Tag: automation

    A Beginner’s Guide to Marketing Automation

    Marketing automation sounds rather complex. Basically, it is simply tools and software you use to do things for your business without having to manually do them. For example, you probably have heard of an autoresponder. That is a basic form of marketing automation and one every business should have, even if they are a standard brick and mortar business. Collecting emails and building a list the right way is crucial to any business.

    An autoresponder allows you to collect emails from people who opt in and want to be on your list. You can then separate the list based on interest, or which optin form they used. You can set up emails to drip feed automatically to the list. You can send to some or all of the list as needed. This kind of automation frees you up to work on other projects and allows your customers to get what they opted in for, or products they buy immediately without having to wait for you do to something.

    There are other tools for marketing automation as well. For example, there are several tools that allow you to set up posts for social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, reddit, and others, to post for you at specific times. Use these sparingly and wisely because people do not appreciate not hearing directly from you. Especially in Facebook groups, you may find yourself banned if you keep posting only automated posts to the group. Remember that a big part of social media is about being social and communicating directly. However, if you use automated posts correctly, they can help you brand yourself and have more of a voice on the sites.

    Another type of marketing automation is used with blogs. Word Press has this built in, plus there are many free and low cost plug-ins for Word Press that can add more features to the marketing automation for your blog. The basic one that Word Press has built in, is the ability to drip feed your blog posts. For example if you know that next week you will not have time to post on your blog, you can spend the weekend writing the posts ahead of time and set it up to drip feed the content on your regular posting schedule. A lot of marketers do this on a regular basis.

    These are just a few of the examples of marketing automation out there that can help your business. Whatever methods you end up using, be sure to remember that automation is just a tool, and not a magic pill, to running your business.

    Categories: Marketing Tags: Tags:

    Are You Working IN Your Business or ON Your Business?

    One of the biggest reasons that ‘business systemization’ is so incredibly important, is that it allows you to step out of your business for a while and to focus on ways to make it better. Often we are too concerned with working in our businesses to the extent that we stop working on them and when we allow this to happen it can often represent the start of a vicious circle and a road to nowhere.
    But what’s the difference you ask? And how does biz systemization help? Read on and find out!

    What’s the Difference?
    If you’re someone who is only working in your business, then you’ll likely be arriving at work with a long to-do list, working through that and then leaving the office once it’s completed. Get to work tomorrow and you’ll have a new huge list of things you need to be doing. It’s relentless and it feels like you are always only just managing with your workload rather than having time to move around more freely and to come up with new directions and new ideas.

    If you are working on your business though, then that means you’ll be spending time in R&D, it means you’ll be looking at potential future markets to move into and you’ll be forecasting your profits over the coming months and years. In other words, working on your business means that you’ll be finding ways to expand, grow and develop  rather than just looking at ways to continue with the status quo.

    How to Get to That Point
    As you might have imagined, the general idea is to reach the point where you work more on your business than in it. In other words, you should be working to either increase the profit you’re bringing in or to decrease the amount of time you’re spending working. Either way, you’ll be improving your position and that’s ultimately the point of a business.

    Biz systemization helps you to get to that point by automating parts of your business and handing it over to your staff so that you can concentrate on other things. This way, you won’t be constantly putting out fires because you’ll have systems in place to do that for you and you’ll have staff who can handle almost every challenge for you.

    Biz systemization makes your business more efficient and that means your business can grow or you can step back. Either way, it’s the first step in a more fulfilling business and life balance.

    Categories: Run a Home Business Tags: Tags:

    When NOT to Use Marketing Automation

    When NOT to Use Marketing Automation

    Marketing automation is wonderful and can really make a difference for your use of time in building your business. Not everything needs to be drip fed, though. Sometimes it is better to do things yourself or have a virtual assistant do them.

    No matter how sophisticated a Word Press plug in, or a piece of software is, it is still basically a computer program. There will be bugs, there will be updates, there will be times when customers want to talk to a human to address their issues.

    Have you ever had a problem with a company such as your internet provider or cell phone provider and when you called them, you got an automated customer service system? How frustrated did you get when you were trying to get your question answered, or trying to reach a human because you knew your problem did not fit their four selection choices? Often because they are rather large business with little or no competition in the area, they can do that to their customers. You might not want to do that though because there is probably far more competition for your customers.

    So customer service is a major area where you would not want to have a lot of marketing automation. Basic issues can be addressed by tools such as emailing a new password when someone clicks the forgot password button. If a person needs more than can be handled simply, you need to have a way for them to connect with a person. It can be you, or someone you hire to help you, but that person needs to be able to listen to the customer and figure out how to solve the problem, no matter how odd the problem is.

    Another area where you will want to have at least some human presence is in your social media. If you just rely on marketing automation to handle your social media, you will short change yourself and your customers. In some cases, you may end up getting banned from groups if you only use drip fed posts. The line between automation and spamming can be quite thin.

    An additional area where automation does not work well is in producing content. Once the content is created, you can use the tools to get the content out there, but the actual making of it needs a personal touch. Many people have tried to make software that writes well, and failed at it. Creativity is not hardwired into computers the way it is in human beings. So if you want something written, or a video made, or graphics designed, you need to do it yourself or outsource to a person, not try to use automation tools to create the content.

    Categories: Marketing Tags: Tags: ,

    3 Simple Mistakes to Avoid in Setting Up Your Marketing Automation

    Marketing automation can really help streamline your business and help you grow. It is important though, that you understand how best to use these tools so you do not make mistakes. Remember that these tools are only there to make things easier for you, not to replace the human touch.

    First and foremost, you need to make sure you keep adding fresh content that is specifically geared to your customers. For example, if you are selling to men who love dogs and want to learn how to train them better, you probably would not want content that has to do with how to help women lose weight.

    Watch out for more subtle differences as well. You can generalize to some extent, but you do not want your customers to feel like you are just throwing content at them to see what sticks. Make sure your content is not only changing, but relevant to your specific customer base. A lot of times you have more than one group of customers, though, so segmenting your list is crucial to helping you target them better with your automation. You want them to feel like even though it is automated, that you care about them and their interests.

    Do not use marketing automation when you should be connecting with your customers manually. For example, many tools work with drip feeding content and posts to various forms of social media. You can use these tools to make sure your social media stays active, by tweeting, sharing, posting, when you are not able to because you are asleep, or working on other projects.

    Make sure, though, that you also post manually so people can hear what you have to say. If you are a member of a group on sites like Facebook, use good social manners. A few automated posts now and again that are very relevant to the group may be alright as long as you clear it first, but if you drip feed a lot of posts, many unrelated, the group may ban you.

    Set it and forget it can lead you into issues. You do need to monitor your marketing automation and test it and tweak it. Make sure you are offering targeted information that helps your customers as well as sales pitches. Check on things like how much interaction you are getting with social media posts and blog posts. Analyze your stats on emails to make sure you are really maximizing your benefits from using automated tools to grow your business.

    Categories: Marketing Tags: Tags:

    A Beginner’s Guide to Marketing Automation

    Marketing automation sounds rather complex. Basically, it is simply tools and software you use to do things for your business without having to manually do them. For example, you probably have heard of an autoresponder. That is a basic form of marketing automation and one every business should have, even if they are a standard brick and mortar business. Collecting emails and building a list the right way is crucial to any business.

    An autoresponder allows you to collect emails from people who opt in and want to be on your list. You can then separate the list based on interest, or which optin form they used. You can set up emails to drip feed automatically to the list. You can send to some or all of the list as needed. This kind of automation frees you up to work on other projects and allows your customers to get what they opted in for, or products they buy immediately without having to wait for you do to something.

    There are other tools for marketing automation as well. For example, there are several tools that allow you to set up posts for social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, reddit, and others, to post for you at specific times. Use these sparingly and wisely because people do not appreciate not hearing directly from you. Especially in Facebook groups, you may find yourself banned if you keep posting only automated posts to the group. Remember that a big part of social media is about being social and communicating directly. However, if you use automated posts correctly, they can help you brand yourself and have more of a voice on the sites.

    Another type of marketing automation is used with blogs. Word Press has this built in, plus there are many free and low cost plug-ins for Word Press that can add more features to the marketing automation for your blog. The basic one that Word Press has built in, is the ability to drip feed your blog posts. For example if you know that next week you will not have time to post on your blog, you can spend the weekend writing the posts ahead of time and set it up to drip feed the content on your regular posting schedule. A lot of marketers do this on a regular basis.

    These are just a few of the examples of marketing automation out there that can help your business. Whatever methods you end up using, be sure to remember that automation is just a tool, and not a magic pill, to running your business.

    Categories: Marketing Tags: Tags: