Not all marketing work basks in the same glamour as closing a big deal; modern marketing can frequently be monotonous, with repetitive email marketing, social media posting, and online advertising campaigns by the dozen. And while these tasks are necessary for generating leads, they may take time away from your marketing team to work on more productive lead-generating tasks.

Enter marketing automation, a feature found in most small business management software. In brief, marketing automation is a digital software solution that helps to automate repetitive marketing tasks, such as weekly email newsletters or social media postings, which can streamline workflow and improve overall work efficiency.

The benefits of marketing automation are vast, but given the possibilities and tools at your disposal, it can get overwhelming to implement into your pre-existing operations, especially if you are new to marketing automation or business management software.

So in this article, we will run through how your small business can get started in marketing automation – from selection, implementation, and other useful tips that can apply to your business.

1. Develop A Marketing Plan

Before investing in marketing automation solutions, it’s best to determine how you will use marketing automation to benefit your company the most.

Consider your current marketing strategy and how marketing automation software can help your operations. You should also have compelling reasons (ranging from convenience to improved lead generation) why you want to start implementing marketing automation software.

Aside from that, you should decide how to measure the success of your marketing automation implementation and any goals you intend to achieve with the software.

When you start using marketing automation software in your business, you can always refer back to the plan to see how effective it has been and how you can improve it moving forwards.

2. Research Software Solutions Suited For Your Business

Once you decide to take the next step and invest in marketing automation, prepare to conduct some research into the various marketing automation solutions and software you can find on the market.

While the best marketing automation software is the one best suited for your business needs, here’s a quick list of things you should look out for when selecting your new software:

• * How well can you navigate through the User Interface (UI)?

• * What kind of marketing automation features are available?

• * Can it integrate with your existing productivity software?

• * How easily can you transfer existing customer data to the new software?

• * How customisable can the system be to my needs?

• * What is the pricing model for the software?

• * What is the setup and onboarding experience like?

• * How reliable is the post-purchase customer support?

Ideally, you would want scalable business management software to perform marketing automation alongside other features, such as staff scheduling and data reporting, to help streamline your business operations.

3. Onboarding & Training Sessions For Your Team

After the software setup and customer data transfers, you will need to train your team on how to best use the new business management software and its various automation tools.

While the software should have a comprehensive database of information on how to use it, it’s sometimes best to have your provider run you through the operating procedure to reduce potential confusion.

Learning to use your new marketing automation software (and using it correctly) is essential to making good use of the platform and mastering its various features. As such, schedule a training or workshop session for your marketing team to attend, as this will help familiarise them with the software and its nuances.

Your software provider should provide a comprehensive guide or live onboarding sessions to walk you through the process of using and integrating the software into your workflow. Some providers can also create a training programme tailored to your specific needs and requirements.

For team members joining later down the line, you should consider creating a document or guidebook to help them through software onboarding and training.

4. Determine Which Tasks Need Automation.

Spend time reviewing your marketing operations with your team and discussing which repetitive, time-consuming tasks can be easily handled by marketing automation rather than personnel, such as newsletter management or keyword research.

You should also consider automating tasks that occur infrequently but are critical to your business, such as product orders and appointment scheduling. Given the significance of these tasks, removing the human element (or having it in a supervisory role) can result in fewer errors and more satisfying interactions with your client.

5. Start Simple And Work Your Way Up

With brand-new software and a wealth of tools at your disposal, you may be tempted to start implementing marketing automation all at once, or be overwhelmed by the possibilities that you barely scratch the surface of marketing automation.

As such, the key to successfully implementing marketing automation is starting small and working your way up to more complex automation processes.

For example, you can start with a simple newsletter sign-up and confirmation system. Then, once you’ve built your team’s confidence and successfully implemented one automated marketing process, you can begin working on more elaborate automated processes and campaigns.

6. Analyse The Data

Now that you have a marketing automation process up and running, it’s time to wait and analyse what data you can for the next campaign.

Most marketing automation solutions or business management software have user-response data readily available, which can provide valuable feedback on your client demographics and how well your automated campaign is running.

With this data at hand, you can better improve your campaigns to deliver more leads and higher advertising conversions. If you can, try to implement A/B (Split) Testing into certain movements to determine better what works (and what doesn’t) for certain types of automated campaigns.

7. Moving Your Business Forward With Marketing Automation

Once you and your team start getting a firm grasp on marketing automation and its uses, it’s hard to return to a work process without it! At its core, marketing automation allows your business to deliver advertising content better and faster, improving advertising outreach and prospective conversion rates.