Automated marketing processes are table stakes for most businesses these days. From emails and customer relationship management to social media posts, with a strong omnichannel strategy, marketing automation gives companies an edge over the competition.
Key parts of any comprehensive approach to marketing for new businesses involve lead generation. For cash-conscious startup leaders, however, the cost of building out their automated capabilities can be prohibitive, and choosing which lead-gen tools to invest in is a big decision for them. Here, members of Forbes Agency Council explore some of the simplest and most impactful forms of marketing automation a recently launched startup with a limited budget could use to acquire new customers.
Forbes Agency Council members share simple marketing automations to help startups acquire customers.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Customer Relationship Management Tools
Startups struggle to find customers, as few people are familiar with their products, services and brand. Thus, a startup should choose marketing automation tools that solve these concerns. When PopArt Studio first began our digital endeavor, we heavily relied on CRM tools to manage prospect information, identify the best client opportunities and manage marketing activities. – Dejan Popovic, PopArt Studio
2. Google Ads Discovery Campaigns
There are plenty of automated digital marketing tools, but we highly recommend Google Ads Discovery campaigns. They’re the Swiss Army knife of digital display—multi-platform, highly intent-based and not terribly expensive. They go well beyond a traditional digital display campaign by using Google’s artificial intelligence to home in on customers who are ready to buy. – Tellef Lundevall, Accelerated Digital Media
3. Email And LinkedIn Automations
Email automations will help any new business—B2B or B2C—as long as you have triggers set up based on website interactions and in-email actions. This is highly effective. For B2B, LinkedIn automations are very valuable to drill down to your specific ideal customer and connect with people. These automations allow you to get to the right people and have engaged conversations that build business. – Neal Patel, Bruce Clay MENA
MORE FOR YOU
4. A CRM For List Building And Prospect Tracking
Platforms such as HubSpot can integrate with just about every known marketing tool. Better yet, they often have special pricing for funded startups. Many CRM systems will integrate with websites or content management systems to track and score prospects, providing more efficient leads to your sales team to help shorten a sales cycle. – Valerie Chan, Plat4orm PR
Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
5. An Automated Referral And Advocacy Process
One of the most impactful ways to scale a burgeoning business is to automate the referral and advocacy process. Use social, email, on-site and retargeting automation to reinforce the benefits of referring new customers—whether that’s through discounts on future purchases, store credit or a more advanced, social system. To see this in action, look no further than giffgaff’s Share the love program. – Chris Martin, FlexMR
6. Social Media Automation
Given that our agency specializes in B2B inbound marketing, what we’ve found to work (apart from email marketing) is the power of social media automation. Platforms such as Sprout Social and Bambu are fantastic to scale social media amplification across both company and individual social pages, which can help get your message in front of more targeted prospects organically, with zero ad spend. – Azadeh Williams, AZK Media
7. An Automated Ambassador Program
Empower superfans to refer their network to your business, and automatically be rewarded for doing so. The Hustle did an incredible job of automating an ambassador program via newsletter that was simple and effective in growing its audience (and gave them sweet rewards to further the reach of the brand). Installing automations to run this system can result in an army of highly engaged customers. – Johnnie Munger, Wonderful Collective
8. An Automated Series Of Welcome Emails
E-commerce brands should set up a series of welcome emails and an on-site pop-up that prompts new users to provide their email address to receive a first purchase discount, for example. This helps brands grow their email lists and can also then trigger an automated flow of four to six emails to that customer. This series of emails can introduce them to the brand, its products and reviews and remind them to take advantage of the offer, resulting in sales. – Tucker Matheson, Markacy
9. Automated Follow-Up To A Launch Announcement
Use personal email and contact lists (including contacts from platforms such as LinkedIn) to announce the launch of your new brand. This shouldn’t be a sales pitch; just a message saying, “We have launched brand XYZ and would really love it if you’d check us out.” Then, implement a site form or exit intent pop-up asking visitors to “see what’s coming next,” which sends an automated “thanks for joining the family” response. – Bernard May, National Positions
10. Whatever Your Strongest Competitors Are Using
Study and emulate your strongest competitors. A successful strategy is based on what’s been proven to work. If it works for the top performers in your niche, it will work for you. To learn their approach to automation, you can sign up for their newsletter and check out their social media. That’ll give you ideas of what will work for your audience, and it’ll provide a template for setting up your automation. – Dmitrii Kustov, Regex SEO
11. Hootsuite For Automated Social Media
One of the most important things that a small startup could do is to take advantage of Hootsuite for social media marketing and management. For about $20 per month, it is possible to ensure that all of your social media posts are scheduled and always out there on time. – Jon James, Ignited Results
12. Automated Live Chat
Live chat is simple to implement and even more pleasant to use. Live chat enables your audience to talk to an automated bot that has ready-to-go replies, which engages and pushes the throttle on the sale. It is of great use for retail and direct-to-consumer customers who have questions on sizes, colors, flavors and more. This also allows you to build a relationship with them simultaneously by acting as their aid. – Candice Georgiadis, Digital Day
Go to Source
Author: Expert Panel®, Forbes Councils Member
