Marketing automation is a process using software that streamlines sales and marketing.  Marketing automation simplifies the sales funnel, replacing repetitive, manual processes with automated solutions. With marketing automation, sales and marketing teams can collaborate easier, understanding data and prospect behaviors for more individualized, targeted communications. Small business marketing automation uses many of the popular software systems offered currently including SharpSpring, HubSpot, Pardot and Marketo with lower e-mail allowances and small price tags.

Marketing automation software combines lead generation, lead scoring, lead nurturing, email marketing, a customer relationship management system, call tracking, a sales pipeline and analytics allowing small businesses to manage their marketing in one system.

• Lead generation: Identify and attract new prospect, leads and customers by offering them valuable content they can download for free by signing up for your email list. Lawn care companies can automatically email free guides to keeping lawns green to prospects who give their email addresses.
• Lead scoring: Assign different scores for different actions, allowing you to identify hot prospects as they interact with your brand. Give 10 points to prospects who give their email address or 5 points for a first name.
• Lead nurturing: Understand a prospect’s behaviors by monitoring when they open your small business emails, when they click on call-to-action buttons, which blog posts they read and when they visit your website. Tailor content for individual types of customers by creating buyer personas and sending relevant information to prospects. Perhaps your plumbing business installs sinks in new residential homes but also fixes leaks for local restaurants. Segment your email list to send business-to-consumer emails to homeowners and business-to-business emails to the restaurant owner.
• Email marketing: In addition to emails distributed to your entire database, marketing automation allows small business owners to drip emails to potential clients depending on where they are in the buyer’s journey. Prospects who are considering putting a new pool may enjoy The Top Ten Reasons to Put in a Backyard Pool or Seven Summer Activities for Backyard Fun. Prospects who have visited your pool company’s contact page might like Six Reasons to Put in a Pool Instead of Buying a Boat or How Much Does a Swimming Pool Cost? Remember, you won’t actually give prospects a quote, but you’ll explain different factors that affect pool pricing.
• Customer relationship management system: Keep everything you know about a prospect, lead or customer in one database that connects with your email marketing system. Use different forms for different content offerings to gather as much information possible about potential customers and satisfied clients.
• Call tracking: Correlate the phone calls that come into your business with the marketing campaigns you have employed. Using unique telephone numbers for each marketing campaigns, small business owners can understand which marketing tactics are working and which aren’t.
• Sales pipeline: Many marketing automation systems allow users to create sales opportunities directly in the software and move those opportunities through customized pipeline stages. This allows small business owners to keep track of potential sales and income in one place. The use of a pipeline also helps ensure sales managers are hitting their performance numbers and following up on leads.
• Analytics: See which marketing campaigns are performing best, which emails are opened most and which leads are most likely to buy using marketing automation reporting. Analytics systems offered through marketing automation software allow users to see the full picture of a potential client’s behaviors from the first interaction through the sale.

At Point Taken, we are proud to offer HubSpot marketing automation software to our clients. Curious how marketing automation can help your small business? Contact Point Taken today.