When I started hearing about marketing automation around 2015 and even before I knew in depth what it was about, I thought to myself that it was something revolutionary not only in generating potential customers (leads) but also in the content itself. marketing… after all “automation” + “marketing” promised the complete package…
But no… marketing automation is not a solution for generating leads or for the automated creation of marketing content, but rather a software solution whose ultimate purpose is to take care of the process of nurturing, supporting, and converting potential customers and customers.
When I implement marketing automation solutions, I like to keep in mind that I am setting up a follow-up process for potential customers and clients. This process will give me consistency, save costs, and above all increase the probability of conversions into purchases of products or services in the immediate but also in the medium and long term.
What is marketing automation really?
Marketing automation is nothing more than specialized software that allows you to create an entire digital marketing strategy centralized on just one platform.
Marketing automation is therefore a strategy that uses software to automate marketing tasks such as sending personalized emails and SMS, messages on social media as well as funnels that guide potential customers and clients to convert into purchasing products and services.
This will allow companies to focus on developing creative campaigns and analyzing data rather than repetitive tasks.
Its main function is to respond to the needs of efficiency, personalization, and scale in the modern business world.
Why marketing automation is important for small businesses
Marketing automation allows small businesses to optimize the efficiency of their resources, placing them close to the level of a medium or large company when it comes to optimizing a marketing campaign.
This importance is mainly reflected in the following reasons:
- Increased Efficiency: automating processes will ensure consistency in the execution of processes, increasing efficiency in a small company’s marketing operations.
- Equality of Circumstances: All large companies and most medium-sized companies make use of marketing automation software. When a small company uses software for marketing automation, it will be on an equal footing from the point of view of marketing processes.
- Resource Saving: Automating various tasks such as sending emails, scheduling the publication of content on social networks, nurturing leads, and converting them into purchasing products or services are tasks carried out by marketing automation software to the point of freeing up time that could be directed to other strategic areas of the company.
- Personalization at Scale: Personalization in communication for a large volume of contacts is very important as it significantly increases the probability of conversions.
- Reliable Metrics: In most cases, metrics in a small company are non-existent or unreliable. With the implementation of marketing automation software, the small business will have metrics that will rival those of a large or medium-sized company, thus allowing the small business to understand the performance of marketing campaigns as well as make decisions based on reliable data.
In the next point, I will detail a possible action plan for marketing operations within a small business with a view to boosting customer communication.
A Marketing Action Plan for Small Businesses
In a small business, the key is to get started. However, it is important to understand that a well-thought-out objective definition will give us some security and predictability when it comes to achieving our marketing objectives.
An action plan will have to give us strategic direction, as this is extremely important for us to focus efforts and resources on the activities that really matter.
We must also be able to measure, as it will be essential to track progress and evaluate the performance of our marketing campaigns.
The measurability of results must support our decision-making based on the results achieved.
Most importantly, especially for a small company, motivate the person or small team that will be responsible for putting the marketing action plan into practice.
A marketing action plan in a small business, in my humble opinion, should initially only focus on these 5 objectives:
- Prioritize Objectives: You probably have a variety of goals in mind for your company. Prioritize them, don’t forget that you are in a small company. Make a list of short, medium, and long-term objectives and order them according to their strategic importance and feasibility. Start with only the most crucial ones for your business.
- Be Very Specific: Don’t create vague goals such as “increase online presence.” Be very specific, “increase traffic from Google by at least 25% in the next 6 months” or “increase lead conversion rate by 30% in the next quarter.”
- Understanding the Company’s Needs: The step before defining marketing objectives is to fully understand the specific needs of your business. Ask yourself what you want to achieve with a marketing automation system. Increase the sales? Expand customer base? Strengthen brand recognition?
- Establish Metrics: Have metrics defined so you can measure progress and direction of goals. These metrics can include cost per lead, conversion rate, daily visitors, newsletter open rate, and newsletter click rate, among others.
- Constant Update of Results: Marketing objectives are not statistics, so they need to be revisited as you progress through the marketing automation process. Always be prepared to adjust goals.
By following a set of objectives like the one outlined above, you will put yourself on a path to achieving goals that will certainly boost your small business’s marketing automation strategy and, as a consequence, increase its chances of success.
Some Practical Starting Ideas for Your Marketing Automation
As you may have already noticed, a marketing automation system does not translate into an automated content generation system.
The content must be produced by people or by AI (artificial intelligence) with due human supervision. For it to be useful, it (the content) must be of high quality.
In a small company, it is sometimes difficult to allocate human and financial resources to the production of high-quality content. What I always advise anyone who is starting out with marketing automation is to start very slowly, that is, start with automations that do not require a large human or financial investment.
And how is this possible? You will ask. Well, this is not only possible but ideal for small businesses.
Imagine that you have already created your marketing automation plan and already have well-defined objectives.
To put these objectives into practice, we can fit them into just 5 static customer communication campaigns in the first year and if there are human and financial resources available, newsletters must be created in between these static campaigns.
What static campaigns are these? Well, these static campaigns will be New Year, Easter, Summer / Back to School, Black Friday, and Christmas.
Yes, just these 5 campaigns will be perfect enough to start your marketing automation efforts. The great advantage of initially using static campaigns on dates and events widely recognized by everyone is to avoid spending financial and human resources on creating high-value content and still be accepted in your communications, precisely because they are dates and events known by the public in general.
So, how could we practically put together a campaign to cover these 5 events/dates/time periods?
The New Year Campaign
The New Year campaign could run from January 1st to the end of February.
This could consist of a sequence of 5 to 10 emails with some time spacing in which you could, for example, start by wishing you a good new year, in the next email you could talk, for example, about the New Year’s resolutions that are most common for the contact’s area of activity, in a third email could talk about, for example, a new product or service, a fourth email could offer a New Year’s discount and so on.
The idea here is to keep our brand active in the customer’s mind and introduce some conversion focuses on purchases of products or services made available by us.
The Spring and Easter Campaign
This campaign may take place in March, April and May.
Again, the campaign could consist of a sequence of 5 to 10 emails. During this period we will have lots of dates recognized by everyone and which are a great excuse to get in touch. The most obvious will be Women’s Day (March 8), April Fools’ Day (April 1), Easter and Mother’s Day (May 12).
Be creative in your communications and use some of them to promote products and services. Remember to always offer more valuable content than product and service offers.
The idea here is to keep the customer aware that we are here, present. With these regular communications, marketing automation software will accumulate more and more interaction data so that it can later be used to carry out increasingly targeted campaigns.
The Summer Campaign / Back to School
This campaign may take place during the months of June, July, August, and September.
The beginning of summer is always a good excuse to get in touch with our customers. In general, they are looking forward to the most relaxing time of the year, so they won’t be bothered by us reminding them of this proximity.
A summer/back-to-school campaign can consist of a sequence of 7 to 12 emails in which the beginning could, for example, focus on holidays, the beach, fun, and recharging one’s batteries.
Some emails may be focused exclusively on offering products or services. We must be more aggressive in sales communication during the back-to-school period if our line of activity allows it.
The Black Friday Campaign
This campaign will be entirely dedicated to Black Friday. The Americanization of our culture has led us to completely accept this date and associate it with a period of highly advantageous consumption where real “bargains” are usually found.
During this period we must meet customer expectations and offer them really good deals if that is possible on our side. It should be a period where we try to definitively brand our brand in the customer’s mind.
This campaign may consist of a sequence of 4 to 6 emails where we will only publicize product or service offers. The intensity of the call to action should increase as we progress in the campaign. Save the most spectacular offers for last.
The Christmas Campaign
The last campaign of the year should take place between November and December.
This is a date widely recognized around the world. In the Western world, it is the biggest event of the year. Throughout the months of November and December, the event is meticulously prepared.
Depending on the sector of activity, this time of year could be the one where you will see the highest volume of business, so this campaign could consist of a sequence of 5 to 10 appropriately spaced emails with a very strong focus on your products and services. If there is no adaptability of products or services to the festive season, you must at least produce content that is valuable and adaptable to the season in order to remain present in the customer’s mind.
Conclusion
Marketing automation as a specialized software platform is no longer for exclusive use in large and mid-sized companies.
For small companies, marketing automation mainly allows them to optimize the efficiency of their resources, remaining at a level of optimization very close to medium or large.
An initial marketing plan for a small business should be simple and focus only on prioritizing objectives, being specific, understanding the company’s needs, establishing metrics, and constantly updating results.
The best way to start from scratch in a small business is with a static marketing campaign that could consist of 25 to 60 emails that will cover most of the 12 months of the year.