“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” – Bill Gate
The first thing to do with your marketing automation is to work out what you want to achieve.
What is your business strategy and how will marketing automation help achieve this strategy.
Sometimes we business owners just rush out to implement something because we know it is a good idea and it will help our business BUT we don’t think it through enough to see where we will get the most impact.
You need to work on things that will have the greatest impact on your business first.
Automation is where things run automatically. So use marketing automation to increase your output without you having to increase the time you input.
Getting more done with less.
So marketing automation is where you set up a system that will make a number of your marketing activities automatic. We all have been there when we know we should send an email to a new client, or send a thank you note when we have a sale or order.
Well marketing automation will help you with this.
When you begin to map out your marketing automation you need to take into account these important points so that you get the most return and impact for your business:
Fully understand your strategy
Make every action you take more productive
Create a better experience for your customers
Keep customers around for longer
Grow your business
When you can see where you’re going, it’s easier to get there (there’s even psychology research on how goals affect performance).
If you can automate significant parts of your business, you can free up time to build stronger relationships with your customers, make your staff more effective and efficient, and work on ideas and services to build your business further.
Ultimately you want to improve the experience that your customers, clients, leads and prospects have with your business. That is where the power of marketing automation really comes in.
How do you know what to automate? Look for:
Tasks that take up most of your time
Tasks that you find yourself repeating often
How do people like you use automation in their businesses?
Some examples are
1. Save time by talking to the people most likely to buy
Not everyone wants to buy from you. But when someone submits a contact form or wants to schedule a meeting, you still need to take time out of your day to talk to them.
If you could automatically qualify those leads, identify which people are likely to waste your time (through automation), you could free up a ton of time to spend on everything else.
When you can spend your time talking to just the people who are most interested, you and your staff will be way more productive
2. Manage your team’s workflow with automation
How can you keep track of everything that everyone needs to do?
Automation can help make sure work gets done on time (without needing to send countless follow-up emails).
Instead of constantly managing assignments, let automation take care of it. Repetitive tasks are a great opportunity to automate.
You can use marketing automation for
- Welcome emails
- Auto-responders
- Sales follow up
- New offer
- Special offers
- More info
- Value
- Contact and appointments
A good place to start for any small business is the following 5 email marketing tactics:
Customer Support Follow Up
You can automate the entire process if you use a customer support tool that integrates with your email marketing tool. Just write your follow-up message and set it to be sent automatically when a contact in your email marketing list completes a communication with a customer service representative.
Sales Trigger
When someone makes a purchase from you, your email marketing software should be set up to automatically send a follow-up message. Not only should this message thank the person for their purchase, but it should also offer a cross-sell or upsell item. You can even include a discount to boost conversions.
Form Submission
Every time someone submits a form on your website -- whether it’s your contact form, a subscription form, a form to download a free resource, or any other type of form -- you should have an email marketing message queued to go out immediately after the behaviour is recorded.
Abandoned Cart
Abandoned cart messages are a critical part of your email marketing strategy. When someone takes the time to find a product they like on your website, puts that item in their online shopping cart, but leaves your site without completing their purchase, it’s highly likely that an obstacle got in their way which prevented them from completing the transaction.
Thank You
Thank you messages can be sent to your customers based on a variety of behavioural triggers such as making a purchase, attending a webinar, writing a review, and so on. The key is to be sure your thank you messages sound authentic and make the recipients feel valued.
After these, you can look to use marketing automation for
Tracking prospects or clients who view your content.
Provide follow up to people who click links in your content
Provide additional information to people who click links in your emails
Provide information to people who visit certain pages on your website
Provide an email sequence to people who download certain whitepapers and lead magnets
Provide personalised newsletters and emails to your clients based upon their purchases and information they have accessed.
Marketing automation gives small business owners a powerful system that will give an improved relationship with their clients, customers and prospects.
