Marketing automation is the use of software to automate marketing tasks, such as email marketing, social media posting, and lead nurturing. It can help you save time and improve your results by automating repetitive tasks and sending targeted messages to your customers and leads.
There are many different marketing automation platforms available, but many of them can be expensive and complex. If you're on a tight budget or you're not sure where to start, you can set up your own do-it-yourself marketing automation system using a few simple tools.
Here's a step-by-step guide:
- Choose an email marketing platform. MailChimp and Sendinblue are both popular and free-to-use email marketing platforms that offer basic marketing automation features.
- Choose a CRM system. A CRM system, or customer relationship management system, is a software platform that helps you manage your customer and lead relationships. Hubspot and Zoho CRM are both popular CRM systems that offer free plans with basic marketing automation features.
- Connect your email marketing platform and CRM system. Most email marketing platforms and CRM systems offer integrations that allow you to connect them together. This will allow you to automatically sync your contacts and data between the two systems.
- Create marketing automation workflows. Once your email marketing platform and CRM system are connected, you can start creating marketing automation workflows. Workflows are a series of steps that your contacts will go through based on their actions or behaviors. For example, you could create a workflow that sends a welcome email to new subscribers, or a workflow that nurtures leads who have visited your website but haven't made a purchase yet.
- Test and refine your workflows. Once you've created your workflows, it's important to test them and refine them as needed. Send test emails to yourself and other team members to make sure that they are working properly. And track the results of your workflows to see what's working well and what needs to be improved.
Do-it-yourself marketing automation can be a great way to save time and improve your results without breaking the bank. By following the steps above, you can set up your own marketing automation system using a few simple tools.
Additional tips:
- Start with a few simple workflows and add more as you become more comfortable with marketing automation.
- Use segmentation to send targeted messages to different groups of contacts.
- Track the results of your workflows and make adjustments as needed.
- Don't be afraid to experiment and try new things.
With do-it-yourself marketing automation, the possibilities are endless.
