Why you need to automate your marketing
One of the best things you can do for your small business is to automate as much of your marketing as possible. This will allow you to spend less time getting the word about your business out there, and more time getting people to convert. As a result? More clients and more sales!
If you want for someone who just found out about your business to become your client, then they need to grow through 4 stages of a sales funnel.
Awareness
This is when your potential clients discover you and your work. It’s the first time they find out about your services and your business, meaning they have no prior connections to you.
How and where can this happen? When someone sees one of your posts on Instagram, a Facebook ad or even when someone recommends your business to them.⠀
Interest
Next up is the interest stage. This is when they check out your other content & your work, and because they like what they are seeing, they decide to stick around.
Examples: they follow you on Instagram, subscribe to your newsletter, they like your Facebook page, etc.⠀
Decision
Now it’s time for them to make a decision. This is a critical part since your potential client just might become your actual client. They are weighing their options, they are trying to make sure that your product or service really is the best fit for them, and they most likely have some questions they need answering.
Examples: a potential client fills out your contact form or sends you an email
Sales
Lastly comes the sale. You just got yourself a new client.
Here comes the automation
The why
First things first, why does the automation matter? Why can it make such a difference? Well, it’s pretty simple. Once you automate something, it means that it’s working instead of you. Therefore, if you automate your marketing (at least one part of it), it practically means that you create a system that’s getting your business, your products and your services in front of people all the time. Not only when you’re sitting behind a computer and working, but even when you’re asleep, when you’re taking a weekend off, or when you’re on vacation.
The what
Now that you know all the stages a person needs to go through in order to become your client, which one do you think you should automate? The awareness stage of course! Just think about it - do you want to spend hours upon hours every week working on that first step? The least important one of them all? I’d say not! Your time will be much better spent if you focus on the other stages, the ones when you’re working on the conversion, the ones that will bring you that sale. *kaching*
The how
Finally, let’s take a look at how you can automate your marketing. Of course there are different ways to do this, but let me share the 2 that I’m taking advantage of at the moment - blogging & Pinterest.
Blogging: a lot of people may not realize that having a blog can be a great way to market your business in a sort of automated way. At the moment, I have over 60 blog posts published on my website that are marketing my business on autopilot. How? By bringing potential clients to my website from Google. I’m no blogging or SEO master, but I’m still able to get about 100 website visitors a month because of my blog posts alone.
Pinterest: Pinterest is amazing for growing the awareness about your business. I’m only scheduling content for my Pinterest account 2xmonth, and I’m still getting anywhere from 250-500 people to my website (and into my sales funnel) per month.
Both of these channels combined bring me about 400 new potential clients on a monthly basis, and both of them are pretty much automated. They are working for me 24/7 and allow me to focus on other things that have a much bigger impact on my business.
