After two decades in marketing and sales, I've seen technologies, fads, and best practices come and go. Admittedly, there have been methods I've learned and embraced, and there were others that I intentionally ignored or discarded.
We have all been hearing about marketing automation for quite a while now and some of us have the systems in place. For me, I can’t help but be awed by the potential and the convenience that marketing automation systems offer.
But what is marketing automation? It can mean different things to different people, but for me, it is very simple: It is a way to sell more and maximize your leads. It is using tools that can help you gain top of mind recall from your prospects and clients, prodding your leads to buy, which could otherwise take weeks, months or years. And the beauty there is that you do not spend a lot of time on it.
Once you have your system programmed and tested, you barely have to lift a finger. You do not even have to be there to market your products and services. Sounds too good to be true? Not really. Marketing is actually just about relationships. And no, I am not talking about the provider-seller relationship. In today’s age where you face a lot of competition around the world, your success in sales and marketing hinge on your relationship with your clients and leads.
I am working on a system that allows you to be the first one that people think about when they need your products or services. How? By allowing you to have constant communication with them.
And yes, you do not have to constantly monitor your activities. You do not have to waste your time updating your CRM, nor do you clutter your calendar with reminders to email this and that prospect. You just decide what workflow a certain prospect belongs to and everything goes smoothly from there. The beauty is that you can design workflows to be interactive. If a certain contact does something like look at your website or click on anything in your email, that person gets transferred to another workflow that is relevant to that trigger event.
And this is why marketing automation is your best friend. It allows you to effortlessly and conveniently move your leads down the pipeline with a little time and effort invested on your part. Your leads qualify themselves through their actions on your emails, web pages and Social Media "click" behavior. If they click on a BLUE car, your system stops sending them down the RED path for example. It keeps BLUE in front of them because after all, they clicking on BLUE. If they go back to RED, the system either sends them messages weighted with RED content, with some BLUE in it or no BLUE. You do A vs. B testing do determine which content converts better and let it roll!
I urge you to look into marketing automation as it could save your professional life and free up your time. If you are ready to choose, make sure you keep these guidelines in mind on how to choose a marketing automation service provider.
The only thing you have to loose is your anxiety.
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