Is Your Business Ready for Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation is becoming more and more popular for companies as they try to take their marketing strategy to the next level with less time and less money. However, it’s no secret that marketing automation can seem daunting and like a lot of work, but we are here to say it doesn’t have to be!

Table of Contents

1What is Marketing Automation?
2How Are Automated Marketing Workflows Helpful?
3How Will Marketing Automation Impact Your Small Business
4Do You Need a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) When Using Marketing Automation?
5Top Marketing Automation Software Recommendations
6Is The Time Investment of Marketing Automation Tools Worth It?

Marketing automation tools are great for companies who are looking to streamline their marketing efforts and create efficiencies to automate repetitive tasks. So if you find yourself asking any of the following questions, it may be time to consider Marketing Automation:

Are you spending too much time on manual tasks?
Are you ready to focus more on lead generation?
Do feel like you are falling behind the competition?
Is social media management and email marketing services important to you, but you never have the time?
Do you desire more qualified leads?

At the end of the day a marketing automation strategy may be the missing link thats holding you back from marketing success in your company. Which is why in this blog post we are breaking down how to know when your company is ready for Marketing Automation and when you should consider hiring a digital marketing agency to help with your marketing efforts.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing Automation uses technology that allows business of all sizes to target customers with automated personalized messaging across multiple channels including; email, social media, appointment responses, text messages, and other web based communication platforms. So there is no need to worry about loosing your marketing touch points with the consumer because every message is crafted to match your brand voice and use your unique verbiage.

The best part about utilizing a good marketing automation platforms is the ability to customize the customer journey based on their individual behaviors, preferences, purchase activity, and more without extra effort from your sales team. Initially you will have to craft the individual messages, but once completed the messages are placed on a schedule to be sent automatically, according to sets of instructions or specific triggers in the customer lifecycle created by you called workflows.

Your goal with marketing automation software and workflows is to have your consumers feel like you’ve crafted every marketing and sales message just for them, which will grow their trust in your brand.

How Are Workflows Helpful?

Automated workflows are the building blocks to achieving your marketing tasks through marketing automation platforms. The good news is workflows require no coding knowledge and depending on the specific marketing automation platform work flows may be defined by templates, custom-built from scratch, or modified mid-campaign to achieve the best results from your marketing processes.

The marketing automation software will run in the background your business and this allows you the ability to be there with clients when you need to go on a break from work, head out to other meetings, or simply practice self care. Workflows and automation allows users to customize a user experience by identifying behaviors, preferences, purchases, activities, and more.

Popular automated marketing workflows used by marketing and sales teams include:

Lead Nurturing Email Workflow
Engaged Contact Workflow following form submissions
Automated message responses for social media direct messages

Read more about which Automated Email Workflows You Should Be Using for generating leads in your business today.

How Will Marketing Automation Impact Your Small Business

Most businesses considering getting marketing automation software have a few major thing in common; They want to nurture prospects strategically, collect customer data, and develop relevant content for long-term marketing campaigns. These businesses also usually lack a proper budget for a full marketing and sales team, which can lead to making tough cuts in the overall marketing strategy.

The truth us no business should have to decide between email campaigns, social media management, lead generation, targeted messages, and other marketing tools because they all play a key part in business expansion. Thankfully, the good news is you really can do it all and still have a strong work life balance outside of the office. Some of the specific benefits to introducing a marketing automation strategy like the ones discussed in this blig are:

Enhanced marketing plans
Overall workload efficiency
Interconnected brand touchpoints
Builds customer lifetime value

But if you’re still not sure that marketing automation tools can elevate your customer journey, Read more about Benefits of Marketing Automation for Small Businesses to review more statistics and testimonials from business owners who use marketing automation.

Do You Need a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) When Using Marketing Automation?

When you’re reviewing the various marketing automation software platforms, you’ll also need to think about utilizing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) programs, if you don’t have one already. This will serve as your database for prospective clients and leads throughout your companies marketing processes. Truthfully, a marketing automation platform can’t work to its full benefit without one.

Additionally, CRM integration will increase efficiency between the sales and marketing teams by providing them the opportunity to work within the same database to manage leads. Overall, the use of marketing automation and CRM will help businesses improve sales through customized and relevant experiences that increases revenue faster.

Top Marketing Automation Software Recommendations

Before you ultimately decide if your business is ready for a marketing automation platform, it’s important to note that most marketing automation tools are not cheap or easy to set-up. It all comes down to the ultimate decision of, is the price of the marketing automation technology worth all the time you will gain back from not having to constantly complete repetitive tasks, fear lead management, and track down customer data. No matter the reason, if you think you are ready to say yes we suggest starting your selection process with the well-known industry leaders below:

Hubspot
Marketo
Pardot

Is The Time Investment of Marketing Automation Tools Worth It?

Following the price tag adding a marketing automation system to your marketing strategy, one of the most important things to consider is how much time it takes to set everything up. Content is a large part of how the marketing automation features work so well, which means you’ll need content designed for all touch points along the customer’s buying journey – so that you never miss out on qualified leads.

Additionally, marketing automation software is not just a set it up and forget it type of tool. Once your workflows, content, customer data, landing pages, etc. are in place, the software will still need to be monitored to ensure prospects/customers are moving through the buyer journey correctly. So if you

Marketing agencies have a wealth of experience and knowledge and can help you determine which marketing automation platform is the right solution for your company. Marketing agencies can also help you implement data driven marketing strategies in all aspects of your sales funnel from website design, search engine optimization (SEO) updates, google ads, and more to get you the most out of it for your business.

So, Is Your Business Ready for Marketing Automation?

While the sticker shock (in both dollars and time) of setting up a marketing automation strategy may initially deter you from the use of marketing automation tools. We can assure you the time, effort and money spent setting everything up is well worth the investment. Plus, as we mentioned above if you ever feel as if the setup and content creation is still too overwhelming for your team you can always work with a trusted digital marketing team to help get your marketing automation work started.