Getting Started With Small Business Marketing Automation

One of the most effective ways for small business owners to streamline their marketing efforts and increase revenue is by automating some of the basic tasks underlying their email and online marketing.

Marketing automation can be a broad topic with varying degrees of sophistication and complexity, but tools aimed at small business users can provide important benefits in identifying and nurturing your most attractive prospects and improving customer retention.

In basic terms, marketing automation is software that automates the nuts-and-bolts, repetitive chores required to run email marketing campaigns, welcome and qualify prospects and leads, track the progress of ad campaigns, and other activities.

The software allows you to personalize outgoing emails and text messages to prospects and customers, to segment prospects and customers into a variety of condition-based lists, and to pass leads to your sales team when they’re most likely to make a purchase.

Some of the benefits for small business owners include:

• Generating and nurturing more leads with automated emails and text messages
• Converting more opportunities by engaging with the most interested prospects
• Saving time and effort of sending marketing messages
• Personalizing email newsletters for every recipient
• Tracking the performance of your marketing efforts
• Optimizing your marketing investments by understanding what works (and why)

As an example, consider a Facebook ad designed to inspire a prospect to download a free report that your business has developed as a lead magnet. The ad would send an interested user to a designated website, known as a landing page, that includes a form for them to enter their name and email address to request additional information.

Your marketing automation system would help you create the landing page, capture the information, and send the report to the customer. You could then design a sequence of follow-up emails that provide additional information at designated intervals, such as three or five days. If the prospect expresses additional information, such as by asking a question or visiting pages on your website, the platform can notify your sales team to contact the prospect.

Other common actions you can perform include:

• Sending confirmation emails after a customer places an order, with a follow-up email to see how well they enjoy the product or a coupon for a future purchase.
• Thanking prospects who’ve signed up for an email newsletter, and directing them to past blog posts or articles they may be interested in.
• Sending offers to past customers to trigger additional purchases.

Once the system is set up and you have created a process for when people should be contacted, the appropriate messages are sent and internal notifications happen automatically.

Similarly, marketing automation streamline your lead generation processes by identifying your most attractive prospects (based on how they interact with your company’s website and marketing materials).

Popular choices for small businesses include Mailchimp, HubSpot, Keap, Active Campaign, and others.

Evaluating Your Options

Given that different marketing automation platforms range in sophistication from basic email marketing to advanced analytics, it’s important to get a sense of your needs as you begin to evaluate potential choices.

For example, if a powerful tool isn’t easy for you and your team to use, it’s not a good choice for your company.

Most leading tools offer low-cost options and free trial periods to help you get a sense of how easy they are to use, and how much an investment in marketing automation is likely to help your small business increase sales.