It's no secret that marketing processes are an integral part of any small business. It can help you grow your customer base, increase conversions, and improve your overall marketing strategy. However, finding the right software for your needs and knowing how to use it effectively can be challenging.
If this sounds like something you are struggling with, don't worry! This blog post will provide nine features that every small business should use when using marketing automation software.
Feature #1: Automated Lead Nurturing
If you're a small business owner, you know how valuable your time is—and it's hard to say no when a potential client contacts you. However, one of the best ways to nurture leads and get them engaged with your product or service is through automated lead nurturing.
Lead nurturing is a vital part of sales and marketing. It is the process by which you communicate with new leads and turn them into customers. Automating this stage can be very beneficial because it helps to keep your sales funnel full without having to devote significant amounts of time or resources towards managing individual prospects. Instead, this will allow you to focus precisely on converting those who are ready to buy now.
Keep in mind that lead nurturing doesn't only benefit new leads. It can also help to improve your conversion rates with returning customers because it provides them with timely and relevant information.
Pro Tip: The 7 Best Ways to Nurture Leads: Proven Lead-Nurturing Strategies
Feature #2: Personalized Marketing Campaigns
With an automated marketing platform, you can send targeted messages to specific customers depending on various criteria. First, you need to segment your leads or existing customers into groups based on their interests. This gives the system enough information about your existing customers to create a relevant, personalized message.
For example, you can create a different message for each segment of your customer base. You could send one version to recent customers, another to returning customers, and yet another to brand new leads. The possibilities are endless!
This is incredibly valuable because it allows you to establish a more personal connection with your leads and customers. It's also great for driving engagement and increasing customer loyalty.
Feature #3: Engagement Tracking and Management
Tracking engagement is an essential part of any marketing automation strategy because it lets you measure the efficiency and effectiveness of your campaigns. This includes things like email open rates, click-through rates for links or buttons, response rates, and more.
You can then use this information to determine which types of content are effective with each audience so that future campaigns are targeted towards the proper demographic.
Pro Tip: Why You Need to Track Email Engagement for a Quality Email List
Feature #4: Lead Scoring
As you begin to gather leads, you'll want to be able to prioritize them based on their engagement with your business. To do this, use a lead scoring system that allows you to quickly identify valuable leads and rank which leads are more likely to convert into sales or turn into beneficial long-term relationships.
Marketing automation allows you to score leads based on their interactions with your business. You can also use this information to create targeted campaigns that are explicitly tailored towards qualified leads.
Pulse is a powerful CRM and marketing automation software that brings consistency and real-time reporting to businesses, which helps companies grow smarter and faster.
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Feature #5: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Integration
One of the more basic, but precious features of marketing automation solutions is integrating with CRM software. Since these tools are designed specifically for managing interactions between businesses and their customers, they can be very beneficial when used in tandem with your marketing efforts. Here are the benefits of CRM integration for marketing automation:
- Helps nurture leads - CRM systems are designed to help you organize and maintain communications with leads over time, so it makes sense that they would work well together.
- Increases productivity - Having your marketing automation tools integrated into a CRM allows you to access all of your data in one place, which helps increase the speed at which you can make decisions.
- Improve Targeting and Personalization - CRM systems can give you access to valuable data about your customers, so you'll be able to create more targeted campaigns and personalized communications.
With this integration, you'll have all of the information about individual business relationships at your fingertips so that it's easier to identify which leads are most valuable and who your best customers are.
Pro Tip: CRM Automation: What It Is and How It Can Help Your Business
Feature #6: Automated Social Media Management
Whether it's Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter that you're using for marketing purposes, you'll want to look into automated social media management. It allows you to schedule updates and post content ahead of time, keeping your accounts active, even when no one is available to manage them.
This ensures a consistent presence on the various platforms without having to spend extra time and resources. Customer satisfaction is key for social media marketing, so keeping your feeds active and up-to-date is essential.
Feature #7: Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can save you a ton of time and money, as well as increase conversion rates. For example, AI-powered marketing platforms, like Jasper.ai, can help you write emails for your email marketing campaigns, optimize your website copy, and even write ads for your social media posts!
This is an excellent option if you're not a professional copywriter or don't have a lot of time to spend writing content. Once set up, these automated systems can be left to do the work for you.
This means that you can handle your marketing strategy with a few quick clicks of your mouse, rather than needing to spend countless hours writing content for each campaign.
Feature #8: Smart List Segmentation
If you're using a CRM and marketing automation software, like Pulse Technology, this feature becomes available to you automatically. It allows you to create automated workflows that automatically filter and segment a lead based on their interactions with your business or content.
This is great because it saves you time searching through data needed about specific leads and customers, such as their company size, location, and other related variables.
Feature #9: Real-Time Reporting and Analytics
Real-time reporting is another crucial aspect of marketing automation tools that can help you save time and money while increasing productivity. The more information you have, the easier it will be for you to make data-driven decisions about your next steps in business strategy, so this should be on your list when looking into marketing automation solutions.
Real-time reporting and analytics will allow you to make decisions quicker on your marketing efforts and ensure your business is constantly moving in the right direction.
Create email marketing campaigns that get more opens and clicks with Pulse's easy-to-use email builder and marketing automation. You'll also get access to all other great features, such as CRM, text message marketing, and much more.
Try Pulse for free today, and watch your business grow.
Conclusion
The list of features provided is just a few examples of the many marketing automation tools available. They provide small business owners with an incredible amount of power to strategically manage their digital presence, automate tedious tasks, and track key metrics for success.
Want to learn more about how Pulse can help streamline your business? Contact us today for a live demo.
