It is not uncommon for Marketing professionals to find themselves with the problem of building marketing campaigns and maintaining online brands that require repetitive, systematic actions. Hence in recent years, the popularity of marketing automation has soared, because it offers a way to systemize key processes. You can write blog posts and schedule them for automatic upload at optimum times. It becomes easy to send newsletters and emails to thousands of people and manage the responses. Marketing automation helps marketers to focus on the value and quality of their efforts because the practical implementation is managed in a perpetual, unobtrusive manner. When a business gains time they gain profit. Every second saved can be reinvested in sales, distribution, finance, inventory and recruitment processes.
What is an Enterprise Marketing Automation Solution?
Successful marketers know that marketing is about more than direct and personalized advertising. Targeted ads are only a small part of the customer journey, and they can be very hit or miss, particularly online. Consumers nowadays are more wary of digital advertising than ever before, because they have an increased of knowledge of its inner workings and the way it piggybacks on their routines. Therefore Business/Corporate got to build up trust in other ways and it is important that customers be given a chance to interact with Business/Corporate Brand through different channels. Enterprise marketing automation can be used to gauge interest, pick up on preferences, forge strong relationships and increase brand loyalty.
Key Features of Enterprise Marketing Automation
Email Automation
Email is a valuable asset for marketing teams, but it must be used carefully. Emails should always be relevant, engaging and non-intrusive. Otherwise, you will alienate your followers. Automation software is a great way to stay in touch, without exposing customers to excessive email blasts. It also helps you keep a detailed record of both your communications and your subscribers’ behavior.
Social Media
Marketing automation is recommended for social media because it takes much of the manual work out of posting. You can use it to build targeted advertisements, respond to customer inquiries and keep profiles active and fresh. You should not rely solely on automation when working with social communities, but it is a handy way to stay available 24/7 and schedule posts in advance.
Lead Generation
Automation software plays a major role in lead generation, as it helps businesses learn about their customers. Every point of contact is logged and turned into actionable data. So every time you interact with somebody, the system adds that to their personalized profile. It means your sales team always knows what a customer wants, prefers, dislikes and hopes to achieve.
Dynamic Content
How do you make your emails and landing pages convert the best? You personalize them. This is what dynamic content does for businesses, making it a powerful marketing automation tool. Dynamic content inserts specialized messages, names, and discounts based on your subscribers’ preferences and behavior.
A/B Testing
Bringing an element of science to marketing, A/B testing allows you to compare two different types of content to figure out which is best. This means that you can split your subscriber base, or a segment of it, in two, sending one piece of content to one group, and a tweaked version to the other group. Marketers use this ability to test the effectiveness of everything from marketing language, CTAs, and layout in order to increase conversions.
Extended Maintenance
To get the most out of your marketing dollars, you need to be following up on transactions. The customer journey does not have to end with the most recent purchase. In fact, it is much easier to secure the second, third or fourth buy than it is the first. Use marketing automation to stay in touch and maximize a brand interest that is already present.
Reporting and Analytics
Finally, marketing automation platforms are great for building up a picture of productivity. As every contact, transaction, and communication gets logged, there is no part of the marketing journey that you can’t review. The data is highly useful when it comes to evaluating the effectiveness of campaigns and budgeting for future ones.
What is Marketing Automation for Small Businesses?
Marketing automation solutions have been used by big corporations for a while now. But for small business, it is still a tool that’s just starting to gain popularity. In fact, a Leadpages and Infusionsoft Small Business Marketing Trends Report shows that as much as 47% of small businesses still try to handle their marketing efforts by themselves.
With today’s innovative marketing automation solutions, that may not be the case for long. As marketing automation becomes more available and tailored to small businesses, it is only a matter of time before small business owners realize the benefits that come with having this tool at their disposal.
Small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up the fastest-growing segment of marketing automation software users, and this trend is consistent in numerous industries.
The Key Features of Marketing Automation for Small Businesses are the following
Since marketing automation is marketing automation no matter if you’re a large enterprise or a small business, many of the features are the same. However, if you’re a small business, here are the features you should prioritize.
Email Automation
No matter what size your business is, email marketing is an effective strategy. It is an especially powerful strategy for small businesses just trying to get their name out there. Just as useful is the fact that email automation saves precious time to manage email campaigns that can be reallocated somewhere else.
Lead Generation
Finding leads can be one of the most difficult challenges for small businesses trying to build a customer base. Luckily, marketing automation for small businesses provides lead generation functionality that reduces both the time and costs involved in the lead generation process.
Lead Nurturing
Seamlessly moving your leads along the sales funnel has never been easier for small businesses. Marketing automation management software can help you greatly reduce the manual work required in the process, saving you valuable time. This enables you to passively move leads down the sales funnel, only requiring you to intervene when a lead is ready to convert.
Reporting
Reporting isn’t just for big companies. Any sized business benefits from reporting, so they can gain insights into the effectiveness of their marketing. With the advanced reports available from some of the leading marketing automation software for small businesses, you can gain new insights into where your best customers are coming from, how to increase conversions and much more.
Relationship Management
Customer retention is one of the key factors of business success, especially when you’re just trying to build a customer base. With the right marketing automation tool, you can personalize your relationship with each prospect, making them feel wanted and recognized.
Last but not least you need to learn how to choose the Right Marketing Automation Software for your Business
It is important to consider platforms that are compatible with the size and nature of the business. Enterprise software would include features that SMBs may never need.
Software costs vary but expect enterprise software to be pricier than marketing automation software for SMBs. Conduct a needs assessment survey to identify the marketing automation issues that require a solution and from this survey, determine the tools needed to resolve the issues.
Many marketing automation software providers offer a free trial period, which allows you to test the suitability of the actual product based on your company’s needs.
Want to find the best marketing automation software for your business? We’re happy to help you! Contact Abraham at abraham@chicago42digital.com
By Abraham Zavala-Quiñones & Helena Osorio-Zavala
abraham@chicago42digital.com
@AZQMX (Twitter & IG)
@helenabosorio (IG)
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/abraham-zavala-quinones/10/989/28a
Hence we at Chicago 42 share the 11 most important tips for you to start creating your own personal engaging, unique, and inviting personal brand.
1. Have a focus.
Keeping your message focused for your target demographic will make it that much easier to both create content around your personal brand and have others define you.
2. Be a Subject Matter Expert in your targeted niche.
We recommend you to garner a reputation of being an expert (subject matter expert), and a source of reference, in the niche field you are targeting when initially building your personal brand.
3. Be genuine.
People can see right through a disingenuous act. The more obviously a brand is a copycat, the more the audience will be disenchanted with it. You have to demonstrate consistency across your communication, gravitas, and appearance. It is not uncommon to see how some Social Media personalities lose their influence when their audience (followers) finds out that their life is not consistent with the message they pretend to communicate publicly. Don’t ever underestimate how tiny inconsistencies can derail personal brand effectiveness and destroy a reputation.
4. Tell a story.
If your personal brand isn’t telling a story, you’ve already lost half of your potential audience. The most effective personal branding strategies these days are designed with the intention of building a true narrative. Remember that single character monologues are boring in Tinseltown, and even more boring for your personal brand, hence you have to create a story around your brand that your audience can engage with. One of the best ways to tell that story is through written content followed by any visual engagement material like pictures or video.
5. Be consistent.
Being consistent is very similar to having a narrow focus. It is much easier to get recognized for one topic if you consistently create content and brand voice around it. Ensure that your personal brand promise stays consistent, both online and offline. Regardless of whether you are creating a wild, incredibly out-there fun brand, or one that’s a bit more on the conservative (corporate) side consistency is key.
6. Be ready to fail.
You will never achieve the best branding until you fail a couple times while pushing past your comfort zone. Failure is tough, and all of us generally want to avoid it, that is human nature. However to have a personal brand that rises above the rest you need to learn from your failures. The very best brands always come from repeated trial and error, mistakes and failures and not from instant perfection.
7. Create a positive impact.
After you’ve developed your personal brand over a period of time, there are generally two ways to continue to build your brand:
Remember you are your brand, no matter what your current job is, what project you happen to be working on, or whatever the priority happens to always keep in mind the impact you leave on others. Remember all we have is our own reputation and that is our brand.
Sharing some of your knowledge and experience will help to grow your brand in the long run.
8. Follow a successful example.
People interested in personal branding need to start marketing themselves like the celebrities and influential people that they look up to every day. The success often comes from studying trends and popular individuals on different social media platforms and then implementing them with a twist. It is worth mentioning that this should be followed with a creative dissection of digital analytics to establish what your niche trend can be.
9. Live your brand.
As mentioned before, one of the ways you can make building a personal brand difficult on yourself is to separate your brand from your personal life. While certainly doable, it’s easier when initially creating a personal brand to have your actual lifestyle and brand be one and the same.
Your personal brand should follow you everywhere you go. It needs to be an authentic manifestation of who you are and amplify what you believe. With this in mind, your personal brand is not only a reflection of a series of job functions like marketing, finance, or creative but also ideals like giving back thoughtful leadership, or mentorship. Don’t thwart your efforts by living a double life since this can be exposed at any time destroying your personal brand and your reputation as well. Always remember that all we have in our life is our good name and the reputation we garner!
10. Let others tell your story.
The best PR comes by word of mouth! Creating a personal brand in the public sphere is no exception to this rule; remember that personal branding is the story people tell about you when you are not present.
11. Leave a legacy.
Once you’ve built your personal brand with a reputation and community behind it, the next step is to think about the legacy that you’ll leave behind. What are the keywords and actions that you want to be known for? Building a personal brand is much bigger than building a business. The only exit strategy is legacy.
A personal brand is a lifelong project that constantly evolves and changes. Even the experts who build or enhance the biggest brands in the business know that there are no hard-set rules for creating a personal brand.
But these general guidelines help provide first steps, especially if you’re starting a new brand or rebranding. Creating the right personal brand will not only help you be known in your field and consistently land work but it could be the difference between “Who are you?” and “Thank you for being here” in your career.
If you want to learn more about how to create and build your personal brand please stay tuned and subscribe to our newsletter to know more about our coming seminar on personal branding.
By Abraham Zavala-Quiñones & Helena Osorio-Zavala
abraham@chicago42digital.com
@AZQMX (Twitter & IG)
@helenabosorio (IG)
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/abraham-zavala-quinones/10/989/28a
Here’s a step by step tutorial to help you get started – it’s visual and basic. If you have any questions reach out!
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One of the toughest challenges for Digital is to create real-life actions (getting customers through their doors) for Retail Brands. Traditional advertising marketing printing channels like Direct Mail, Newspapers, Yellow Pages, and others have continued to decline in both popularity and effectiveness as consumers are drawn to Digital D2C (Direct to Consumer) strategies and campaigns. Therefore the real challenge for digital professionals is not only to improve Retail Brands Online Marketing footprint and presence but more importantly to drive “foot-traffic” into their retail stores. According to Altimeter Group 2015, Digital Strategist Survey the main obstacles retailers face when using digital advertising channels are as follows:
- Lack of Proper Roles – 34% of surveyed digital strategists said that they don’t have the proper roles to make digital marketing advertising campaigns effective.
- Lack of, or Low, Budgets – 57% of surveyed digital strategists mentioned that lack of, or low, budgets as one of their biggest challenges to execute digital advertising strategies in their campaigns.
- Executive Support – 35% of surveyed digital strategists expressed that lack of top executive support is one of their biggest digital marketing challenges.
- Not Priority – 54% of surveyed digital strategists noted that digital is not among the top priority for many Retail Brands top executives.
No Retail Brands can’t afford to ignore Digital, and its actions, anymore! Losing market share, growth, and sustainability are the biggest risks for retailers who ignore Digital! 5 Digital actions Retail Brands should invest in to create foot-traffic into their Brick&Mortar stores:
- Prioritization – Retail Brands need to enable Digital as a priority. Top executive support is required to make Digital a priority.
- Allocation – Allocation of financial resources and budget to Digital. This is needed in order to create and deploy effective Digital strategies.
- Creation & Execution of Digital Strategy – Once financial resources and budget is allocated to Digital a strategy needs to be created. A good online strategy combines targeting, tactics, platforms, and actions. A great deal of research (analytics, case studies, proof of concept, demographics, KPI’s creation, etc.) is required at this action.
- Get the right Digital Professionals – There are no one-man armies! Digital entails copious requirements, nuances, and details that require significant knowledge and experience to execute properly. Get the right professionals and be aware that a quality always comes at a price. Working with experienced digital professionals often makes the difference between effective results and frustration.
- All Digital efforts must seamlessly integrate with customer in-store experience. The goal is to create online/off-line consistent personalized, and memorable experiences to visitors.
Indeed e-Commerce has dramatically impacted the way consumers do most of their product discovery, however walking into stores to make their final purchases is, and will continue, to be the most crucial touch point for retailers (Altimeter Group research shows consumers are still doing 90% of retail purchases in Brick&Mortar stores). So as traditional printing advertising channels impact and effectiveness decline Retail Brands must to invest in Digital with the sole goal of creating a seamlessly online/off-line consistent personalized, and memorable, experiences to visitors.
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