Making an Impact on Small Business Marketing with Marketing Automation
According to a new report by research firm Software Advice, a division of Gartner that provides reviews and research on marketing software, nearly all (98%) of small-business software buyers are shopping for marketing-automation software for the first time. That means that small business marketing is accelerating and Marketing Automation (MA) is becoming a prevailing phenomenon. Companies that want to stay ahead, realize that they need to adopt enabling technologies in order to make the Sales and Marketing process more effective and efficient. Manual efforts used to manage marketing activities are simply no longer viable in a competitive marketing landscape.
The importance of reaching the right customer, through the right channel at the right time means targeting the right customers at exactly the right place –right where they are in their buying journey. Working with the tedious, repetitive tasks of marketing, in which spreadsheets are used and marketing teams are made up of employees that execute these repetitive tasks means that small business companies are kept back. And in order to accelerate small business marketing, the adoption of marketing automation is imperative.
Let’s look at the ways in which marketing automation works to elevate small business marketing in an effort to accelerate the marketing process.
Automated Drip Campaigns
Small businesses that have turned to marketing automation are now running drip marketing campaigns that help them move away from sending the same messages at the same time to everyone. MA enables companies to send the right message to the right group of prospects at the most opportune time: At the time they are most ready to buy. This means more efficiency and effectiveness. By nurturing sales leads that aren’t ready to make a purchase, drip campaigns offer the marketing department the ability to have an on-going conversation with prospects while keeping the company top-of-mind, so that when they are ready to buy, they think of you first.
Marketing & Sales Alignment
A MA platform that takes care of all the marketing processes can be integrated to CRM in order to align Sales and Marketing processes. When the two teams are aligned, there is better communication and the two departments no longer work in a silo. By integrating MA with CRM, Sales and Marketing work within common sets of definitions that enable them to understand where buyers are in their buying journey.
Demand Generation
In order to create valuable connections and acquiring the right customers, MA enables marketers to create marketing campaigns that run on autopilot. Using a ‘set and forget’ marketing method, marketers become more adept at capturing leads. Whether a customer came in through a website or a landing page, acquiring that lead means using MA to increase the number of prospects and eventual buyers.
Key Takeaway
Effective small business marketing means enabling the marketing team with MA. It becomes the marketer’s job to understand buyer’s needs and employ the most effective tools in order to get that lead, nurture the prospect, and lead them through their buying journey until they become sales-ready. The time for small business marketing to adopt MA has come in a world in which hitting revenue targets and impacting the bottom line is more important than ever. How effective are your small business marketing efforts? Perhaps it’s time to start automating your marketing processes.
