Marketing to your ideal client can be so much easier and more effective than it currently is if you take advantage of the powerful technology that is available to you. You can make your manual marketing processes way more efficient as you seek to save money and time, while growing your business.
When you think of automation, do you imagine some complex set of systems that you’ll never be able to wrap your head around? Don’t let the terminology scare you. By dedicating a little time to set up a few automated processes, you save a ton of time and money in the long run and you’ll improve your conversion rate, too. What could be better than that?
The reality is that you have to put so much effort into marketing these days to get a leg up on the competition that you have to be smart about it. We’ve identified three key areas of outreach in your business that are likely to require the execution of repetitive tasks, making them prime candidates for marketing automation.
1. Your Sales Funnel
You need to do everything in your power to capture every lead you can get and nurture them with the aim of turning them into a customer or client. Trying to do this manually is more than dizzying. Enter marketing technology that can do this for you.
ClickFunnels is a popular sales funnel tool that simplifies the whole sales and marketing process for all types of businesses. It’s a great tool for any business that needs to collect information on leads and to share freebies and even webinars as an entry point into your funnel..
You don’t need to be a programmer to design a landing page in ClickFunnels. Even a busy business owner can easily build a sales funnel to grow their business online, without having to hire or rely on a tech team. This landing page is the starting point for you to get the subscriptions or purchases that will increase your revenue.
When you set up ClickFunnels* your website visitors will be guided step-by-step through the entire sales process. It’s the best way to ensure they don’t get lost and leave the site because they’re confused and don’t know what to do next. This software points prospects directly to the single product or service they need most to help solve their problem.
This tool can also help you follow-up with your website visitors, even after they leave the site.
2. Lead Nurturing & Follow Up
Identify the steps your prospect takes on their journey as they move closer to becoming a client. Then put an email marketing/CRM platform to work to monitor the actions various prospective clients take in response to each email you send. Develop a series of emails to help you segment your email list based on the action a recipient takes. This will build trust because your prospects will view the sequence of emails as personalized, even though the entire process is automated.
Your email automation software will allow you to assess the performance of each email you send by tracking the open rate and click-through rate or the number of downloads, if you make resources available for download. These metrics give you a sense of how relevant your content is to your audience.
Build follow–ups into this email series, and automate them based on the user pattern of user activity. These follow–up emails can be designed to offer reminders or support and resources. This can mean the difference between letting a potential client slip through your fingers or closing the deal. Following up in this way also gives you a higher chance of resolving any problems early on and getting valuable feedback.
Even after a lead becomes a client, additional notifications and resources can encourage them to ascend to a new level in your buyer’s journey or make another type of purchase.
Active Campaign
ActiveCampaign is one example of an email marketing/CRM software that allows you to automate your email campaigns with ease, even if you’re not a tech wizard or you have zero design skills.
One of the main benefits of ActiveCampaign is that you can give prospects points based on their engagement with you. Once your prospects have engaged with enough of your content they can receive an automated email inviting them to schedule a free call or consultation.
Here’s an example of how you can set up your scoring:
– Open an email = 5 points (each time)
– Join your Facebook group = 20 points
– Purchase a product = 50 points
Once they have reached 100 points, that can qualify them for a free call with you.
ActiveCampaign* gives you a total package of email marketing, marketing automation and CRM tools.
However, there are several tools out there, so make sure you do your research to find the one that’s the best fit for your budget and your business.
3. Social Media Marketing
Social media can be downright overwhelming to manage. You want to increase your number of followers and get them engaged with your business but coming up with content to post regularly on various social media platforms and building your community can mean you have to hire or enlist the help of a content creator or graphic designer or social media manager. Alternatively, you may try to do it all yourself, only to find it is way too time-consuming and maybe even frustrating. The problem is that you need to post frequently to maintain visibility online.
The solution? Automate the process of content generation to create posts faster and easier. Project management and team collaboration apps can help you automate your workflow and make communication among team members far easier.
Trello is one of the many work management tools that can be used for free. Using simple boards, this flexible platform aims to make it fun to organize plans and projects. No matter which tool suits you best, you’ll get organized and work more efficiently. If you’d like step-by-step Trello training, get it here.
Conclusion
Marketing automation technology can make a world of difference to your coaching or consulting business. Automating your sales funnel can be a powerful way to increase your revenue as your customer interactions flow seamlessly. Similarly, email marketing automation and the automation of social media content planning can help you approach these activities more thoughtfully.
No longer will you have to sit and manually sort through data to get meaningful information. These automations will free you up to focus on higher level areas in your business. Automation also eliminates much of the guesswork involved in figuring out what resonates with various segments of your potential clients. This all means that, with marketing automation, it becomes a lot simpler to reduce marketing costs and effort yet scale your business and achieve your goals faster.
*This article contains affiliate links. That means if you click and buy, I make a small percentage at no additional cost to you.