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Marketing Automation Essentials for Small BusinessesDo you know which companies are visiting your site right now? Are you able to automate your marketing messages to reach different audiences based on their behavior on your site? How about scoring leads to ensure your sales team knows who should make it to the top of their calling list? If you find yourself answering no to some or all of these questions, you’re not alone. The scenarios above can be a reality for marketers, but this reality often requires an investment in marketing automation. While large corporations were predominantly the earlier adopters of this technology several years ago, small businesses are learning that the technology synchs with their business needs as well. And marketing automation providers are taking notice, offering solutions now geared to SMBs as well. Today’s MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum session is led by marketing veteran Frank Days, and includes the panel of Lori Cohen, David Karp & William Toll. Geared towards small business with an emphasis on the key features, best practices and considerations that small businesses need to take into account when considering marketing automation, Days begins the session by validating that he has the right audience for the session. “How many in the audience are the sole person responsible for marketing at your company?’, Days asked. 66% of attendees raised their hand. Yep. It’s the right audience. With Days directing today’s session with a series of questions for the panel, the conversion track begins with the important question ‘WHY’ marketing automation can be effective for small businesses. Why Marketing AutomationToll takes the lead on answering the question by focusing on the efficiencies marketing automation can create. According to Toll, “Marketing automation allows you to be more productive with your time” by automating many processes and allowing marketers to focus on creating the content and workflows that nurture their respective audiences. Cohen concurs and backs that position with a statistic that varies slightly from source to source, but is highly compelling none the less. “80% of the buyers journey happens before they contact the company. If that’s indeed the case, our role as marketers is to provide information to our audience to help them along their journey.” Really understanding that journey, supported by real data, and refining your marketing activities accordingly is where the panel sees the most value in marketing automation. But it’s not all roses. There is also misinformation and overstatements abound about marketing automation, and the panel is quick to define what it ‘can’t do’ as well. Marketing Automation Does Not…It seems that people often expect that marketing automation will move the clouds and suddenly reveal a marketing strategy. Karp explains that “marketing automation cannot form your corporate strategy. It can do many things, but your strategy needs to be sound and actually exist to get value out of the technology.” Days agrees that “marketing automation cannot define your strategy for you. It can, however, compliment your existing strategy.” So marketing automation is not a “strategy developer”. So what else can it NOT do? “It can’t train your sales and marketing teams,” according to Karp. Marketers and organizations need to own the responsibility of training, ensuring adoption and monitoring compliance. When to InvestOn this point the panel agrees in perfect harmony, content is needed before any small businesses considers the investment. Or as Toll more eloquently puts it, “You need content before you even consider investing. It’s the meat to your marketing automation strategy.” Imagine having the power of a tool that can tell you what content resonates with an individual and then offer the ability to serve them additional content to move them through the buying cycle. Now imagine that same scenario without the whole ‘content piece’. Not much going on. The investment conversation brings us to the topic that the audience is eager to discuss: what features do small businesses need. Key Small Business FeaturesLet the record show that the panel, beginning with Cohen, caution that the answer ultimately depends on your objectives and your strategy. But Days persists, and the team hones in on several key features that they believe would be beneficial for small businesses. For more convenience consumption, those features are represented in the word cloud to the right, courtesy of Wordle.net. The panel believes that the CRM integration is maybe the most crucial feature, as it acts as the gateway to delivering the leads you worked to hard to drive to your sales team – who should be waiting with baited breath! With, ‘WHY’, ‘WHEN’ and ‘WHAT’ covered, the session concludes with a discussion on ‘HOW’ small business marketers should leverage this tool. Marketing Automation Best PracticesAs Voltaire wrote (he might have even said it too, but I wasn’t there) “with great power, comes great responsibility.” This axiom certainly applies to marketers leveraging marketing automation. Cohen says marketers need to be wary of over-marketing, “don’t use marketing automation to shout. You can automate your campaigns, but that doesn’t mean blasting your target audience incessantly is a good idea.” Increasing the frequency of messages or touchpoints does not necessarily equate to better results. Instead, the panel emphasizes the importance of timing. “When you contact leads is critical,” says Days. Adding that the single most important follow up tip he can give is to contact leads within 30 minutes of completing a form, ideally by phone. According to Days, “the need that drove them to complete the form is still top of mind.” What better time to connect? Now that you have heard what the expert panel believes are some of the marketing automation essentials for small businesses, what do you think? What best practices or features would you add?
© Online Marketing Blog, 2013. | Marketing Automation Essentials for Small Businesses | http://www.toprankblog.com          Online Marketing News: Scary Good Creative, Email Beats Social, B2B Twitter, Wasted PPCScary Good Creative Video: 'Carrie' Promo Spooks New Yorkers – It may be a little early for trick or treating, but a new campaign rolled out of the proverbial pumpkin patch this week and tricked one of the most cynical consumer groups, New Yorkers. The video reached 25+ million+ views in just a few days. With the creative juice of Stephen King and Hollywood behind it, the Sony promo for the upcoming Carrie remake is the biggest thing to scare up that many views since The Blair Witch Project. CommPro More Sharing on E-mail Than Facebook, Twitter – Email beats social networks Facebook and Twitter combined as the top medium for sharing online coupons and other offers, according to new research from SocialTwist, a company that specializes in giving consumers incentives to share deals online. AdAge Study: How B2B Marketers Use Twitter – Industry media sites are the most common source of content shared by B2B marketers on Twitter, accounting for 62% of all content shares, according to a recent analysis by Leadtail and DNN Software. MarketingProfs Use Images on Twitter to Get More Retweets – Based on a data set of more than 400,000 tweets, those with images uploaded to pic.Twitter.com were nearly twice as likely to be retweeted while the use of Twitpic increased the odds by just over 60%. On the other hand, Tweets that used Facebook or Instagram links were less likely to be retweeted. 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Of those companies, 66 have CMOs who are engaged in influential conversations. Forbes Editorial Unease Rises As Content Ad Links Proliferate – For many editors — especially those who don't interact much with the business side of the house — the feeling is that the revenue generated by link generators is not worth the sacrifice of editorial dignity. Too often, the suggested content has nothing to do with the lead story. Digiday A Scientific Guide to Effectively Saying 'No' – "I can't" and "I don't" are words that seem similar and we often interchange them for one another, but psychologically they can provide very different feedback and, ultimately, result in very different actions. In other words, the phrase "I don't" is a psychologically empowering way to say no, while the phrase "I can't" is a psychologically draining way to say no. Lifehacker How Small Businesses are Dropping the Ball on CTAs – The "Small Business B2B Call to Action Study" of 200 websites found that companies routinely fail to include special offers and related incentives. Even basics, like Contact Info and a phone number are not prominent. Here are some highlights. Online Marketing Coach 7 Tools for Finding Great Content to Share – Finding and sharing great content is an essential part of social media. These tools will help you find content to share and save you a lot of time. Discovered a few new tools myself. MarketingProfs 5 Ways to Increase Customer Engagement Using Science – With digital marketing and loyalty programs, we have the tools to drive customer engagement in a way that’s empirical and scientific. We can draw upon the techniques developed by BF Skinner, called "operant conditioning," to fine-tune our marketing program for maximum effect. Here are five modern marketing techniques that you should use and the science behind their effectiveness. Direct Marketing News Samsung’s Curved Smartphone: Big Innovation or Novelty? Analysts predict a small group of early adopters in the U.S. will favor the Round’s distinctive look, but only at half that price. ComputerWorld The Story Behind 118-year-old Brand – In its 118-year history, John Deere's The Furrow has become something of a legend in two exceptionally disparate communities: agriculture and brand publishing. For farmers, it's the agrarian version of Rolling Stone. For brand publishers, it's a thing of wonder — a brand magazine born generations before the term 'content marketing' was coined, which sees its back-issues fought over — fiercely — on eBay. Contently
Where to Place 30 Elements on Your eCommerce and Why – The product detail page is where the magic is supposed to happen. When a product detail page does its job two things happen: (1) the consumer has his/her need fulfilled and (2) the retailer achieves its goal and acquires a happy customer. Read these recommendations to gain a solid starting point. eConsultancy Google On Original Content Related to Product Descriptions – Google will try to show users the appropriate version that matches what they think the user is looking for. So in some cases, the original source of content is not always the most important thing, demonstrating the growing importance of context for SEO. Search Engine Roundtable 6 Tips for Finding Prospects on LinkedIn – Social selling produces better results than cold calling and allows you to easily reach the decision-makers. To be successful, strive to offer value and build credibility. Following these six steps when integrated into your business strategy will set you apart from other LinkedIn members. Social Media Examiner 3 Google+ Power Users Reveal their Secrets – If you're still in the dark about value proposition of Google Plus, prepare to be enlightened. Here are just three people among the hundreds who spent the time to make a positive contribution to the conversation, left lengthy comments and have provided real insights as to the power of Google+. Jeff Bullas From the Online CommunityOn "10 Content Marketing Tools for Creation, Distribution and Analytics," Cara Posey said, Lee, this is a great list. Some tools I know, some I’m trying out (like Little Bird) and others I have yet to try. I will humbly add ExpertFile to this list…another platform that is great for finding experts and reviewing expert content as well as a platform for companies and individuals to share their own content. We also just launched our new visual dashboard, helping B2B marketers and agencies with content marketing analytics and assessing ROI for expert content marketing efforts as well as identifying new opportunities. I hope you’ll check it out as a potential tool that adds additional value to your list above On "Digital Newsletters as Content Marketing," Sarah Bauer said, Great post! Some takeaways from your examples: On "5 Habits of Digital Marketing Agencies That Get Results," Ava Christi said, While the digital revolution has given marketers great new ways to be creative, it has also demanded that they become more statistical and analytical in order to prove ROI, which has proved difficult in the past. But help is at hand. Episodeone.com said, All these characteristics which you have talked about here are very important for success. Well! Success in digital marketing is often the result of a mashup of tactics and technology from multiple sources, which means marketers need to think beyond their role, team and hierarchy to embrace the ideas, and, in some cases, the expertise of others. What's Your Take?Was a Scary Carrie video good content marketing even if it was a trick? For e-commerce sites, do you have a continuous improvement process in place? Is your CMO an influencer in your organization. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend! Photo credit: Shutterstock
© Online Marketing Blog, 2013. | Online Marketing News: Scary Good Creative, Email Beats Social, B2B Twitter, Wasted PPC | http://www.toprankblog.com   More Recent Articles
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