Top 4 Marketing Automation Tools List
Start Marketing Your Small Business Plus the Benefits of Marketing Automation
By Lenka Davis
Long gone are the days of tracking customers and prospects manually and in several different systems, in addition, there are so many choices of automated solutions, where do you start?
Founders only have so many hours in a day to get through their to do lists so automating is a necessity.
For new business owners and tech startup entrepreneurs here are our recommendations for the best marketing automation software tools.
Definition
What is Marketing automation? It refers to software platforms and technologies designed for marketing departments and organizations to more effectively market on multiple channels online (such as email, social media, websites, etc.) and automate repetitive tasks.
Benefits
Benefits of adding marketing automation to your business from the beginning are building a foundation for managing your customer relationships. Data entry, repetitive tasks and human error are all minimized when you integrate these tools to your workflow.
Efficiency comes from setting up templates, workflows and other processes within these tools even in the free account versions. You can set up a newsletter template in MailChimp, specify criteria and a workflow for an email campaign for any new prospects in Hubspot, and set up a standard calendar for social media posts in Buffer.
Improving your customer experience and offering customers the solutions they need can be done by looking at the analysis and reporting each marketing automation platform provides.
Hubspot and MailChimp have email campaign tracking that shows information such as what percentage of the recipients opened the emails.
Buffer tracks your social media analysis on likes, impressions and comments along with other metrics.
Google Analytics 4 is the latest from Google that takes data from both your website and your app, if you have one and offers standard and customizable reporting.
List of Benefits
Minimize repetitive tasks and human errors
Set up workflows to be more time efficient
Interpret what customers need so you know what they need next
Functionality of marketing automation
Campaign management so you can build your campaigns
Customer and lead management so you can stay organized
Analytics and reporting so you can see the success of your campaigns
Integration of multiple points of contact so you can focus on where your customers are
Manage your Customers
HubSpot
CRM - Customer Relationship Management
Cost: Free
Set Up Needs: Your name and email address
Best all around
Email sends per month: 2000/month
Contacts limit: 1 million
Sign up at HubSpot Get Started
Manage your Newsletter
MailChimp
Email marketing platform
Cost: Free
Set Up Needs: Email address, user name, and physical mailing address
Email sends per month: 2,500 sends/month
Contacts: 500 limit
Sign up at MailChimp
Manage your Social Networks
Buffer
Manage accounts in social networks
Cost: Free
Set up Needs: email address
Ten posts on up to three social media channels
Sign up at Buffer
Manage your Analytics
Google Analytics 4
Measure traffic and engagement across your websites
Cost: Free
Set up Needs: connect to your company website
Set up at Google Analytics
Fun Fact
Hubspot CEO, Brian Halligan, is known to take naps in the office. As the world of work changes and adjusts from work for home to in the office and a hybrid of the two, we might want to review all the ways we can be most productive. Who knows how much work-from-home employees were napping but that may be one reason for people claiming to be more productive. Harvard Business Review put out an article way back in 2010 that claims naps are a source of competitive advantage. And I would add it helps you be more creative, too!
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