You have started a small business, and it is going great. Except that you are working more than ever to attract and retain customers. You have to wonder; can you really grow your customer size without hiring more employees?
If you are running a business – big or small – you have to think about automating your marketing tasks to minimize costs and increase ROI. Automation is a great solution for almost every type of business. One of the most important steps of automating your marketing is choosing the right automation software. There are many marketing automation software options, for example, if you want to automate large parts of your tasks you can check Adplorer’s local marketing software by clicking here.
By the way, it is a normal practice in big companies to make social media app for better business growth. And if you are already using an automated system, you need to know if you are getting the most value out of it. When done right, marketing automation helps save time, reach customers quickly and boost conversions.
Here’s what you will learn by the end of this post:
- How to begin automating your marketing
- What marketing tasks should be automated
- How your business can benefit from a good marketing automation system
Set Up Sign Up Forms to Collect Emails of Interested Clients
Before you can begin sending automated campaigns, you must first collect emails and contacts of prospects and customers who might be interested in your products or services. The simplest and most effective way to create a contact list is to build a subscription form and add it to your website. Gathering subscribers should be an on-going process.
A good email automation tool can help you to automatically add a new contact to your existing list whenever a visitor at your site subscribes. Keep the form simple and usable.
Automate Your Welcome Emails
The first contact a business makes with a new subscriber is through a welcome email which includes a warm greeting and sometimes a confirmation of subscription. As this email is sent out to every contact in the list, it is the first task that you should automate. You can create a welcome email and set it to be sent automatically when a new address is added to the list.
Target and Nurture High-Profile Sales Leads
Once you’ve got a sign-up form on your site, all manner of visitors will subscribe. These leads have varying interests, behaviors, demographics and so forth. For these reasons, your marketing campaigns – no matter how good – won’t be relevant to all of them.
You must segment your list if you want good engagement. Identify your high-profile leads – these are prospects that are more likely to buy – and create campaigns that target them specifically.
Set Up and Send Email Reminders About Upcoming Events or Offers
If you are hosting an event or running a promotion soon, you would want to keep your target audience in the loop, lest it slips their minds. Sending regular reminders would be taxing and even unbearable if done manually. But you can create a series of email reminders and schedule them for automatic sending.
Such emails can be created beforehand and sent regularly within a few weeks. Always include a link to a relevant page on your site for the recipient to get more details.
Create an Automated Campaign That Rewards Loyal Clients
It’s good business practice to appreciate loyal customers. So, create an automated “thank you” email and offer them a reward. It could, for example, be a discount coupon, a voucher that they can redeem, free or discounted shipping, free trial of a new product or any other gift you see fit for your customers.
Minimize Lead Leakage
Quality leads may leave your sales funnel without purchasing for one reason or the other. Marketing automation helps you easily identify where leakage is happening so you can put a lid on it. With a good automation system, you can monitor lead behavior, send the appropriate message at the right time and track results.
Cross-Sell and Up-Sell to Active Buyers
Marketing automation enables you to create and send emails that entice buyers to purchase products or services that go together. As such, you get to cross-sell and thus achieve higher sales. For example, if a customer buys a phone from your business, you can later send them an email advertising some good headphones you have.
Automation also allows you to up-sell – a sales technique that sees you persuade a customer to purchase an additional or more expensive item. For example, once a customer has procured a phone, you could later send them automated messages that announce the latest arrivals.
Re-Engage Your Inactive Customers
You can also grow your business with marketing automation by using it to re-engage with past customers. When the time is right, go through your mailing list and identify the names of customers who have not bought anything from you in say 6 months. Then, create an email series that sets out to win them back and eventually increase your profit.
Monitor and Clean Up Your Contact List
You can also use automation to track your leads to determine those that are “cold.” And even if you like having a large list, it is a marketing best practice to keep your recipients’ list updated by eliminating invalid addresses. Doing so ensures that you do not hurt your reputation and also boosts your deliverability rate.
Often, there are times when you discover that some of your subscribers are not engaging with your business in a meaningful way. They might be too lazy to unsubscribe on their own, so it is best to do it for them.
Automate Your Social Media Posts
It is also best you know that thanks to marketing automation, you can efficiently manage all the social media accounts affiliated with your brand. Automation tools enable you to schedule your posts thus keeping you from having to log in each time you need to create and post information. TweetDeck, HootSuite, and IFTTT are some excellent examples of social media automation tools.
Wrapping It Up
These are some of the ways you can leverage marketing automation tools in your business. However, it is essential to remember that not everything should be automated. It is always best to have a professional who helps with marketing in your business from time to time.