What is marketing automation — and how will it help you to grow your business?

As a business owner, you are investing in your sales team every hour of every day. And if they’re converting leads into paying customers, that’s money well spent.

But the two big questions are: 

1. How much of their time is spent doing efficient, profitable work?

2. How much of their time is being wasted pursuing the wrong type of lead?

The average salesperson wastes hours every day on unproductive prospecting.

Marketing Automation goes a long way to getting this sorted.

It makes your Inbound Marketing campaign really sing, and it lets your sales team focus on the Sales Qualified Leads they are looking for, so they don’t have to waste time trying to find them.

Without Marketing Automation, your sales team loses

Ideally, your sales team would spend each day talking to potential buyers who tick the “B.A.N.T.” boxes.

They’re the ready-to-go potential buyers who:

1. Have the Budget to pay for your products and services
2. Have the Authority to make the decision
3. Have a Need (or a problem) that you can solve for them
4. Want to act in a Timely manner, rather than putting it off

But in the real world, that isn’t how things are.

True, SOME of the people who connect with your business are at the ‘Decision’ stage of the Buyer’s Journey.

They are already a Sales Qualified Lead.

But most aren’t. 

So, your sales team has to FIND those leads. And that means spending time: 

1. Identifying prospects who fit your ‘Ideal Buyer” profile
2. Initiating contact with these potential buyers
3. Investigating the challenges that they have, to see how you could help
4. Nurturing the relationship
5. Building trust
6. Showing the value that you offer
7. Finding out if your sales guys are dealing with the actual decision-maker — and if not, working through the entire process a-g-a-i-n (So much fun!!)
8. Nurturing the relationship some more
9. And THEN, after all that, f-i-n-a-l-l-y moving on to the initial stages of the sales process.

Understanding how your customers buy your stuff

One of the keys to understanding the potential for Marketing Automation in your business is to look at the way your customers tick. 

To do that, think about the last time you yourself made a purchase.

I don’t mean a ‘transactional’ purchase where you just needed a computer cable… or a piece of fruit… or a pair of socks… and went and bought it.

I’m talking here about a more substantive purchase – such as a car, a television, a new kitchen, or perhaps a new sound system for your home.

Or an asset for your business such as a new workshop, a new server & backup system, or some stand-up desks.

You didn’t just march into the first shop (or first website) you found and fling money at them.

You went through a process. 

It was a stage-by-stage process that we call the Buyer’s Journey.

And here’s the thing…

In the early stages, when you were just looking, researching, poking, prodding, learning and figuring things out, it would likely have been a waste of time for a sales person to be talking to you.

You really only want your sales team following up with people who have the BANT boxes ticked — or who are close to it.

These people are your Sales Qualified Leads. 

Otherwise, if you seriously keep score and run a clock on it, my bet is that most times you were just being the ever-hopeful sales person who only sees the once-in-a-while positive outcome of a closed sale. 

And in all the excitement you forget about the lost hours… all that time wasted on all of those people who were way back in the Buyer’s Journey, and were still a long way from the decision stage.

Marketing Automation changes the game. It enables you to SELL to potential customers who are ready to BUY.

What does Marketing Automation do?

It keeps your sales pipeline full.

It means that your troops are not wasting their time making cold calls. Instead, they can focus on the ‘business end’ of the buying process.

A Marketing Automation system incorporates a number of components, such as:

• Website content that is targeted to different stages of the Buyer’s Journey
• Calls To Action to direct people to Landing Pages
• Landing Pages that act as conversion points
• Gated, downloadable content that has a high perceived value
• Smart forms, that enable you to build a profile of each potential customer
• Lead scoring, so you know who is a lead, who isn’t, and who is ready to hear from you.

Done well, Marketing Automation means your business can begin to build a relationship with your potential customers by:

1. Giving them the information they want,
2. When they want it,
3. In a way that suits them.

It is a force-multiplier for Inbound Marketing, and pulls everything together so you can see what’s going on, what’s working and why.

Talk to a Marketing Automation evangelist — and understand what it can do for your growth plans

Give us a call on 07 3891 3800 or click here to get in touch.