How to get started with marketing automation for SMBs
Marketing automation can help SMBs, which may lack marketing budgets and resources. With certain processes automated, an SMB's marketing team can spend more time creating.
Automation can help organizations of any size streamline their marketing processes, optimize their efforts and offer consistent, personalized experiences to customers.
Through the automation of repetitive tasks, organizations can save time and resources and enable marketing teams to focus on strategy and creativity. Automation tools also offer actionable insights from customer data, which enables businesses to make data-driven decisions that can improve their ROI. Particularly for SMBs, marketing automation represents a key strategy to compete effectively in the market, foster customer retention and drive growth.
Regardless of the size of an SMB's marketing team, this strategy can help them make the most of their efforts and budgets.
What is marketing automation?
Marketing automation refers to the use of software and other technologies to more effectively market on multiple digital channels -- such as email, social media and websites -- and automate repetitive tasks.
The term covers automation of outbound marketing efforts and responses to these efforts. For example, it can automate responses to leads, post on social media and update customer data. In a nutshell, this strategy frees marketers from mundane tasks, so they can focus on new and innovative strategies.
Additionally, marketing automation integrates all channels for a unified and seamless CX. Through tracking and analyzing customer behavior and interactions, organizations can create personalized experiences tailored to individual customer needs and preferences.
For SMBs, marketing automation may include tools for email marketing, social media, customer segmentation, data analysis and lead generation. It's about working smarter, not harder, which makes it crucial for businesses aiming to scale and grow in increasingly competitive markets.
What can marketing automation do for SMBs?
Marketing automation can significantly transform the way SMBs operate, especially those with fewer resources for extensive marketing campaigns. With automation, these organizations can increase productivity without substantial resource allocation.
It's about working smarter, not harder.
Automation tools help SMBs manage multiple marketing processes from a single platform, which reduces the need for more technology overhead. It can save time and ensure consistency in marketing efforts to enhance brand identity.
Further, marketing automation helps smaller businesses compete with larger companies, as it enables them to deliver better personalized experiences to customers. It can track and analyze customer behavior and use that data to tailor content to individual customers' preferences. This level of personalization, which is difficult and time-consuming to achieve manually, can significantly improve customer engagement and retention. It also offers insights into the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, so SMBs can continuously improve their strategies based on data-driven decisions.
In the long run, investing in marketing automation can lead to higher returns for SMBs, even with fewer resources at their disposal.
10 marketing processes to automate
For SMBs, automating key marketing processes can enhance efficiency. Explore 10 marketing processes that SMBs should automate.
1. Email marketing campaigns
Automated email campaigns can help with lead nurturing, customer onboarding and promotional content. SMBs can use marketing automation tools with their CRMs to segment lists and send personalized messages based on customer behavior.
2. Social media scheduling
Marketing automation tools can schedule and post content on social media platforms at optimal times. This process ensures SMBs have a consistent online presence and helps marketing teams prepare social media calendars ahead of time, rather than on the fly.
3. Customer relationship management
If SMBs implement an automated CRM system, they can better manage customer interactions, track leads and automate follow-up emails. A CRM can help SMBs better maintain customer relationships and manage sales pipelines efficiently.
4. Lead generation and capture
SMBs can also use marketing automation for lead generation and management through landing pages, forms and chatbots. When a lead converts on one of these assets, the CRM system can automatically capture and store their information for further nurturing.
5. Analytics and reporting
Marketing automation software can also automate data collection and analysis to generate reports on campaign performance, customer behaviors and ROI. If marketers at SMBs create these reports ahead of time, the software can present new data automatically to save time and create actionable insights.
6. Customer feedback and surveys
SMBs can implement automated feedback and survey tools to collect customer opinions, so they can gather valuable insights for product or service improvements.
7. Review management
Another use of marketing automation for SMBs is to automate how users request and manage customer reviews. Marketing teams can use this software to send automated review requests and monitor online reviews to address customer feedback.
8. E-commerce abandoned cart emails
If applicable, SMBs in retail or e-commerce can automate abandoned cart recovery emails. These messages remind customers of items left in their carts to encourage them to complete the purchase.
9. Referral programs
SMBs can also implement automation for referral marketing programs. This strategy includes tracking and rewarding customers who refer others to the business, using automated communication and reward systems.
10. SMS marketing campaigns
Finally, SMBs can automate SMS marketing campaigns. This enables them to send timely and targeted text messages to customers, including promotions, discounts and transactional messages.
Griffin LaFleur is a MarketingOps and RevOps professional working for Swing Education. Throughout his career, Griffin has also worked at agencies and independently as a B2B sales and marketing consultant.
