For a startup marketer, the most valuable asset is time. Every tool, channel and campaign that needs active management consumes that valuable resource, leaving little for important, but less urgent, tasks. Enter marketing automation.
Businesses have been managing their email marketing and content management with software for years. However, the variety of different systems available resulted in difficulties. What if your landing page software didn’t integrate with your email system? Was there a way to trigger personalized email responses based on blog posts read on your website?
Modern marketing automation allows marketers to manage all of these different automations under a single program. This allows marketers to put their time into more valuable pursuits, without worrying about whether their systems are integrated and automated.
Not convinced? Let’s explore how marketing automation can save you time, and make your startup’s marketing more scalable.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
Scenario 1. You need to send an email to a subset of your existing customers. Do you need to visit your CRM, sort by a particular field, limit by date range, export that list in CSV, then import into your Email Service Provider (ESP)?
Scenario 2. You just pushed a new blog post. You want to share it on several social media networks, and at different times. Do you fire up your Social Media Management (SMM) software, copy-paste the link into a UTM builder, shorten it, then copy-paste into your SMM and schedule?
These are just two examples of the simple, repetitive tasks that marketing automation lends itself to. In fact, good marketing automation software can help you manage:
- Content Production
- Landing Page Creation and Tracking
- Lead Nurturing
- Campaign Analytics
- Social Media Management
- Email Marketing
Marketing automation isn’t built on the promise of helping you manage each of these repetitive tasks – there’s already software that does that. Instead, it delivers huge returns by simplifying, standardizing, and executing these tasks automatically.
Marketing teams spend too many of their working hours managing the various ins and outs of these initiatives. Marketing automation empowers you to delegate the most mundane aspects of your job to a software program, and focus your attention on more strategic duties.
To Err is Human
Consider every time your social media intern manually logs into Twitter to share your content. Or each time you have to create a new landing page in your CMS, but with a different headline. Think of every deadline you have related to posting or sending or sharing in the next 7 days. Every time a human interacts with your marketing, there’s a chance for error.
Not so with marketing automation.
Automating these “grunt work” touches with software means that tasks are completed with perfect precision. No more sending to a mistyped email address. No more missing a post deadline because you were in a meeting that ran long. No more forgetting to tag that link. Automation eliminates human error or forgetfulness. Every task performed is automatically logged and measured, resulting in a wealth of data and metrics which you can use to make your processes even more efficient.
A Real World Example: LeanLogistics
LeanLogistics is a provider of online transportation management systems (TMS).
While their campaigns were effective, their productivity was suffering. But after implementing marketing automation, they slashed wasted time across the board, enabling them to scale their successful efforts and grow their brand.
- Email campaigns were built in hours, not days.
- Prepping for tradeshows and webinars went from 6 weeks down to 2 days.
- The amount of campaigns running doubled without needing extra help or time.
You can read all the specifics here.
Start Future-Proofing
Marketing automation software is now simple enough and affordable enough to be attractive to small businesses. For startups looking to stretch budgets and improve efficiency, the software can easily become the most valuable tool in their arsenal.
If you haven’t already integrated marketing automation, it’s worth your time to look at the facts. The days where marketers needed to do everything themselves are long gone.
Marketing automation can be a valuable tool for businesses, especially startups and small businesses. If you are ready to scale your marketing and lead nurturing, or are frustrated with the amount of time spent doing mundane digital tasks, it might be the solution you’re looking for.
Have questions about implementing marketing automation with your current website and other marketing platforms? Our team would be happy to provide expert guidance and implementation – just reach out.