Remember the good old days when your team had to manually click “send” on your email campaign each month? Or manually send out review requests? Maybe you’re still stuck doing these kinds of tasks manually. If so, we’ve got great news for you. Nowadays, modern businesses use marketing automation to schedule campaigns in advance and automate the send feature, as well as improve many other processes. And so can you.
Read on to learn what marketing automation is, why it can help you, and how to automate your marketing effectively.
What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation is the process of using software tools to make your marketing efforts consistent, easier, and more effective—it removes busy work and repetitive tasks from your day-to-day. It lets you streamline your marketing processes and it frees up your time and energy for other aspects of your business.
There are many forms of marketing automation software available to support a range of marketing initiatives, including customer relationship management (CRM), advertising, email marketing, lead management, omnichannel marketing efforts, and more. To find the right tools for you and your marketing team, you need to get clear on where you could use the most help.
Why Marketing Automation Helps You and Your Customers
It’s impossible to talk about the “what” of marketing automation without also covering the “why.”
The “why” in business always includes the consumer, and consumers’ expectations in today’s market are at an all-time high. For businesses who want to thrive, it isn’t enough to just supply a product that your customer wants; cultivating a relationship where customers feel valued and understood is key to building up a loyal client base for your business over time.
You need to create a world-class customer experience.
The upside? Happier customers and increased profits. The downside? Time, effort, and energy. Luckily, marketing automation systems free up your time and energy by helping you streamline your marketing tasks. Not only do you get a huge load taken off your plate, but your customers get to enjoy an exceptional experience—everyone wins.
To create a great experience for your customers (and to increase revenue), your business needs data—accurate data. The more you know about your customer, the better able you’ll be to make your marketing efforts more personalized, better timed, and adaptable over the long term, even as your customers’ buying habits evolve. The better customer behavior data you have and the better able you are to analyze it, the more effective your marketing is likely to be. Sound like a lot? It is!
This is why marketing automation is a life saver for your business. Marketing automation tools allow you to gather information about your customers at different stages of their interactions with your business and products, then use that data to inform how you’re going to update and improve your digital marketing strategy. Best of all, you get to automate all the tasks so you can focus on tracking your KPIs and the overall vision of your business while knowing your customers are getting a tailored marketing experience.
So now you’re probably thinking: Sounds awesome—but what exactly can I do with marketing automation? And how do I get started?
4 Ways to Automate Your Marketing with Podium
You can do a lot with marketing automation, and if you’re new to the whole ordeal, it can feel pretty overwhelming. Here are four ways you can use Podium to automate your marketing.
1. Contact Card
When was the last time you manually typed a business’s information into your phone? Maybe it was after a networking event (when you had a drink and a plate in one hand while typing with the other) or in an Uber, hoping the driver would avoid bumps in the road so you wouldn’t misspell anything. It’s a pain, right? A lot of people won’t even bother taking just a few minutes out of their day to save a business as a contact. Marketing automation technology can make this process so much easier.
With Podium, you can automatically send customers your business information whenever they text you or chat with you on your website.
How does it work? You send the customer contact card—think of this as a digital packet that contains all of your contact information. With just a couple of quick clicks, your customers can use this contact card to save your business’s info to their contact list. No typing out addresses or phone numbers is required. This saves your customers time, reduces the possibility of them saving your contact information incorrectly, and saves you from having to type out your information over and over again.
2. Referral Request
Reviews influence 88% of consumers in discovering a local business. This means a encouraging customers to leave reviews—and then engaging with those reviews—should be a top priority for every local business. And once you get the reviews, the work isn’t over—it’s time to maximize that value and turn a happy reviewer into a happy referrer. Wondering how you can maximize the value from great reviews without having to spend your entire day chasing down people to give you those 4 or 5 stars? Once again, marketing automation to the rescue.
With Podium, you can set up an automated message that is sent to anyone who leaves you a great review. That automated message should thank them for supporting your business and encourage them to share their experience with friends and family. This is a simple, effective touchpoint—gratitude builds relationships. By automating these messages, you can ensure your customers feel heard and provide a gentle reminder that their friends and family are welcome at your business too.
