Any respectful business can get extremely busy, but it is this busyness that can lead to lacking in other areas which is not ideal in terms of production levels. It can be difficult to ensure everything is working at a high level, especially your marketing efforts as the key is consistent output. This is where marketing automation can save a LOT of time and energy.
What is it?
Marketing automation is software which can perform marketing duties without any manual effort. Examples include social media posts, email marketing, text messages etc.
What are the benefits?
Saves time- Did you know, on average, automating social media posts means you save 6 hours of work per week? 6 hours a week is a large amount of time to be able to use in other areas of marketing. The aim is to work smarter, not harder. Automation means you can do this, enabling your business to grow. The process of going to different software can waste a lot of time, using a tool which contains many of your marketing tools in one place can save those precious seconds which could be used on other parts of your plan. An example of a multi-use software is HubSpot.
Get more out of your CRM- It is important to know CRM software and marketing automation software are different. CRM is lead and customer focused, mostly used by the sales team to see contact information such as name, address, gender, phone number and behaviour. Whereas, the marketing automation software is marketing focused. Both systems are valuable, but when used collaboratively they can truly flourish for a business. Seeing both types of information in one place can save a lot of time and resources as you are able to align your marketing efforts.
For example, you decide you want to send an email to those who are currently in the ‘convert’ stage of the customer journey. If the software is not integrated, you increase the likelihood of risk, cost and time as you are having to manually enter the data. If you accidentally mistyped an email, you may have missed a sale. Sales figures are not worth risking, therefore all methods which reduce the risk should be adopted. A collaborative CRM and marketing automation system will make your efforts seamless with little room for error.
Consistent efforts- An automation system means you can have peace of mind that the content being published to your audience is consistent in design, the tone of voice and even time of day. This means that if you do have an extremely busy day, content will still be seen by your audience, the key to effective marketing is consistency. If you do not consistently appeal to your customers you are increasing the likelihood of losing customers as they will forget who your business is.
Personalisation- Did you know a personalised email will receive 6x higher engagement rate than with no personalisation? On average 70% of businesses fail to personalise their emails, but why? We can clearly see the effectiveness of the technique, therefore ensure it is being used in your marketing efforts. A decent automation system will make personalisation easy for you. For example, when using HubSpot to send marketing emails you can add some first name personalisation code. This means as long as your entire list has their first name included in their contact profile, all will receive their emails with their first name included in it. Although minimum effort, the recipient will feel special and loved by the brand as they will think they have sent that specific email only to them. If your customers feel this way they will most likely do what is intended by the email sender, e.g. click through to the website, contact the business or fill in a form.
For further insights and guidance, we invite you to explore our blog at 07hm.co.uk/blog. Here, you’ll find a wealth of information tailored to the needs and challenges of SMEs navigating the digital landscape. Additionally, if you have specific questions or need personalised advice, don’t hesitate to reach out to us via email at info@07hm.co.uk or telephone on 01702 410663.
