“By 2020, 85% of customer relationships with businesses will be managed without human interaction.” – John Gartner (Gartner 360 Summit)
Big businesses have already made the move to Automated Marketing. Software sales alone (not counting implementation) are heading towards the 5.5 billion dollar mark. Small businesses have been slower on the uptake due to a lack of knowledge or the high cost of the software. This has been alleviated by some marketing firms by packaging the software with the marketing services. The package price now can be lower than the software price alone.
A Competitive Edge
As competition in nearly all fields increases daily, marketers are being asked to do more with limited resources. Many businesses are turning to automation to multiply their sales capacity. Here are three of the main reasons that the shift to automation is happening.
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Response
Strategic Automated Marketing (or SAM for short) makes response fast, affordable and relevant. SAM is responsive every minute of every day, with a response time for prospect inquiries of just a few seconds in most cases. Automation is appealing to prospects who enjoy instant gratification, which seems to be everyone these days. Automation can do the following without human intervention: Make a sales appointment; get more specific information; go to specific web pages; open up an application or sign-up form; get an explanation video, podcast, business tour or PowerPoint presentation. Small business sales systems often place both prospecting and sales on the shoulders of the same salesperson. The two activities have always been radically different, each requiring unique skill sets. In this common situation, automated marketing is heaven sent as a prospector for leads.
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More Leads, More Closing
Marketers with limited budgets use strategic automated marketing to get their best content in front of the people most likely to buy from them on a consistent, persistent basis. Interval e-mailing breaks down the rock of resistance that is a natural part of every prospect.
By automating manual tasks, sales people have more bandwidth to work on high touch recruitment situations; i.e. closing. SAM requires building an extensive incubator of prospects and then saturating it consistently and persistently with the business’ chosen content. Studies show that prospects enjoy exploring the internet on their own and even receiving a relevant e-mail before engaging in a one-on-one sales call. Advertising can attract prospects but nurturing prospects into customers is a neglected yet essential process.
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Finding Out What Works Best
Due to tagging, tracking and ranking capabilities, SAM is a system of record; providing the measurables that are necessary for an environment of improvement. Marketers gain insights into prospects’ interests by tracking their behavior on e-mails and in the website. Monitoring analytics at specified intervals allows consistent course correction; i.e. agile marketing. Initial marketing tools, like websites, or e-blasts are often built upon conjecture, supposition, and even myth. SAM helps salespeople to build marketing tools based on reliable, real-world data.
Does Automation Make the Enrollment Process Impersonal?
Amid this world of automation, we can’t forget to be human and that we are selling to humans. The formula for success seems to depend on being balanced and agile. Research has shown that 90% of larger purchases begin online and the buyer wants to keep it that way, as they explore and compare schools on their own.
Strategic automation, if done correctly, “listens” to prospects as it relays brand stories. Regular course correction keeps the marketing on track and relevant as the prospect learns more about the business, and the business learns more about the prospect. If there is a fit, SAM can finish the job with a trip to an online shopping cart. Or if high touch human skills must come into play, then SAM delivers a warm and informed lead with background information and self-selected areas of interest to the sales person.
The older legacy system – where veteran sales “farmers” depend on their customers to grow providing greater sales and where newbie sales people are product educated and sent into the world to sink or swim – will survive for a limited time. But today, a growing number of businesses have looked ahead and adopted strategic automated marketing, anticipating a new era where customers are not born but are made.