Why SMBs Need Marketing Automation

For small to mid-size businesses, marketing automation can sound daunting, and expensive. With smaller budgets and limited pools of resources, SMBs think that hard work by their human staff will be enough. In the long run, reaching out to new and existing customers through traditional methods of manually managing email lists is a lot of “busy” work. Watching the customer’s journey through orders and payments is tedious and time-consuming. Also, such activities can be more expensive, due to the lost value of employees’ time to do these tasks. Well-paid employees should be focusing on higher-value activities.  Keep reading to see why SMBs need marketing automation.

Instant responses to email requests

When a prospect or customer reaches out to your business through a “Contact Us” form, you want to show an immediate response, and marketing automation can simply respond with an acknowledgement email, or could be set to respond with information, based on keywords in the content. Customers or prospects expect a fast response, and automation can give them a “warm-fuzzy” feeling any time, even when your business is closed.

Automatic follow-ups

To avoid the “call you back later” problem, most people prefer email.  Phone calls are fine, if both parties are available. With an automated system, appointments can be scheduled through email, without human intervention. No time will be wasted on phone calls just to plan another phone call.

Inbound lead assignment

With all the communication through calls, emails, and meetings, details of customer interactions may “fall through the cracks”. An automated marketing solution can create Leads from website interactions, which gives everyone a single place to track or enter details about the Lead. When Leads are automatically assigned to a specific person, this adds organization, responsibility, and accountability, instead of waiting for someone to “take the Lead” and possibly miss out on an important opportunity.

Create Leads from Downloads

By offering valuable information to potential customers, such as brochures, product specifications or whitepapers, you show off your company’s talent and capabilities. By offering such documents in exchange for an email address and some location data, you are collecting potential Lead data which an email marketing solution can use to create a record and assign an owner. In addition, a good marketing automation solution will also collect statistics across your downloadable items, to show which are getting the most interest.

Organized contact list

Attending a networking event?  Think about all the new the contacts you will meet.  What about their business cards, weighing down your pocket, and possibly getting lost in your bag or going through the wash in your jacket?  With automated marketing tools, business cards can be scanned and immediately sent to your CRM system, with notes and additional details. With very little effort, your team can see who you’ve met at the conference, even before you get back to the office.

If you’re a business owner, you know that investing in automation improves efficiency and reduces errors. A simple data entry mistake can block communication with a potential customer and prevent future interaction. Don’t let that happen!  As you can see, there are many reasons why SMBs need marketing automation.

Beringer Technology Group has experts in Dynamics 365 and Marketing who can help your company create and maintain successful and efficient automation processes. What can we automate for you?

Contact Us! 

Beringer Technology Group, a leading Microsoft Gold Certified Partner specializing in Microsoft Dynamics 365 and CRM for Distribution, also provides expert Managed IT Services, Backup and Disaster Recovery, Cloud Based Computing and Unified Communication Solutions.