What is marketing automation?
In this blog I will seek to explain in basic language what marketing automation is and why it's something small business owners should consider.
So right of the bat, I have to say I really don't like the word automation. Although it fits, it just makes it all sound Impersonal and not very friendly.
But when setup correctly and with the right intention can turn your company into helpful and useful sales and marketing gods!
So what is it? Well as you can probably guess it's the ability to have your marketing predetermined and intelligent and on autopilot to a degree.
Marketing automation will help you understand so much more about your prospects and give you so much detailed information about their activities with your digital assets that it's almost big brother.
Now I know that sounds like a bad thing as much as a good thing. That is why you have to be legal and ethical and manage your prospects expectations so they understand this or as much as they need to know and ensure you deliver real value and not you this technology to spam people and become creepy.
The kinds of things you can do are amazing. See visits by named prospects in real time, understand when emails are opened and clicked. Communicate via online chat, social or email and create an amazing experience.
You are also able to send relevant emails and content to prospects automatically based on their behaviour. This is really powerful stuff that enables you to do so much more with less.
There is of course an upfront investment of time to set this all up and to keep testing and making the experience better.
As for software there is loads of vendors out there including Hubspot, Marketo, Pardot, Silverpop and more.
These are not cheap tools but compared to employing the equivalent people to achieve the same thing  I think there is a real reason to consider these or other solutions.
Like with all tools, there needs to be a human input and constant and consistent conversation so prospects do not feel they are being served by robots.
There is nothing worse when it is obvious the marketing is being served up by a computer. When there is a personal feel and you know there is a human available to speak with and will see every response it can really work.
The kinds of investment you will need can really vary and if you cannot afford the full marketing automation tools consider using smaller but equally as powerful tools such as constant contact, infusionsoft and aweber. There are even so really great features available it the paid for version of mailchimp.
So if you choose to use any of the the tools or similar mentioned ensure you keep you in your marketing and not C3PO or R2D2.
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Author- Speaker - Consultant. Passionate about all things digital.