When running a small business, marketing matters. Nowadays, having a website isn’t enough to effectively market your small business, so it’s important to build your business presence across a number of different marketing channels. This can be overwhelming for time-poor business owners but automation can help, writes Elise Balsillie, Head of Thryv Australia.

Setting and forgetting some of your marketing efforts can help alleviate a lot of manual rigor.

Marketing is an important business tool in generating business leads but yet, it often finds itself in the ‘too hard’ basket, or the ‘when you can get to it’ list.

Where to start with marketing automation

The two most important digital marketing strategies for your business are also the two can be most easily automated – social media and email marketing.

To get started on your automation journey, block out time in your calendar once per month to:

• Create and schedule a month’s worth of social posts in advance.
• Set up different email marketing campaigns, trigger auto-responders and follow-up messaging.

The trick, however, is to spend only enough time to ‘set and forget’, and then come back to your automation on a regular basis to check in on how it’s going. This will help you review its performance and tweak it to better suit your business needs.

How automation software can help you

A software solution that enables you to do this is essential. If you haven’t set software as a business priority, this should be your rallying cry. Software not only helps you set up your automation but it gives you feedback on what’s working, what’s not, and what needs a helping hand.

Here’s three ways automation software can change the game for your business marketing:

1. Save time

Automating marketing efforts is bound to reduce the number of tasks on your daily to-do list (and removes the temptation to multitask in the process).

Time is money, after all, and every minute spent on business-related admin is a minute that could be spent earning an income.

2. Nurture relationships

The way you speak to existing customers will be different to the way you speak to new customers. Automation helps you segment your messaging so that relationships with each type of customer can still be nurtured without additional effort.

3. Understand the market

The intel you’ll gain from your automated marketing efforts will help you better understand your position in the market. In particular, data around which marketing campaigns are proving successful, and which aren’t, can help you focus your marketing efforts in the future.

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