Marketing automation helps businesses grow. But if you work for a small company, it’s tough to compete with the larger companies and their enormous marketing budgets. With the high cost of hiring specialized marketing staff, and so little time in each day, small businesses have a challenge in competing with big brands and their presence in the market.

Sharpspring can help your company reach your desired audience and start meaningful and engaging relationships affordably.

How?

Marketing in the Internet Age 

More and more consumers manage their business relationships without ever talking to a human, but still demand authenticity. To be productive and still keep that personal touch, you need the right tools. With Sharpspring marketing automation, small businesses can be far more productive, spending precious resources with the right audience at the right time.

A centralized marketing automation and sales platform helps businesses generate leads, nurture their pipeline, manage their customer relationships, and focus their marketing budget on what works. Small brands use tech to boost functionality, enhance productivity, and remain competitive in an increasingly tech-driven market.

In order to compete with bigger brands, small businesses can get more done with less, by using the right tech.

Here are three ways small businesses can benefit:

1) Sharpspring Tracks your Campaigns and ROI

Marketers need to prove the success of their campaigns. That requires data. Marketing automation is what makes it possible to clearly see what is working- and how well it is working. Small businesses with limited marketing budgets can’t afford to spend without knowing the return.

Sharpspring gives you all the tools you need to track the specific performance of:

• Email Campaigns
• Individual web forms
• Specific websites, pages, and landing pages
• Trade shows and other offline events
• Google Adwords
• Sales

Increase what works, eliminate what doesn’t, and experiment in a controlled environment. Hone your strategy with powerful A/B testing- on not just headlines, but entire paths- from campaign to close. Use this powerful knowledge to stay on top of your game and prove your successes.

2) Deliver the Right Message to the Right Audience at the Right Time

Using lead behavior to gauge where they are in the buyer’s journey is a powerful tool. Applied correctly, conversions become easier. Cold calls become warm calls. It’s easy to customize messages to your unique product or service, as well as each unique buyer’s experience. The buyer’s journey can be broken down into three stages:

Awareness: This where they first become aware of your type of solution. These communications should be general in nature, more educational and less geared toward selling your brand.

Consideration: Here they begin to weigh the different options available for your type of solution. Communications at this stage should include how your offering compares to your competition, features and benefits particular to your brand, cost-of-ownership, etc.

Decision: Now it’s more about sales. Depending on what you sell and the sales methods you use, communications should be timed automation messages along with direct email and phone calls with a salesperson- basically it’s time to close this piece of business!

Another powerful capability is to automatically segment your leads and customer base. Leads can be automatically added to lists depending what pages they view, what information they provide, what job title they have, and what emails and social media they respond to. By applying Personas to different types of customers, and tracking their behavior, you can avoid sending completely inappropriate messages and provide content that is sure to delight and engage.

3) After the Sale: Up-selling & Customer Retention

I used to work with a salesman that was good with cold-calling. He could really break the ice when he finally connected with someone that sounded a little apprehensive. He would jokingly say “Hey, if you want me to stop calling you, just buy something!”

There is a bit of truth to that. All to often we see the sale as the end-game. When selling large-ticket items, the natural tendency is to to get to the next deal. Post sales delight can increase up-selling, accessory sales, referrals, and future business. Think of what you sell. Is there repair & maintenance business to be had? Consumables? Referrals? Replacements in 3 years? Start laying the groundwork immediately!

Sharpspring gives you the ability to set in motion a post-sales nurturing campaign that can include helpful tips & tutorials, additional products and upgrades- even automatic reminders for your sales staff to pick up the phone and just say “Hi, how are you doing with ___?”

Time is money. Marketing automation is the tool that frees and empowers your team to acquire, nurture, and close the best leads.

Putting it all together

As you look to improve your Marketing and Sales processes, just imagine if your budget was unlimited. How many marketers would you hire? How many in sales? How many customer care agents? Then imagine the level of attention they could provide each lead and customer.  If this resource was unlimited, what would you have them do? With that in mind, now realize just how much of that can be accomplished with marketing automation. Sharpspring allows growing companies to utilize customer data to enhance their messaging, drive sales, and reduce wasted marketing resources.

If you haven’t already, schedule an easy, online demo of Sharpspring. It always inspires great ideas and possibilities.