Marketing Automation drives move revenue for time strapped small business owners.
Marketing Automation helps do the one thing required of all businesses today.
Marketing!
You know you need to do more marketing, but the time to do it never seems to be available. Revenue declines without steady sales lead generation and sales opportunities, and that’s prevented with continuous marketing.
Marketing Automation can transform your small business into a much larger business by creating a consistent flow of new opportunities to grow both revenue and profits.
One of the challenges most small businesses have is keeping the sales pipeline full. The time required to do marketing prevents many business from being consistent in their marketing message delivery. This creates an up and down revenue stream that hinders growth and profitability.
Small business owners, typically, have the following business process:
Do some marketing – Wait for demand generation to work
Manage the sales cycle – Lead Management activities
Close some deals – Sales Process (see Sales Process Diagram)
Deliver what was sold – Field Service or Product Delivery
In the course of doing steps 2-4, the marketing effort stops. This is especially true for those selling services or products that require services when delivered. Mainly because they are too busy delivering the services they sold and can not handle more. Once the delivery is completed, repeat the process over and over again.
What happens, with this method, is a drained opportunity pipeline. Then the wait for the sales funnel to fill up again and move them through the same business process outlined above. Frustration ensues because you feel like a hamster on a treadmill.
Lots of activity without really getting anywhere!
Where Marketing Automation helps -
Consistent demand generation, for your products and services, is the result of continuous marketing efforts. It maintains a steady flow in sales lead generation for your sales people to work with. By automating your marketing efforts, no one has to remember to send out more marketing messages; it just happens.
It is a very effective way to handle your campaign management activities. That is also why it should also be part of your CRM strategy.
With the right tools, data mining (a form of database marketing) is possible. By digging deeply into your database, you identify commonalities that helped you be successful with certain types of customers. This information makes it easier to build relationships with targeted market segments. This improves your relationship marketing skills to a very high level in support of your Small Business Marketing Strategy.
Do not use it for spamming your contacts, but instead use permission marketing. You know, the kind where your contacts actually have requested some form of interaction with the company. It’s your company’s reputation that I am talking about, after all.
How Marketing Automation works -
Would you like an employee who does nothing, every day, except promote your company?
If they never took a day off, got sick, or took a vacation; how much more business could you have? You just give them your information and let them provide it to your targeted market 24 hours a day – 7 days a week - nonstop.
That is how marketing automation works.
To make marketing truly automated requires creating a small business marketing strategy that clearly defines: (See our Sample Marketing Plan)
The target you want to reach
Include who you want to attract attention from, with as much detail as you have or can obtain.
The better you define your target, the more effective you will be.
For more information about this you should check out our Marketing Consulting Services
The goals and objectives you want to achieve
Without including your goals and objectives in your marketing strategy; how will you know when it’s working?
What will you use to measure its effectiveness?
The actions you want them to take
Include what you want them to do. Go to your website, call your company, and/or purchase a product or service.
These are all valid actions that your marketing message should drive.
If you don’t tell what you want them to do, they can only assume what you want, so tell them.
The delivery methods you will use
Whatever method you use, internet marketing and advertising, a email marketing system, direct mail, broadcast media – TV, radio, etc - or print media; even the current “hot” topic of Social Marketing.
It just needs to be in the places your target market goes to and use.
A lot of companies are taking advantage of in-expensive online marketing activities today as a cost effective way to reach their market.
The most common tool used is some form of email management software.
The stage, or point, that the marketing lead turns into a sales lead
Why would this be part of a marketing strategy, because, you will need to move them into the sales process at some time. Right? That IS one of your goals isn’t it?
When you know the stage to move them to sales, then the lead nurturing process can continue, automatically, until they are ready.
Your marketing automation system just continues to move them in the right direction, automatically.
For help in creating your small business marketing strategy, contact us to speak with a Marketing Strategy Consultant today.
Marketing Automation, as part of your contact relationship management (CRM system), can help you stay competitive in marketplace.
It is like a dedicated employee promoting your company, non-stop.
It has to be based on your small business marketing strategy.
It greatly enhances your database marketing efforts when used with good data mining practices. Using it as permission marketing based solution, you keep a steady sales lead generation flow.
For those not quite ready to buy yet, marketing automation is very effective in the lead nurturing process until they become sales ready leads.
By using your automation tools, you are able to continue providing relevant information until they move into the next stage of the buying decision process. Again, creating steady stream in your sales prospecting activities.
You have a choice.
Spotty marketing efforts with see-saw revenue for your company or a consistent flow of interest generating marketing messages that keep your company “top of mind” and in front of your best targeted prospects.
