove you to make sure that it’s actually effective. Examine your marketing strategy in detail, check your metrics, split test your ads and emails. The better your marketing is when you kick it into high gear, the better your results will be. - Use it like a scalpel, not a broadsword.
Remember that automation is a great way to personalize your marketing. With software helping you to classify and vet your prospects, there’s no reason to keep sending out generic messages, offers, and blast emails. Use automation to its fullest and go for precision. While it might seem like casting a wide net is the best idea, you will always see better results when you narrow your marketing down to a very specific group of qualified leads. - Make your existing customers a priority.
Never let your mind wander away from the customers that you’ve already earned. They’re actually more valuable to your business than the ones you might have tomorrow! Using automation, you can ensure that your previous buyers are kept close. Of course, precision means sending them marketing content that’s tailored to a previous buyer, not just random web traffic. Keep them engaged with content that matters to someone who already has some level of loyalty to your brand. - Spend some of that extra time examining your results.
Once automation takes away some of the burden of manually marketing, you should take some of the time you’ve gained to closely watch and track the effectiveness of your campaigns. Observe your leads’ behaviors throughout the sale funnel. Which emails do they open? What seems to be the “sticking point” where the majority of leads disengage? What’s the demographic of the leads that convert? You can easily take a peek at most of this data through analytics software, so don’t leave that valuable information just sitting on the table.
- Automating a bad system is just going to make it fail faster.
Automation is not going to solve all of your problems, but it is certainly a game-changer. Once you take full advantage of everything that modern software has to offer, you’ll be able to enjoy better conversion rates and more revenue – all while cutting back on your own workload.