Are You Ready to Get Into Marketing Automation?

As a marketer or in some cases, the one-man team of your business, your life is bound to be hectic. Answering gazillions of emails, having to tend to customers, and toying on some ideas to generate leads do not cover even a quarter of the things that you need to do in the name of growing your business. Thank God we are already living in the digital age and thus, there are tools and technology that should aid us by making some of these tasks simpler. But then, because everybody knows about these tools already, expectations are heightened anew, especially that of customers who feel that their concerns need to be addressed the millisecond they communicate it to a customer service professional.

Such is the double-edged sword that marketing automation entails. The tools and technology mentioned above are part of marketing automation. For example, a website visitor setting up an account in your website gets to use your website and take advantage of your products of services immediately after successfully setting up that account. No need to visit your office! No need to email (or fax if you are stuck in the 1990s) membership forms! Everything is automatic!

But as mentioned earlier, the extensive use of marketing automation technology has also spoiled all of us in the worst way possible. We get paranoid if we don’t receive a confirmation email of the purchase we finished 10 seconds ago. Were we duped? Did we visit a scam online shopping site? If we keep on hitting the unsubscribe button to an email, we don’t want to receive anymore, why do we still keep on receiving emails from the same company? Has our email been hacked?

As a marketer, you need expert degree knowledge of marketing automation. After all, these tools are available to compliment your current marketing efforts.

The pros of marketing automation

With marketing automation, we save time. tedious tasks we try to avoid as marketers get done efficiently. This is especially true in gathering information on leads. Moreover, with marketing automation, we get to take care of those leads en masse while still making each and every lead feel as though we’ve personalized our customer care efforts.

Marketing automation makes it possible to improve your marketing. You can create several processes that allow you to pinpoint and develop your leads. The software has the capability to enable you to visualize the process sequence and adapt it where necessary to make it more efficient.

(Via: https://www.techfunnel.com/martech/marketing-automation-benefits/)

The forms of marketing automation

Marketing automation comes in many forms. There’s the most common form, email marketing automation which removes routine tasks such as welcoming new customers (hi, thank you for creating an account on our website), purchase confirmation (you’ve bought five flower arrangements charged to your credit card), and re-engagement (hey, we missed you on our website for months, come visit us!) away from your to-do list as a marketer. There’s also social media marketing automation, which marketers can use in a variety of tasks, from scheduling the release of content in their company’s social media assets to giving automatic responses to users engaging with their chatbot after office hours. There’s also advertising automation, which tails (or for lack of a better term, stalks) web users into reminding them of things they have searched on websites by releasing ads of those things in the new websites the stalked user has visited. There’s also mobile marketing automation where customers receive SMS blasts in public places to “inform” them of sales and promotions near them. Finally, there’s CRM automation that is heaven-sent for marketers as if practically does what marketers are supposed to do manually – from scoring leads to sending information of these prospects to the sales team.

A good CRM program will aggregate customer data in one convenient space (often referred to as the dashboard). Marketing team members can quickly access relevant customer data such as email addresses, phone numbers, location and other demographics. They can also see where a specific lead is currently at in the sales funnel, which allows the marketer to send out relevant marketing materials to guide that lead to conversion.

(Via: https://sharpspring.com/blog/types-of-marketing-automation/)

Should small businesses get into marketing automation?

Alas, the question for SME owners. Marketing automation that is done right unfortunately doesn’t come cheap. If you have the budget, go ahead. If you don’t, it is best you save up for it. Do not dabble into those free versions of marketing automation software that might do more harm than good for your business.

A marketing automation software is not only going to house your contacts in an organized fashion, but will also let you move them through the sales pipeline, from lead to customer. With a software like this, the process can be automated– the contact can be moving from stage to stage based on their clicking and opening behavior, you only need to be alerted when they have become a “hot” lead or opportunity so that you can follow up with them.

(Via: https://www.hatchbuck.com/blog/is-marketing-automation-right-for-my-small-business/)

 

For more information on how you can make marketing automation work for you, get in touch with us.

The following article Are You Ready to Get Into Marketing Automation? was initially published on ASGM

from All Systems Go Marketing – Feed https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com/digital-marketing/are-you-ready-to-get-into-marketing-automation

Facebook Ads: A Refresher

We have talked a lot about Facebook and the varied ways the platform has been used by digital marketers over time that it may take you a lifetime if you are trying to consume all the content produced that are related to these topics. Marketing on Facebook is perhaps one of the most discussed and written topics in the field of online (and specifically social media) marketing that everything about it has been analyzed and nitpicked that you might even consider it to be overkill already.

The one thing most people tend to overlook is to analyze Facebook marketing in the current business climate. Yes, we all know that Facebook Ads are the bomb. Yes, we all know that businesses spend a lot on them. But the common theme in discussing Facebook marketing is that a lot of people in the discussion still sound like they are talking in 2016. Reality check: So many things have happened since the platform’s domination.

While it is true that thousands of new users join Facebook every day, millions have also deleted their account due to data privacy and security concerns. The platform’s reputation has taken a hit since it cannot seem to shake off its reputation as a fake news mongering network. Its founder Mark Zuckerberg has been a regular guest to various senate inquiries and congress hearings. Facebook has allegedly been used by the Russians in their involvement in the 2016 elections. Amidst the pandemic this year, several big brands have launched a boycott against the platform, withdrawing millions of their ad budgets unless Facebook adapts more stringent measures on information verification. Yes, we may have to re-discuss the topic of Facebook marketing’s effectiveness in light of all of these.

So, do Facebook Ads still work?

We may have already enumerated some changes that happened through the years with Facebook, but perhaps the single-most-important event that happened to the platform that ultimately affected users is its shift from organic to paid posts. Facebook’s algorithm made it more difficult for businesses to reach their entire audience from its organic posts alone, as the platform decided to favor posts from businesses only if they are paid. In fact, a report claimed that only 6.4% of a page’s total followers will see an organic post of a business page, which leaves serious marketers who want to maximize the platform to go for paid Facebook ads.  As to the effectiveness of Facebook ads, consumers have become okay with it, as long as it doesn’t interrupt their usual experience of seeing updates from their friends, family, and social contacts. This must be better compared to YouTube users who constantly complain about how the ads disrupt their experience of watching videos.

Consumers have become more informed and savvy about the way they use the Facebook platform. And consumers have grown tired of the advertising that interrupts their Facebook experience.

(Via: https://mrgavinbell.com/facebook-ads-in-2020/)

The one ingredient of a successful Facebook Ad

If you are invested in Facebook marketing, you need to realize one thing: the platform is most successful if used as a tool to increase brand awareness. Facebook is now primarily a platform to roll out ads, not really anything else. So, while it is true that there is also engagement and relationship building between brands and customers, the most effective area of Facebook is its ability to let everyone using it knows about the existence of your business. Know that, set your expectations, and work around that fact for an effective strategy.

As businesses shift to online, dig into the holiday season and adapt to the new normals of the coronavirus pandemic, it becomes even more important to find ways to make your brand stand out. If you’ve started establishing an online presence throughout COVID-19, you’ll also want to think about how to create strong brand awareness both online and offline.

(Via: https://www.facebook.com/business/news/five-tips-to-increase-brand-awareness/#)

Know your options and limitations

Another factor you have to master to be effective with advertising on Facebook is the various ad formats and their limitations. Knowing how big and how many characters you can put in an ad would allow you to maximize the platform, lest you run the risk of ads that get chopped because you used a photo that’s too big or text that has been cut because you passed the character limit.

If you don’t keep all the above points in mind, then you are vulnerable to having your ad cropped at the wrong places. Not only would it make you look like a brand that has no clue what it is doing, but you also will not be able to get any sales if your ad looks shoddy.

(Via: https://surveysparrow.com/blog/facebook-ad-size-specification-guide/)

 

Talk to us if you want to reconsider some Facebook ad tactics you want to be implemented on your business’ marketing efforts.

The blog article Facebook Ads: A Refresher was initially seen on All Systems Go Marketing Blog

from All Systems Go Marketing – Feed https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com/uncategorized/facebook-ads-a-refresher

Ready to Market in Real Time?

You have tried your hand in social media marketing, above the line marketing, below the line marketing, account-based marketing, partnerships and collaborations, and now you’re asking if you’ve exhausted all methods or if you’ve only scratched the surface. Truth be told, the field of digital marketing alone is so diverse that there are many ways of adapting so many strategies into your own campaigns. Of course, you have to remember that trying to be a Jack (or Jill) of implementing all these marketing strategies may end you up as a master of none. With that, depending on your workforce bandwidth and budget, be more discerning of which strategy or tactic you should employ for your business.

Having said that, here is another marketing strategy to consider – real-time marketing. Simply put, it is marketing that involves rolling out marketing tactics in real, or near real-time in reaction to current events or happenings in your geographical area or field of business. So, instead of executing a marketing plan that you or your team has worked on for months, your company reacts to something that has happened in your market recently, whether it’s in politics, arts, culture, or a local human-interest story by making it an integral component of your marketing efforts. Of course, there is still planning involved in real-time marketing, although the timelines set for this is much quicker. This means teams (or whoever) executing real-time marketing has to act with agility and a sense of urgency. If not, the “moment” of the event or phenomenon you (or your business is) are reacting to may already have passed, thus making your marketing move stale.

Getting real-time marketing information of your website visitors so that you will know what exact service or product you can highlight to him or her also counts as real-time marketing. That said, these efforts require a lot of resources to profile your visitors ASAP and creative and quick-witted minds that know how to turn recent events into marketing gold fast before your competition does. So, the question is, does your company have these resources ready?

The key is knowing your visitor

A key ingredient of a successful real-time marketing effort is having sufficient knowledge about your visitors. If you know their backgrounds, why they visited your site, what it exactly they are looking for, and how they are looking for it, then you have the ways of providing them with relevant marketing information that will further entice them into action, may it be to sign up for an account with your shopping site or immediately purchase your offerings.

First-party, real-time data is what sets RTM apart from older personalization marketing models. This comes from numerous sources, like tracking a user’s cursor location, or the time they spend with certain products on your app. Or visitors might be greeted on a fashion retail site by a bot asking ‘What are you shopping for today?’ The same way a human clerk in a brick and mortar store would.

(Via: https://insights.revtrax.com/the-power-of-real-time-marketing)

Can your small business hop on the bandwagon as well?

As mentioned above, there may be a need for huge resources if you want to implement real-time marketing, particularly in software that tracks customer behavior and profiles them. Of course, the dividends pay off as these companies roll out more effective messaging that their followers gobble up and share, which further raises the profile of these companies and allows them to extend their audiences even further. What smaller companies can do to also even just savor a tiny portion of the benefits would be to engage with the posts of the larger companies to call the attention of the larger companies’ audience and possibly lure them to having a look at your business.

One minute an event could be trending and the next it’s already on a downward spiral. Your company will need to be on high alert if it wants to successfully execute real-time marketing. This can include setting up Google alerts or other news alert platforms on specific topics your business may want to cover. This will help your brand be the first informed on new situations and happenings.

(Via: https://martech.zone/real-time-marketing-in-the-covid-era/)

Don’t get carried away!

Of course, since real-time marketing involves immediate reactions, you might fall into the tendency of responding to information right away without giving substantial thought to your reaction. Reactionary is good, but in a lot of cases, being too quick diminishes the careful thought you put in your actions, so careless ensue, which in some cases, merits customer dissatisfaction. Remember that while speedy is a desired characteristic of RTM, efficiency, which is reacting properly in a set timeframe) is better.

He cited the example of a customer complaining about something on social media. Things could fester if you take too long to respond. However, a quick response that isn’t thoughtful could “stoke the flame,” he said. “Finding the balance that allows a thoughtful and quick response could squash the issue while strengthening brand perception,” he said.

(Via: https://www.cmswire.com/digital-marketing/6-challenges-with-real-time-marketing/)

If you want to grab more customers for your company, check out this page.

The blog post Ready to Market in Real Time? is republished from ASGM Blog

from All Systems Go Marketing – Feed https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com/social-media/ready-to-market-in-real-time