Marketing automation is something you’ll hear talked about a lot in the entrepreneurial space, but it’s one of those things that can intimidate busy business owners. You probably know in the long run it would help, but it is an easy thing to put it off because you’re already too busy and it feels complicated.
When we’re first starting our businesses, we may not have a choice but to wear all the hats and do it all ourselves, but eventually we get to a point where we become the bottleneck in our business. Many of us end up as the entrepreneurial cliche: someone willing to work twice as much for half the pay.
If this sounds familiar, I’m here to give you hope. You don’t have to feel frustrated and burned out.
Here Are 4 Simple Marketing Automations You Can Implement to Take Your Life Back
They’ll also help you scale your business!
Lead Generation Funnel:
A business can’t survive without a steady stream of leads. And hustling on social media, attending networking events, cold calling, etc., can quickly consume your day. Set up a simple lead-generation funnel that goes from a paid ad to a landing page offering a free checklist or free cheat sheet. It’s a simple and affordable way to keep your pipeline full.
Email Nurture Sequence:
I don’t know how many people I talk to who are giving away a lead magnet but they aren’t consistently staying in touch with their leads via email. They are busy and struggle to find time to create a newsletter.
Automate that process! Once someone is on your list, set up an email automation that continues to provide value and build goodwill with them over time. Include a link in your emails to the next step in your funnel, such as a link to schedule a free consultation with you.
Email newsletter broadcasts are amazing, but should be a supplement to the automation sequences you have set up.
Recommended Resource: We use ActiveCampaign for creating automated email sequences for ourselves and our clients.
Appointment Scheduling:
Trying to coordinate schedules to find a time to meet is often a challenge that results in multiple back-and-forth emails. An appointment scheduler can eliminate all the hassle and give your clients, leads, and co-workers the ability to book a time with you on their own. They connect to your calendar and only show times that you’re available, so the occasional dentist appointment, school program, and lunch-date you add to your calendar will never become a scheduling conflict.
Recommended Resource: Calendly is the easiest to use and most affordable program we’ve found.
Social Media Management:
Social media can be extremely time-consuming with finding pictures, creating blog content, and engaging with your followers. But we want to be sure we’re giving our followers lots of interesting, quality content to keep them engaged. Automating your social content can allow you to schedule when you’ll deliver content across all your social channels with 30 minutes to an hour of work a week. This can save you so much time, especially because it will keep you from getting sucked into scrolling through your newsfeed every time you need to share something on your business page.
Recommended Resource: There are lots of programs to do this, but the one we use and love is Buffer.
3 More Automation Systems to Implement As Your Business Grows:
As your business grows, there are some additional automations you may want to create to give your leads and clients the best experience possible and to increase your revenue.
Client OnBoarding:
What do your new clients need to do and know? Do they need to sign an agreement? Do they need a private link to schedule appointments with you? Do they need access to resources, links, or downloads? Streamline your processes and create a great experience for your new clients by building a client on-boarding email automation.
Recommended Resource: Again we recommend ActiveCampaign for this.
Personalized and Segmented Emails:
Once your lead generation starts to pick up steam and you’re getting a better grip on your business, you’ll want to start to segment your list based on actions they have or have not taken.
Have they purchased a certain product? It would feel weird for your customers to receive more emails promoting that item. But they’d probably enjoy getting information about a related product that compliments what they’ve already purchased.
Recommended Resources: We do this using the tagging feature in ActiveCampaign. When someone purchases from our website, their email is tagged for that product so we can pull them out of future promotions and send them other things they’d be interested in.
Recurring Revenue Systems:
We all get recurring bills each month, so let’s create a way to get some recurring income coming in each month to cover them! Setting up a recurring revenue product is the way to make this happen. If you’re a service business you could create a retainer package for your services. If you’re a coach or consultant maybe it’s a 12-month coaching program. Either way, the right website can help you streamline your cash flow while you continue to provide exceptional support to your clients with a recurring subscription option.
Recommended Resources: If you’d like help setting up a recurring revenue system in your business, check out the Free Get Leads & Clients Masterclass!
How to Implement Automation Systems in Your Business
Word to the wise, don’t try to set up all your business automations at once or you could end up with a tangled mess that confuses your clients and causes you more work.
1. Pick one area of your business where you’re experiencing the most stress.
If you’re struggling to get new clients, a Lead Generation System may be the best place to start. If you’ve got plenty of clients but you’re stressed over cash flow, creating a recurring revenue product, or retainer service may be in order.
2. Outline the manual recurring tasks in that area of your business.
Anything you do over and over again, should be something to consider for automation. For example, if you send your potential clients a follow-up after a consultation with you that includes links to your portfolio, packages, and testimonials, automate that step.
Here’s another example: If you always send your clients an email with their homework or notes after a coaching session, enter that information in a form with your email service provider and use a merge tag to insert it into an automated email your clients receive after the call.
3. Implement the simplest automation process possible to get the job done.
Don’t over-complicate things. Break your processes down to the basics and start small. You can always expand your automation systems as your business grows.
4. Test, test, and test the automation again to make sure it works before putting clients into or through it.
Go through the whole process yourself, multiple times to make sure what you’re expecting to happen actually happens. Tweak and refine it until it’s perfect. Then turn it on for a few of your loyal clients who are open to giving you honest feedback. Make note of anything that’s confusing for them and refine it.
5. Stack your automations to scale your business.
It’s interesting (and fun!) how solving one problem in your business can quickly create the need to solve another problem. Example: Setting up an automated lead generation funnel quickly creates the need to set up a client onboarding system.
Once the one challenging area in your business has been smoothed out, move on to the next stressful area.
Eventually, you’ll have a business that runs like a well-oiled machine!
What automation systems do you wish you had working for you in your business?
Tell us in the comments below! Maybe we can feature the “How To” for you in a future blog post!
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