Julian DiMico, guest writer at AdvertiseMint, Facebbook advertising agency
Small and mid-size marketing is becoming increasingly complex as digital channels become larger and more important. Businesses are seeking ways to harness data, email clients, and close business with a budget and limited staff. For that reason, business owners are seeking ways to automate their outreach. Fortunately, there are now a number of automated marketing tools that make life much easier for these small business owners. Below are the automation tools that you could use.
MailChimp
MailChimp is a good starting place. Using MailChimp, you can create campaigns and test them. You can send a large volume of emails daily with an intuitive and automated interface. You could reach out to thousands of customers with a click of a mouse, testing which emails receive the best responses and which are opened and read.
ManyChat
Once a potential customer lands on the site from a MailChimp email, you could ideally engage them in conversation. However, you may be extremely busy, and you may not have time to engage every potential customer. Even members of the marketing team may not have time. ManyChat creates an automated Facebook chatbot that will engage with the clients on the site and gather information while answering basic questions. That allows a qualified person to follow-up and close the sale.
GetResponse
Similar to MailChimp, GetResponse allows you to build your own automated email marketing campaign. The difference is GetResponse allows you to build your own workflow. If you want certain customers directed to certain products or want to place an emphasis on certain services, that is possible. It is a little more hands-on and customized, but it results in a marketing campaign that is more tailored to your needs.
HubSpot
One of the most popular and easy-to-use solutions, Hubspot integrates the CRM, marketing automation software, and content generation into a set of tools. For example, the system could email customers through A/B testing, find the emails and content types that work best, then populate the CRM for salespeople to follow-up with potential clients.
IBM Watson
The AI technology behind IBM Watson is truly revolutionary. Now, it is being directed towards marketing with tremendous benefits. The tool helps companies digest all of their data across multiple channels and platforms. It then recommends campaign types, reveals trends, and enables personalized customer sales paths. Ordinarily, this type of work would require a team of analysts. However, IBM Watson can do it by crunching all of the data in one system.
MeetEdgar
One of the most popular forms of marketing is social media marketing. However, it is a 24/7 process that needs constant attention. Additionally, there are so many different content types and strategies to choose from. MeetEdgar helps automatically publish social media posts on the weekends and off hours to keep users interested. Additionally, it automates the content choices to apply those that have the largest impact and highest likelihood of engagement. For example, you might want to Tweet about some record-breaking business litigation lawsuit during the weekends when potential clients are leisurely scrolling for this type of information.
Marketo
Marketo, a tool by Adobe, has become one of the industry leaders because of its simple and intuitive interface, as well as its broad array of features and functions. It has similar automation tools as MeetEdgar. One unique function is the ability to initiate sales calls at exactly the right time based on when a lead comes in, so prospects who are ready to buy will be contacted at the right time. That results in many more sales.
Small and mid-sized business owners continue to have challenges optimizing their marketing processes. Fortunately, there are several automated tools that make life easier. Taking advantage of these software platforms helps businesses reduce hassles and improve marketing outcomes.
