Do you ever feel overwhelmed with all the work needed to run email campaigns, nurture leads that aren’t ready to buy yet, bring hot prospects to the attention of your sales people, and keep up a steady stream of content going on the company blog and social media sites? Kinda makes you feel like Lucile Ball in that famous assembly line scene, doesn’t it? Welcome to marketing at a startup!
While none of these tasks is particularly difficult on its own, the trick is keeping all those balls in the air — day after day — to keep those qualified leads flowing in. All without the benefits of a large staff to help you out. If only there was some way to automate the process. After all, Project Managers have software to help them keep on track, and software developers have Integrated Development Environments to work in. What about us marketers?
Marketing Automation to the Rescue!
Just the name of it — Marketing Automation Software — makes it seem wonderful, doesn’t it? It can evoke images of George Jetson sitting at his desk doing all of his work by pushing a single button. And while that would be nice, it doesn’t quite work that way. Not yet, anyway.
But what marketing automation software does do is still pretty wonderful. Imagine having all of your customers and prospects grouped and categorized so you could target them with relevant messages whenever you wanted to. Imagine a collection of customized email messages that you can send to list segments, having all of their responses tabulated in a convenient report. Imagine followup emails being sent to your customers and prospects based on a schedule of your own choosing, and/or actions they prospects take upon receiving your message.
Sure you can do all that with an email blasting service — but not with the automatic followup and actions. Not with the CRM integration for your sales force. If you choose to go the Marketing Automation Software route, you’ll find yourself generating more campaigns, feeling confident in the results, and using the metrics to experiment with new ways to reach your customers.
OK, you’re interested. Now what?
We’ll be posting other articles to help you decide if marketing automation software is for you, and how to decide which one to choose. In the meantime, you might want to explore this list of the Top 10 Marketing Automation Software offerings to see what’s available.
Are you considering using marketing automation software in your company? What’s driving that desire? What problems are you trying to solve? Share your woes / ideas in the comment section.