by Pratik Dholakiya
The days of manually researching and certifying each individual business lead will quickly be in the rearview mirror. When it comes to marketing, startups each face their own obstacles during the growth phase. Typically, the biggest issues arise due to lack of budget and manpower. This is where automated marketing comes into play.
Automated marketing has become a buzzword in the industry. Although some business owners are hesitant to use it, companies that are looking to make a name for themselves have a lot to benefit from jumping on the bandwagon. Let’s take a look at some reasons why startups everywhere should use automated marketing to their advantage.
1. Evens The Playing Field
One of the most difficult roadblocks small businesses face is the inability to compete with the marketing resources of bigger enterprises. About 47 percent of small business owners handle the entirety of marketing duties on their own, in addition to many other tasks.
Automated marketing can do a lot to reduce growing pains for startups while letting them compete on the same level as their larger counterparts. By providing the ability to accurately target audiences and convey brand messaging with less effort, the sales process can be made far more consistent and effective.
Once a clear strategy is in the works, automated marketing will work around the clock to make sure you are constantly moving forward with generated leads.
2. Saves Time And Money
More often than not, small businesses and startups are working on a razor-thin budget. Customer communication and marketing efforts constantly need to be mindful of costs. When this is the case, a lot of times, quality tends to suffer.
Luckily, automated marketing works to cut out the repetitive tasks such as managing customer data, social media, analytics, and email marketing. In turn, freeing up more time you can dedicate to innovation and big picture goals while saving on manpower.
For instance, GetResponse is an action-driven tool that makes automated marketing services cost-effective for both startups and bigger enterprises. A pro package for a startup includes email marketing, autoresponders, landing pages, tags, and workflow analysis at under $50 a month:
According to a survey by Ascend2, 63 percent of companies expect to see the benefits of implementing automated marketing within the first 6 months.
Although the initial setup is a process that should be taken into account, less time and money spent on overheads, reporting, and email preparation will prove to be rewarding in the long run.
3. Reduces Outsourced Tasks
For a myriad of companies, projects such as email templates, landing pages, or written content usually require an outside creative brain. Many companies are taking advantage of sites such as Upwork.com and Freelancer.com to quickly find independent workers.
According a recent study, 62 percent of companies look to outside sources in their content marketing strategies. Automated marketing can pick up a lot of the weight involved with content creation and template editing.
For instance, once your content has a structure with appropriate tags, questions and answers can be automatically extracted from those tags to form blog posts and even identify key quotes to post on your social media accounts.
4. Converts Visitors Into Buyers
Perhaps the biggest advantage startups can gain from automated marketing is the ability to streamline the process of turning website traffic into valuable leads, and ultimately, into customers.
Automated marketing makes it possible for first time and returning visitors to view your website differently. Each visitor can see a level of personalization based on current needs in regards to their stage of the buying journey. For example, let’s say you’re dealing with a return visitor. They can be showed targeted ads based on items viewed during their previous visit as well as promotion codes to add incentive.
Amazon is a great example of this concept. It takes your browsing history and puts together a whole category of personalized suggestions.
Source: Amazon screenshot
A survey by Razorfish and Adobe found that targeted ads are almost twice as effective as non-targeted. The goal is to quickly offer visitors all the resources they need to help them make a purchase.
5. Nurtures Leads With Automatic Emails
Email drip campaigns are a great way to nurture leads. In fact, research indicates that 82 percent of companies prefer email marketing in their efforts.
Using automated marketing, emails will be sent to potential customers at a measured rate and work to steer them down the sales funnel without pressure.
In the old days, this was a much more complex process. Now, your hard work can be done repeatedly to each new prospect with very little effort on your part after the initial email series is written.
For example, let’s say your startup sells utility software. You can set up a series of emails that explain multiple ways this type of software can be used to your advantage with proven benefits. With a little luck, the prospect will be ready to purchase your product at the end of the series. Afterwards, you can set up periodic emails that inform them about new services or updates available.
6. Shows What People Are Talking About
According to Statista, there are nearly 2 billion social media users in the world today.
Manually scanning every social media platform can take an unreasonable amount of time to find out exactly what consumers are saying within your industry. Luckily, automated social media monitoring gives you reports on what is being said about your business and jump into the conversations.
Additionally, you can see what platforms are most popular among your target audience. In turn, allowing you to concentrate your efforts and messaging on a specific outlet to get the best ROI.
Using these tools, you will be able to get a better idea about current and potential customer’s attitudes and what they want from brands like you. By keeping an eye on this information, you can customize your business based on the consumer’s desires.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, automated marketing can give startups a huge advantage right out of the gate. In the age of the internet, marketing is a never-ending task. Data constantly needs to be analyzed and acted on to see proper growth. Luckily, automated marketing ensures that your efforts will be going 24/7. While you’re sleeping, social media will be updated, emails will go out, and leads will be generated.