It’s like everything else. We figured out automation for the factory floor, and now businesses are automating the more cerebral roles of marketing processes. Are you?
Marketing automation shifted away from the pure automation aspect to an integrated marketing approach. Workflows can be connected across multiple channels based upon predefined scenarios and customer-driven triggers. Now individuals can be identified through various touch-points and receive timely follow-ups all the way through the marketing cycle, often without directly interacting with people.
When you visit a car dealer’s website, the ads for the dealership start to appear everywhere you look. Fill out a sweepstakes form at a festival and get email, snail mail, and/or phone calls, all of which invite you to share more details about your interests, filtering your needs so that the business can better target you with the product and pitch. Consumers may think of it as onerous and intrusive to know that this goes on, but savvy marketers know better. Today’s consumers are living better lives because of such automation. Consumers get bombarded by far fewer advertising messages that are completely irrelevant to their interests. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software is the central tool for marketing automation. It helps you organize your prospects as well as your customers, identifying your touch-points for your business and tracking when each individual touches them. In doing so, you can connect the dots to better serve your prospect’s needs.
Deciding which CRM to choose for your business may not be an easy task. Small businesses should start with the basics and build out from there. Otherwise it becomes too complicated and may delay it ever getting done. Never forget that you are in a race against your competitors. Once you start searching for marketing automation solutions you will be followed by ads promoting CRM systems. I know because I am wading through CRM solutions for a client now.
To save you some time, I will publish my findings at https://www.BusinsessLeader.bz/tech for you to review.
Get a good CRM and you will wonder how your businesses survived without it.
