Successful marketing automation helps deliver the right messages to the right people at the right time. It streamlines communication from you to your prospect across multiple channels without the need for more manual labor on your end. Through a mix of software-as-a-service products and custom-coded applications, marketing automation done right makes it look like you’re sending 1-on-1 personal messages (whether email, text, or video) directly from you to your prospect or customer.

 

A More Complex Explanation

 

Successful automation requires a clear mapping of business processes. Each process is broken down into tasks, then organized into sequences (also know as workflows). When it comes to the inner-workings of the automation itself, actions are what happens and triggers are what makes them happen.

 

Examples

 

Successful automation is all based on logic, so you’ll often hear these all this mumbo jumbo simplified with an  “if, then” statement. Here’s a real world example: If the customer orders a product that’s out of stock, then email an available customer service rep to call her (you can see how this improves customer service). Truly powerful sequences begin to take shape when you throw “AND” statements into the mix. For example: If X happens, then do Y AND Z. Or, alternatively: if A happens AND B happens, then do C. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination (a blessing and a curse).

As long as tasks and workflows are mapped properly, automation simplifies the customer journey. Gone are the days of business owners sending confirmation emails for every single appointment themselves. It’s no longer necessary to keep tabs on each product order to make sure the warehouse knows to ship it. And maybe you can relate to this one…

 

Tracking a customer’s stage in your sales cycle through an Excel document or Google sheet can become a thing of the past (or at least, much easier and more intuitive).

 

Improve Efficiencies

 

According to the Pareto Principle, we spend 80% of our time doing tasks that produce only 20% of the results. Insanity! And with all the rapidly expanding technologies at our disposal, this doesn’t feel like an efficient way to run your business. Does it? By setting up rules (what happens) and triggers (what makes it happen) for your most common and time consuming tasks, you can begin to shift the 80/20 principle into your favor. And in doing so, tedious repetition slowly becomes a thing of the past making your business much more fun to run.

Investing in automation is a poor decision if you don’t have enough qualified leads entering the top of your sales funnel. These top-level opportunities are commonly referred to as leads, and without them, you shouldn’t invest automation because there’s nothing to automate!

 

Don’t Rush Into Choosing A CRM Platform

 

It’s best to complete tasks manually for awhile first until you have a clear understanding of not only the exact tasks what you want to automate, but if you even do the task enough to make automating it worthwhile!

Top-dollar sales and marketing automation programs like Hubspot, Salesforce, and Infusionsoft work great, but only if they’re set up correctly. You can’t just sign up today and expect to be drinking Sam Adams Summer Ale on the beach tomorrow. There’s a steep learning curve, making the platforms extremely hard to maintain. Not to mention the possibility of everything going haywire and actually complicating the communication…

 

Remember when I said that the goal of marketing automation is to deliver the right messages at the right time?

 

Poor automation campaigns that deliver the wrong messages at the wrong time have an opposite effect on profit growth. And with consumers becoming more savvy by the day, companies who want to survive need to make sure all communication is tight. So even though automation done right can save you time and money, tread wisely.

You’ll find that the best marketing automation providers are able to completely analyze your business and provide a 100% custom solution that snugly fits your needs. They not only make your marketing department more efficient, but your sales and operations becomes a heck of a lot easier to manage too. Top automation consultants treat your business as an ecosystem, not just a set of campaigns, projects, and tasks that need to get done.

 

Oasis Results is no different. We have the capabilities to automate your whole business but if you need help on just a few parts of your sales or marketing funnel, here’s a few examples of funnels we can set up for you:

 

• Lead collection and CRM integration

• Email welcome series

• Onboarding sequences

• Appointment scheduling and followup

• Complex inventory and product availability tracking

Wondering if something can be automated? Contact us through the form above and we’ll write back with some of the possibilities!

Marketing automation is expensive and though software fees are only part of the equation, they do take up a big piece of the pie. For example, Infusionsoft costs $200-$300 per month and requires a $1,000 onboarding fee. And even after these initial costs, you still don’t have anything sequences planned or set up. planned or set up.

 

Oasis Results will help you skip all these headaches! In addition to advising you on the best automation solutions for your eCommerce store or small business, we’ll brainstorm campaign variations with you, help choose the best CRM, set up all the necessary softwares, and import your existing data. Many headaches saved before we even start mapping your campaigns! Two pricing plans are available:

 

Hourly Billing

 

Hourly pricing is best for you if you already have systems in place, or if we built the systems for you and don’t need to be doing much on a week-to-week basis anymore. If this is the case, we’ll log our hours and send you an invoice bi-weekly. Our current hourly rate for automation services is $97/hr.

 

Monthly Retainer

 

Implementing systems that help you run your business should be viewed as a long term investment. Because of this, it’s wise to spend proper time planning, implementing, and testing new systems. Tracking billable and non-billable hours for projects like this can get sticky, so we offer prefer working on a monthly retainer basis because it’s what’s best for you. Our current minimum for sales, marketing, and operational automation services is $2,600/mo for a minimum of three months.