How Marketing Automation Saves You Money and Time

Have you ever felt pulled in multiple directions during the day as you try to cover everything at once? One minute you’re on Twitter and the next you’re trying desperately to come up with your next blog idea, only to produce something semi effective, but not great.

Marketing can be a tough gig, especially when you’re in charge of multiple channels online. You simply can’t be everywhere at once, or can you?

When it comes to social media and digital marketing, there are ways to save your business precious time, and automate your marketing efforts. Marketing automation allows your business to truly be in multiple channels at once, talking to your target prospects at key times.

Marketing automation is the way to go if you want to take your business to the next level, because quite frankly one person or even a small team, can’t effectively handle all of the marketing that comes with running a business without automating.

Why should you consider using marketing automation?

The success of marketing automation speaks for itself. The key benefits of using marketing automation are to save your business money and time, but let’s first look at some of the industry statistics that prove this absolutely is the way to go!

Companies that automate lead management see a 10+% revenue increase in 6-9 months. 28% of marketers saw an increase in revenue per sale attributable to marketing automation.
A quarter of all B2B Fortune 500 companies are already using marketing automation, along with 76% of the world’s largest SaaS companies.
Businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects experience a 451% increase in qualified leads.

Let’s look further now into the specifics of how marketing automation can save your business money and time.

How marketing automation can save you money

Money, money, money! You’ve likely got specific goals and targets for your marketing strategy that you want to not only reach, but also beat out of the ballpark! Marketing automation is one of the best ways to take your marketing efforts to the next level in a more cost effective way.

Marketing automation often requires costs and the software companies that offer a complete package for marketing automation services will likely bill you for a monthly or yearly fee. Despite these initial costs, the benefits of using marketing automation software provide you with a service and system that allows you to cut costs in other areas of your business. It’s a system with a high return on investment.

2 key ways that marketing automation can save you money:

1. Turn your individual or small team into a powerful army!

The purpose of marketing automation is to allow your team to expand your marketing strategies in a more cost and time efficient manner. This means your small team can act like a powerful army by utilising automated systems such as scheduling. This extra free time allows your team to focus and strategise in other areas, thus leading to greater expansion and more revenue.

2. Helps you to cut back on outsourcing

Marketing automation is a great way to utilise your in house team and eventually cut down on outsourcing tasks. Many marketing automation software companies offer ‘done for you’ designs, templates and content ideas so that you can efficiently and cost effectively get the job done in house, rather than spend a small fortune hiring external freelancers or designers.

How marketing automation can save you time

Time is precious and it’s one of the only things we just can’t get back! So why waste it when it comes to your business? That’s where marketing automation steps in, to save you precious time and allow you to focus on what’s important in your business.

Let’s picture this common scenario; you find yourself researching a marketing topic or campaign idea, only to end up on social media and hours later you’ve trawled through your timeline or feed to realize that you haven’t really done anything.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the online chatter, particularly in social media! A clever marketing automation system can literally save you time, by allowing you to work more efficiently and effectively.

2 key ways that marketing automation can save you time:

1. Nurturing leads through email marketing

Using an email marketing automation system allows you to respond to a prospective client without even needing to be awake! Your prospect could be in another time zone from you entirely, and after showing interest and signing up to your database, you’re automated content can be nicely sent to them directly after sign up. There is so much you can do when it comes to email marketing and automation – the possibilities are endless!

Our tip: Ensure you are nurturing your leads from the top of the funnel, right to the bottom. You can do so using automation and trigger points. If you’re effectively nurturing leads through the initial funnel stages, people coming into your bottom funnel will be educated and prepared for the kind of conversation you want to invest time in.

2. Scheduling your social media efforts

Marketing automation comes in most handy with social media scheduling. You can pre schedule your posts at key times, weeks or months in advance. Whilst there are times when your social media activity should be ‘live’, marketing automation can handle the rest, allowing you to bulk schedule and free up your time for other more vital tasks.

How can I get started with marketing automation?

If you’re keen to invest in marketing automation, there are a number of ways to get started. First you need to assess what type of service you are after – do you want to start small and automate your social media? Or would you prefer a complete platform that manages everything in your marketing strategy?

There are free automation services such as social media scheduling tools and newsletter providers if you wish to start small. However, if you’re interested in a fully catered program that will truly benefit your business by saving you time and money, you’re best to try a service like Hubspot.

Whichever option you choose, be confident knowing that marketing automation is an investment in your businesses’ future, and it’s one that you won’t regret!