As a small business owner you probably feel pulled in a million directions. One of the ways to take the pressure off is to look into marketing automation for small business strategies. With the right marketing strategy you might find that extra time you’ve been looking for.
Marketing automation for small business.
It has long been the secret weapon for small business owners to keep marketing consistently and focus on other tasks at the same time. Marketing automation has been credited for increasing sales for organizations by 14.5% and decreasing sales overhead by 12.5%.
Those numbers can make a huge difference to your profitability.
The next big thing in the world of marketing automation is mobile marketing automation, which lets you connect with mobile audiences, too. No matter if you’re looking to increase your profitability or find ways to be more productive, marketing automation is for you.
Keep reading to learn the top ways to make marketing automation easy.
1. Have the Right Automation Strategies in Place
Marketing automation has the power to make you more productive. It also has the power to consume a lot of time and resources.
That’s because automation works so well, you want to automate for every possibility. The problem with that is that you can wind up with a couple of dozen automation workflows that have no flow to them. They’re just hastily put together because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
That’s why you want to create automation strategies. Take a look at the most important things you want to automate.
Depending on your business, you can automate a messaging campaign when someone abandons their shopping cart. Another common use is to send a campaign when someone joins your email list or having your subscribers re-opt into your list.
One final one is to create a campaign for scoring the quality of leads. This will enable you to segment your list into groups of people who are likely to buy now, or later down the road.
2. Map Out Automation Workflows
When you have your strategies lined up, the next step is to create a workflow around them. Before you set up your workflows in your automation system, map them out.
In some cases, like someone joining your email list, you’re taking them along the buyer’s journey. Your job should be to get someone to know, like, and trust you. That’s how they become customers.
For someone who abandoned a shopping cart, your workflow will be a bit different. The cool thing about these emails is that they’re opened twice as often as regular emails.
With this workflow, don’t just tell customers that they abandoned their cart. They already know that. Remind them of the benefits of making the purchase.
That will improve your ROI on your marketing efforts.
3. Use the Right Tools
Top-notch copy is still the king for successful marketing automation. You still have to have the right tools to deliver that content.
You already know what you want to automate and the workflows you want to create. Now, it’s a matter of finding the right tools to fit your needs.
Be sure to set aside a budget for your marketing automation tools. Depending on your needs, you may choose to go for a product like ActiveCampaign, which is good for smaller businesses. You might also need a solution that integrates with your CRM.
Consider the upfront costs, monthly costs, ease of use, integrations, and features when choosing a platform.
4. Set up Automation for Mobile
Another consideration when you’re choosing your marketing automation tools is if it’s mobile-friendly.
As more people search for information on mobile devices, mobile marketing budgets are following. Spending on mobile ads is expected to be $57 billion in 2018. That’s a 16% increase over 2017.
Mobile automation lets you reach your customers not only through email but through SMS campaigns and push notifications.
Some tools can just send out text messages. Others can offer full analytic data and create localized messages.
5. Account-Based Marketing
You may be wondering, what is account-based marketing? Account-based marketing takes into account one key factor that many overlook in marketing automation: Personalization.
Personalization has changed how marketing is done. Consumers require and respond to personalized content.
However, a deep level of personalization may be hard to do when you’re automating your marketing.
In account-based marketing, data is used to deliver personalized content to your audience. That allows you to personalize your content on a larger scale. This is the Holy Grail of marketing.
6. Outsource Content Writing
One of the keys to successful marketing automation for small business is content. You can’t just write whatever comes to mind. You have to dig deep and understand your prospect. What are they thinking and feeling? Why is your product important to them?
You have to be a student of great copywriters and learn from the best. That’s how you’ll go from mediocre results to supercharged results.
If you’re too busy to take that on, then you’ll want to hire a copywriter who can deliver results. You can ask your colleagues if they use a copywriter.
You can also check sites like Upwork for freelance copywriters.
7. Check Your Metrics
With everything you put into marketing automation, you’re going to want to see results.
That’s why it’s critical to set up key metrics for your campaigns. You’re going to need to have a way to check what’s working and pinpoint potential issues.
The most common metrics to look at regularly are:
Open Rates: This depends on the quality of your subject line and the quality of your list.
Conversions: How many people sign up for other types of content and products?
Revenue Created: This is perhaps the most important metric that shows ROI.
These metrics will begin to tell the story of how your marketing automation campaign is working for you.
Marketing Automation for Small Business
Simplifying marketing automation for small business is the key to a successful marketing strategy. To make automation easy, you need to take time to think about the most important tasks to automate and map out your workflows.
By doing that, you’re preventing yourself from being caught in a complex web of funnels and metrics.
Do you have questions about marketing your small business? Post your questions on our forums. They’ll get answered by other entrepreneurs.
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