Every business needs processes to keep running smoothly. Automation is simply the most cost effective way to do it. But marketing automation does more. It helps you grow.

Most small businesses know how to do what they “do” well and have usually set up a process to do it that works. Not so for their marketing or, more accurately, the entire process of customer communication.

Clients tell me that they “just need leads and they can convert them.” They have a process, but it isn’t consistent or can’t be maintained as they get more leads. (Hence, the inability to grow.)

You need every part of your business to run smoothly from responding to leads to customer requests, welcoming new customers and asking for referrals. Critically, you need to do it consistently for every customer, every time. The catch is you can’t do it all yourself and you can’t keep hiring staff because it impacts your bottom line.

The answer?

Understand your process. Write it down. Automate it. Use yourself and your staff for the “high-touch” moments when you do need to speak with customers.

Let me give you a real example from one of my clients:

At The Marvegos Fine Art School we had had great success growing our art school by offering free introductory lessons. Parents of prospective students would call the studio managers, then email back-and-forth until a free introductory lesson was scheduled. Some would show up, others wouldn’t. When KLC Marketing set up marketing automation for us the process changed. Parents would register online, receive confirmation emails, attend and receive reminder notices to register for class. The studio manager still runs the free introductory lesson but all the scheduling and follow-up is completed by the automation . . . consistently. We have been able to offer more free introductory lessons, consistently follow-up and grow our business in multiple locations.

This is the real core of marketing automation — nurturing and converting leads.

Nowadays successful digital marketing always includes marketing automation so that leads are nurtured and converted.

But let’s not miss the more mundane benefits of automation for your company. All of those responses to “Contact Us,” birthday emails and welcomes to new customers can be automated as well.

Another client of mine in the medical field had a different issue:

We found an inordinate amount of time was being spent by the front desk staff emailing out  welcome packets to new patients with different forms. I explained to Karen how each patient has a different insurance or case type so it couldn’t be automated. Even worse, we never sent out reminders once the original appointment was set. So a form was set up in Infusionsoft to enable the front desk to fill out key information, including a checkbox for which type of insurance/case, and all the new patients received customized emails (with the correct linked forms) and follow-up emails without our staff doing anything further. No-shows decreased. More patients showed up with their forms completed. The front desk was no longer overloaded with this task, so they could answer more patient questions.

The overall goal for both of these clients was to help them automate what they could so that they could focus on where they could be best deployed to make an impact and grow the business.

Everything can be automated. Automation will free you.
To focus on your customers, product and business. Then you will grow.

There are many things to automate within your business. This short E-book on 25 Things Every Small Business Should Automate will give you more ideas and serve as an automation guide.

25 Things Every Small Business Should Automate

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