Marketing automation may sound like a sci-fi thing to many people and business owners. However, it is something that is happening here and now and it is going to be a big thing in the upcoming year in the world of business endeavours and affairs. Especially beneficial for small and medium-sized businesses, marketing automation will offer tools, ways, and opportunities to every business owner for succeeding. Unfortunately, a big majority of the business owners are still unaware of the potential of marketing automation and the variety of marketing automation tools available. Such tools help every owner of a small and midsized business to reach out to customers and resonate with them in less time and with higher efficiency.
Marketing automation tools offer a great opportunity to small and midsized businesses to compare and compete the world of big corporations and companies in the context of customer reach. Businesses on the smaller scale often have limited opportunities compared to the bigger companies, therefore such smaller firms want to approach their marketing plans and integrate them with a very strategic mindset that can save them resources, time, and energy, while provide enough efficiency for achieving all marketing goals. In this context, marketing automation tools can be very beneficial.
Besides providing valuable opportunities for interacting and communicating with customers and clients, marketing automation also saves a lot of time. Saving time is an especially important advantage to be offered, especially for smaller businesses, because it allows more time for committing to other vital tasks and focus on other essential aspects of the business. Among the benefits that marketing automation can offer to small and midsized businesses are the increased sales productivity, motivation for both marketing and sales teams to work together for achieving a big goal, increased conversations and interaction, the boosted ROI by doing work of a big marketing team, the compilation of a complete view of customer behaviour, and much more.
Here are some of the best marketing automation tools created with smaller and midsized businesses in mind:
One-Stop Social Media Shop
A social media tool for managing all social media accounts and online presence in general? Well, this definitely sounds like a very beneficial and a great tool, especially for smaller businesses that want to make the most of their online presence without investing too many resources. For the few years, one of the most important aspects that determines the success of a company is its online presence, having effective and timely social content that represents the business the right way and resonates with the auditory. It is simply imperative for a company and this trend is surely going to continue in the upcoming decades. Recent studies show that a lot of people are more likely to buy from companies and businesses they follow on social media and to increase their spending with those brands. Therefore, in the era of likes we live in, a business cannot survive without well-established and managed social media accounts and content.
This type of customer connection is very important and a marketing tool that can help a small business to secure it is essential. Such a marketing tool will help a lot by scheduling the posting of content across all different social media channels and platforms in advance. As a result, businesses have the freedom to plan their social media content weeks and even months in advance. By this, a company will never worry about missing a scheduled day for sharing content, or interrupting weekends, holidays, or busy workdays. With such a well-organised posting strategy, posting regularly is guaranteed, which is great for online presence. Small and midsized businesses can also benefit from such marketing tools by analyzing performance and also responding to customers and Internet users across all different social media channels and platforms in an easy, organised, timely way and through an easy-to-use interface.
CRM With Email Marketing
Smaller and midsized businesses can also benefit a lot from a tool that captures all important information for customers in once place. Through such a tool business will be able to offer improved customer service and experience for all clients, which can also boost the sales revenue. Such customer relationship management software will be able to help the company to easily and quickly track all interactions and purchases from customers. Some tools from this type also offer the additional benefit of analyzing and predicting potential next steps and drive transactions.
Such tools often come with an integrated email marketing automation, which will ensure better customer experience and will increase the success rate of a business’ e-mail and follow-up campaigns. Often underestimated by companies, however, e-mail marketing still remains a great and very efficient way for reaching customers, mainly because this way of communication requires the reader to opt-in and allows for several layers of personalization. Recent research shows that for every dollar spend on e-mail marketing, businesses can get a return of thirty-two dollars. Therefore, CRM is very important for the efficiency of your marketing plan and strategy, for sure.
Take a Survey
One of the most important ways to learn how your company and business resonate with consumers and find out about ways to grow and improve your company is customers feedback. Small and midsized companies can often achieve significant growth and improvement simply by soliciting and heeding the feedback of customers. However, in-depth market research can be very expensive and this is a budget a smaller company is not prepared for. This is when a marketing tool can be very beneficial.
Online survey marketing tools allow smaller and mid-sized companies to gain valuable insights into the attitudes of customers towards the company without investing a serious budget into lengthy market research programs. In addition, an online survey is more convenient for the customer and there is a higher chance they will want to take part. Such a survey marketing tool allows for the data to be tracked and analyzed easily. All your important questions can be answered through a short online survey the customers won’t mind to take part in.
Chatting
Another way you can strengthen the customer journey for your customers is by chatting with them and utilizing a chat marketing tool. A chatbot will provide all customers with a personalised experience and provide response to a great variety of frequently asked questions directly from the website of your business. In addition, chatbots are able to gather customer data for future marketing campaigns and projects and help a company to reach its sales goals. A chatbot marketing tool is also very convenient for the customers, as it gives an instant response and can further help them by sending links for making a purchase, transferring customers to a live associate if needed, and much more.