Marketing automation has revolutionized marketing by creating tailored customer journeys that can be tracked across multiple channels. But possibly the most beneficial aspect of this amazing software is its ability to refocus efforts so that businesses both big and small have more of the one thing there never seems to be enough of…TIME.
If you’re a small business with under 100 employees or a bigger business with more than 1,000 employees, you likely have small, overworked marketing teams. Nearly 60% of marketers work in teams of less than three people, making time precious and results even more important.
The marketing automation sector is a burgeoning industry that in just four years has skyrocketed from a $500M market to $5.5B in 2019. Small business owners may think that they’re not large enough to implement MA. There is a misconception that it costs too much or that they simply just don’t have the time to figure it out. Marketing automation is no longer a “nice to have.” It has become a “must-have” for companies of all sizes in order to compete.
This 2019 Small Business Marketing Trends Report found that only 7% of small business owners said they plan to budget more on marketing automation this year, but considering how much value MA brings to a business, it may end up costing you more to sit on the side lines.
Marketing Automation Tools Work for Small Business
Marketing automation products and options are growing and it’s no longer only a process or product for big companies with deep pockets and large marketing teams. It is accessible to any business and chances are your competitors are already on board.
There are a multitude of marketing automation solutions available and although it may appear they offer similar features, all platforms are not created equal when it comes to Microsoft Dynamics CRM integration. Flexibility is important, so choose a marketing automation that can be seamlessly incorporated, will cause less disruption, and can adapt as your needs change. Before you invest time and money, you want to make sure you’re choosing the right MA for your company.
ClickDimensions was designed as a low cost B2B marketing automation option. Since the software is embedded in Dynamics 365 CRM, there’s no need to customize, which means there’s no set-up cost and you can be up and running quicker. Updates occur in real time so your data is always synchronized. Since ClickDimensions is built inside your CRM, everyone will have access to leads and customers.
ClickDimensions strong point is creating compelling automated email campaigns. It offers multiple email editors so marketers have the ability to build communications with the flexibility of HTML or the simplicity of a drag and drop editor. Multiple sending methods allow you to send a single email to one contact, bulk emails to marketing lists, or send automatically from a CRM workflow. Marketers are able to create interactive, customized campaigns based on a prospects’ or users’ behaviors and notify sales when they show interest in your messaging.
Three Ways Marketing Automation Can Save Time for Businesses Big and Small:
Increase Productivity
Marketing automation can streamline your processes so that time is not wasted on tedious and repetitive tasks.
Simple things, such as sending different emails for different campaigns, sending personal webinar invitations, and even analyzing campaigns and emails, can be automated to easily track what’s working and what isn’t so you can eliminate time wasted nurturing unqualified leads. There’s no need to recreate any email flows and everything can finally be in one place!
You can even automate social media and blog posts through marketing automation.
Personalization
Personalization has become an important tactic to ensuring your audience “sticks with you.”
Emails with personalized subject lines are more likely to be opened and have improved click-through rates.
Marketing automation can help segment lists of people, create custom work flows, and manage data associated with a contact record in ways that an ordinary email tool simply cannot. Marketing automation is able to collect data about interactions on different “touch points” throughout the buyer journey which can help move the sales process.
Campaigns can be targeted to specific customer segments and personalization tools allow you to not only address customers by name, but to reference pertinent details like their most recent purchase and other data from your CRM.
You will also be able to create offers and content that resonate with potential clients and customers and deliver it in critical moments of their decision making journey.
Customer and Client Retention
Sometimes we are so focused on capturing new leads that we often forget how important it is to retain the people who have already raised their hand to communicate with us.
Small Biz Trends found a 5% increase in customer retention can lead to an increase in profits of between 25% and 95%! You can see just how important keeping the customers you already have is and marketing automation can help with this by nurturing customers post-sale by monitoring behavior and sending personalized messages based on triggers.
You can even automate surveys to gain critical feedback, because we definitely know a great customer experience is a key factor in loyalty, which can make or break a business.
Time is money and the time is now. Companies not actively looking to build marketing automation into their marketing toolkit will get left behind. The old adage that smaller businesses just can’t afford it is also not true. There are a number of ways to get marketing automation to work in your business regardless of size.
We developed a free guide for you to get started and figure out if you are ready for marketing automation.
For more information on how to get started with marketing automation, download our free guide here
