What is Automation Again?

If you missed the last blog post or are still just confused, here’s a quick recap of automation:

Automation is a piece of software or technology that does certain tasks repeatedly so your staff can be freed up to do other things. These tasks are normally repetitive ones that tie up unnecessary time and ones that staff doesn’t necessarily need to be doing.

My Intro to Automation

My start in automation began with marketing. I was building Email Marketing systems for Home Services companies that would allow staff to send emails to customers to ask for reviews. With just a name and email address, the Email Marketing platform would shoot the customer an email asking for a review. After a few days, it would do it again if nothing had happened. And so forth for a couple of attempts. As I worked on this system for many different customers, it kept getting more elaborate as I saw all the things that you could do just with Email Marketing automation. At one point, I added to the system the ability to notify staff when nothing was happening and suggest that they call the customer.

That last bit got me thinking: just having a system that kept track of things also meant that customers would be less likely to fall through the cracks.

So I started building an Email Marketing system that sales staff launched when they sent a proposal to a lead. Part of that system was notifications back to the sales staff to remind them of the lead. It was a system of checks and balances. It kept people on task and reminded them to check in on leads. It made life easier.

And I began to realize that there was so much more that I could do!

Where Does Automation Fit Into Marketing?

The biggest place that automation can play a massive role is in Email Marketing. As I talked about in earlier blog posts (start here – insert link), Email Marketing is a tool that can massively impact a business. From booking more service appointments, selling more products, to improving customer engagement, you can do tons with Email Marketing.

The key to it is automation.

Building email marketing systems (otherwise called journies) that engage customers, react when they don’t act, and keep funneling them into the right places (or dropping them when they are duds), can deliver real marketing ROI. First, you can see in real-time how your messaging is working in emails, where customers are getting caught up in your sales cycle, and how much your marketing costs are resulting in increased business.

Using customer data that you already have, you can lead previous customers through the right places that encourage and enable them to buy from your business again or reach out to set up a service appointment.

For prospective customers, putting their information into a specifically-designed email marketing system can increase engagement with them, showcase all the services you have to provide, and see how receptive these potential customers are. You can see which leads are hot and which are not.

Email Marketing automation also allows companies to utilize resources better. While your email marketing systems are running, your staff can be focused on other things that normally get neglected like social media. Nowadays businesses have so many avenues in order to showcase what they do, it’s often impossible to keep up on all of them.

While on the subject of social media, there are opportunities for automation in social media. You can automate the posting of social media to the different platforms or, taking that one step forward, put it on your website first and automate the posting to social platforms. Some tools let you autorespond to social posts and direct messages as well as funnel all those messages into one central dashboard.

What’s up Next

With this second post on Automation done, next up is a focus on Sales and Automation. Then we’ll dig into your website and how it could connect to automation. If any of this intrigues you and you want to hear more about how this connects to your business, you can drop me a line through my contact form or you can set up a time to talk to me: https://cwtwebsites.zohobookings.com/#/customer/4321453000000026017