How can marketing automation help your business? If you’re like most small business owners, you wear a lot of hats. You’re the CEO, the CFO, the sales team, and the marketing department all rolled into one. And while you may be a jack-of-all-trades, there are only so many hours in the day.

So how do you find the time to create and execute a marketing strategy that will help you reach your goals?

The answer is simple: marketing automation.

By automating some of your marketing tasks, you can free up time to focus on other areas of your business. If you’re just starting on your automation journey, you might consider working with marketing automation consultants. They will work collaboratively with you to understand your business processes and objectives. They will then recommend the best marketing automation software and tools for your needs.

Marketing automation consultants can help you determine the right automation opportunities and how to best use marketing automation software. If you’re looking for a DIY solution, there is a plethora of great technology out there to help you manage repetitive tasks.

Marketing automation will take some technical planning, but by embracing this new technology, you can take your marketing efforts to the next level – without breaking the bank!

5 Ways To Get Started With Marketing Automation

Once you start looking, you’ll find automation opportunities in every stage of your marketing funnel. From lead generation to customer retention, there are many ways to automate your marketing.

If you’re wondering where to get started with your automation efforts, here are 5 ideas to consider:

1. Automate your social media posts

Social media is a great way to connect with your audience, but it can be time-consuming to manage. If you’re active on social media, chances are you’re spending a lot of time managing content and scheduling posts. But what if there was a way to automate some of this process?

There are a number of software solutions that allow you to do just that. A couple of my favourites are:

SmarterQueue

It’s estimated that only a tiny percentage of your audience will actually see your content. If you’d prefer to spend time crafting content that has a longer shelf life, SmarterQueue is a great option. It offers sophisticated queue management options that even allow you to schedule seasonal content.

The tool allows you to create multiple variations of a single post, which means your content is truly evergreen and working for you in the longer term.

MissingLettr

If you’re active on your blog, MissingLettr will be your best friend when it comes to repurposing for social media.

Not only does it recognise when you post a new blog, but MissingLetter will also help you create variations of your post. This will create a content publishing strategy that will last for months.

Flick

Flick is the ultimate hashtag software. Perform sophisticated research, create and audit collections of hashtags and track performance. If you want to get serious about your social media strategy, Flick will help you take your Instagram account to the next level.

2. Create a drip campaign

Email marketing delivers one of the highest ROI of all marketing activities. Running successful email marketing campaigns can seriously impact overall business performance, and there are many systems out there to help.

Drip campaigns are a great way to nurture your leads and convert them into customers. By automatically sending a series of targeted emails over a period of time, you can stay top-of-mind with your prospects and gradually move them through your sales funnel.

Drip campaigns are an easy way to nurture leads and keep your business top-of-mind. And once you set up a campaign, it will run on autopilot.

There are so many email service providers out there, here are a couple of my favourites:

Flodesk

Create beautiful emails that perform with Flodesk. What makes Flodesk great for drip campaigns is the unlimited nature of subscriptions and the simplicity of the automation.

Klaviyo

for eCommerce stores, Klaviyo is a must. You’ll get detailed information on your customer behaviour that allows you to send targeted campaigns to boost loyalty.

MailerLite

MailerLite is a powerful marketing automation tool that offers a suite of features to help you automate your marketing. With MailerLite, you can create complex drip campaigns with ease, and there is even a free subscription option.

3. Implement retargeting ads

Retargeting ads are a great way to stay in front of your most interested prospects. These ads are shown to people who have already visited your website or engaged with your brand in some way.

There are a number of platforms that offer retargeting capabilities, including Google Ads and Facebook Ads. And when you set up your campaign, you can specify the frequency and placement of your ads so they’re most likely to be seen by people who are most interested in what you have to offer.

Retargeting ads offer great value for money in comparison to other types of search advertising.

4. Use chatbots

Chatbots are a great solution to get started on your marketing automation journey. By providing a chat interface on your website, you can engage with your visitors in real-time and answer their questions instantly.

What’s more, chatbots can be used to qualify and score leads, book appointments, and even close sales. And because they’re available 24/7, they can help you increase your conversion rate.

Many companies work with marketing automation consultants to get started with chatbots. There are a number of chatbot platforms out there, but my favourite is Intercom. Intercom offers a suite of features that make it easy to create and manage your chatbot, including integrations with CRMs.

5. Automating your customer reviews

Customer reviews are a valuable asset for any business. They help build trust, improve conversion rates, and increase search engine visibility. As business processes go, collecting feedback from customers is one of the easiest to automate, and your automation efforts will be well worth it.

The good news is that there are a number of services out there to help improve the process of collecting customer reviews. By automating your customer reviews, you can focus on other areas of your business and save time by not having to manually solicit feedback.

One way is to use a platform like Trustpilot, which allows you to collect reviews from your customers and post them on your website automatically.

Another way is to use a tool like Google My Business, which allows you to collect and manage customer reviews in one place while simultaneously boosting your SEO efforts.

Make Artificial Intelligence part of your digital transformation

Artificial intelligence for marketing is still in its early stages, but there are already a number of ways you can use AI to improve your marketing efforts.

Machine learning is a subset of AI that focuses on teaching computers to learn from data. In contrast to traditional programming, which involves explicitly telling a computer what to do, machine learning allows a computer to learn on its own by extracting patterns from data.

Machine learning can be a great way to automate your marketing. For example, you can use machine learning to segment your customers automatically or to personalize your marketing messages.

The use of AI for marketing is still in its early stages, but there are already a number of ways you can use it to improve your marketing efforts.

Should I work with marketing automation consultants?

There are a number of different marketing automation platforms out there, and it can be tough to decide which one is right for your business.

If you’re not sure where to start, or if you want to get the most out of your marketing automation efforts, it might be worth working with marketing automation consultants. They can help you choose the right platform for your business, set up your account, and get started with marketing automation.

What’s more, they can offer advice on how to use marketing automation to achieve your desired results.

Get started on your marketing automation journey

There are a number of ways to get started on your marketing automation journey, and the best way to get started is to experiment and see what works best for you and your business.

Don’t be afraid to try new things, and remember that even small changes can have a big impact on your bottom line. If your marketing automation efforts fully meet your expectations, you can always scale up your efforts and invest more in marketing automation tools and platforms.

Automating your marketing can save you time and money, and help you scale your business. By using the right tools and platforms, you can free up your time to focus on other areas of your business, and let the automation take care of the rest.

How are you automating your marketing? Let us know in the comments below.