Automated marketing system to create more leads? How can that be true? How do I get our pipeline of leads filled again? What are automated marketing systems? How do we stay in touch with prospects and clients when we need to focus on sales? All great questions.
Now more than ever, businesses need to plan for the future and create their own new opportunities. Your team has to run more efficiently than ever before. They can’t afford to let leads fall through the cracks.
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There is a way to work smarter with less effort, a way to grow your business at a time when resources are limited.
Simply put an automated marketing system streamlines marketing workflows, and measures the outcomes of your marketing campaigns. Our solutions collect customer data and measure interactions, helping you to create effective, segmented, personalized, and timely marketing messages for your customers and prospects.
Marketing automation software is trendy. Competitive companies have all implemented some level of marketing automation. So if you are a business that cares about customer satisfaction, want to find a better return on your marketing spend, and sell your products more effectively, you should consider some form of marketing automation.
The thing you will realize early on is that not all marketing automation software is the same. There is a wide range of functionality and related benefits, enough to make your head spin. It is essential that you carefully evaluate how you might use each feature, the resources in people power required to manage the system, and most importantly, your goals. In simple terms: Lots of features = steep learning, low “people power” = get something simple that is more of a set it and forget installation and finally assess your goals, unrealistic goals = frustration.
In broad terms, practically any automated marketing system track a client’s activities on your website, apps, advanced items, emails, and other digital media. The software can then trigger specific actions utilizing email, SMS, pop-up message, social media, your website, and more using this data.
The behavioral data enables the marketing automation software to personalize the user’s experience. The software can do various tasks, such as redirecting a returning consumer to a new landing page based on previous interactions. Displaying advertising based on browser-based cookies, embedding geo-centric text, and/or sending a series of emails to users depending on their specific interests and automatically delivering your content in a timely and efficient manner!
Before automating their automated marketing system, Pritynorml, Llc, like many companies, used an unstructured manual system to track and nurture them. The sales team followed up on a small percentage of leads with a single email or called on the best of days. Often, leads delivered electronically would sit for days, if not weeks, before any action to follow-up occurred.
Pritynormal Llc decided to integrate a relatively basic automated lead management system. Leads from the website, social media, and phone were tightly integrated into their website and email marketing. Automated campaigns sent welcome emails, information packs (based on interest), and timely notifications to management about new leads. Using “lead scoring,” the sales team was also alerted when a potential client was engaging their content at a level that warranted a direct call based on their level of interest.
Results
Lead pool grew by 300%
Hot lead pool increased by 85%
Revenue growth 40%
The question is, Why is it that some companies have not committed to implementing an automated marketing system? The top three reasons are MONEY! Lack of budget is the biggest hurdle, followed by lack of time and resources. Frankly, any small to medium-sized business needs to carefully examine all its options, internal resources, and internal processes before making a final decision. However, we did want to take the financial burden of buying a system off the table – FREE SOFTWARE. That’s right, and the software is FREE. Glad we got that out of the way? Keep in mind that free might not be the right option for you, but heck, it is for many folks.
This is where we need to point out the big pink elephant in the room. The idea of any sales/marketing automation tool is that you will instantly have some incredible harmony between sales and marketing, and money pours in is very attractive. In reality, rolling out a piece of software will NOT change everything – it is a big piece of the puzzle. It creates a base of communication that is incredibly helpful in educating and maturing leads. It also makes a process that services all potential leads and a defined strategy executed flawlessly with each engagement. The best software will be the one that works best for you.
We kind of think of our solution as the Toyota of automated marketing system software. Practical but missing some of the power and looks of a Ferrari. You may indeed need a Ferrari, and that is not what we provide. The best way to figure out what you need is to fill out our questionnaire. It has seven multiple-choice questions that will help point you in the right direction. If you are not a good fit, we are happy to point you in the right direction and share some of our knowledge.
One thing to keep in mind about Ferraris is that aside from the upfront cost, your ongoing expense can be a little pricy as well, which is probably more than a bit of an understatement. Oh yeah, the other thing about a Ferrari will need someone who knows how to drive it, so make sure that you have someone with a certain level of expertise around to take advantage of all that power.
Our solution is streamlined helping marketing & sales teams bring marketing automation to resolve ongoing communication follow-ups with their prospects and existing customer base. It gives them immense power to create a more personalized experience for all audiences across all various digital platforms and channels. It is a free, flexible, and versatile tool built according to the needs of small to mid-sized companies. Our goal with every installation is to create a process that attracts more leads and relieves your sales team of repetitive and tedious tasks. We feel that we offer the best “bang for the buck” with low upfront and ongoing costs.
There are some great marketing systems out there. Salesforce comes to mind as the darling of large corporate installations. Even though our solution might be used in some Fortune 5000 companies, it is NOT geared to that marketplace. More to the point would be the most widely installed marketing automation system called HubSpot it is trendy, and some might say a little pricey.
The last time we looked at HubSpot’s market share, they owned over 40% of the small business automation software market. They are the current market leaders. They have tens of thousands of installations, great marketing, and offer a wide range of services and functionality. As of this writing, the lowest monthly fee was around $200, and there seemed to be a lot of discussion regarding price creep over time. The onboarding fee runs several thousand dollars, and once your database reaches 1k or more, things get even pricier at over $1000/mth. HubSpot might be the right solution for you…but keep in mind that price should not be the only reason you invest in a particular solution.
Here are some links to other top-notch solutions. One word of caution for any solution … do not overbuy. More features are not better; it just makes things more complicated. Our motto is “simple is simply better.”
• Adroll
• Marketo
• Pardot
• Active Campaign
• Act On