Simplifying Marketing Automation With &Marketing And SharpSpring

Simplifying Marketing Automation With &Marketing And SharpSpring

by | Apr 30, 2019 | Business & Marketing Strategy, Insights

Simplifying Marketing Automation With &Marketing And SharpSpring

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SharpSpring’s marketing automation platform has changed the dynamic in which businesses can interact with consumers, through a variety of automated marketing strategies. With a diverse set of tools, SharpSpring enables business owners to track, build, and maintain customer relationships through one platform. Still, nearly half of all companies do not use marketing automation, and are missing the opportunity to nurture leads into conversions.

&Marketing has partnered with SharpSpring to make marketing automation easier than ever.  In this marketing automation guide, &Marketing and SharpSpring identify key automated marketing functionalities that can be used within the SharpSpring platform. After reading, you will understand:

  • Tips to improve your lead generation and nurturing campaigns.

  • Key marketing automation terms and definitions

  • SharpSpring functionality and how you can utilize

  • What automated marketing tools may be critical to your business.

 

DOWNLOAD MY MARKETING AUTOMATION GUIDE

Looking for additional tips on marketing automation? We can help. &Marketing combines the power of strategy and execution to help deliver engaging content and share information with an online audience.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

The Basics Of Marketing Automation

The Basics Of Marketing Automation

by | Apr 30, 2019 | Business & Marketing Strategy, Insights

The Basics Of Marketing Automation

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Marketing automation tools have revolutionized the marketing industry and caused marketing leaders to reconsider their marketing technology software. Despite the variety of tools available to the modern day Marketer, 27% of companies still feel like they are “new” to marketing automation.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation refers to the software tools and platforms available to marketers that simplify everyday tasks, like sending emails and scheduling social media blasts, to generating more leads and optimizing ROI. Let’s break down the difference between the associated tools versus platforms.

Marketing automation tools are fairly limited in their capabilities, often offering just one marketing automation for one service, such as email. For the most part, marketing automation tools are low cost and require little time to kickstart.

Platforms that perform marketing automation allows marketers to optimize their spend and sales teams to nurture highly engaged leads by providing insights on specific campaigns. A marketing automation platform combines the functionality of several marketing automation tools into a unified platform for both marketing and sales teams. With centralized data, teams are able to work together to maximize marketing budgets, nurture leads, create accurate projections and pipelines, and streamline execution.

Why Automation is Important

Marketing automation allows sales and marketing teams to work together to determine the most effective sales and marketing approach by using centralized data to optimize ROI and nurture highly engaged leads. Furthermore, comprehensive marketing automation platforms are able to automate marketing tasks based on the provided data (ex: email when lead score reaches 16), giving sales teams the time to focus and nurture leads who are showing engagement presently.

Marketing Automation Tools

Several marketing automation tools, such as Mailchimp and Hootsuite, are free and able to be implemented immediately to begin streamlining specific marketing processes. Mailchimp is a great way to start building a database of contacts and nurturing leads through automated emails. Similarly, Hootsuite enables teams to schedule social media posts across all platforms, combining cross network analytics into one place. Marketing automation tools greatly benefit smaller organizations looking to grow due to low cost and ease of use.

What is the Best Marketing Automation Software?

Though niche software provides unique features, it does not combine all marketing functions in one place, which is a service bigger companies might be looking for. Currently, several marketing automation platforms are being used by marketers and sales teams, including Pardot, Hubspot, Marketo, and SharpSpring. Though similar in functionality, these marketing automation platforms have differences that business decision-makers need to consider.

  • Pardot is a marketing automation platform that specializes in B2B marketing automation and is intended to directly integrate with a company’s existing SalesForce software. It is a sales focused platform that offers campaign reporting, email automation, revenue reporting and landing pages.

  • Hubspot is a marketing-focused automation platform that also serves as a one-stop-shop for businesses to manage both CRM and marketing execution. Hubspot includes sales tools such as creating lists, segmenting contacts and adding sales notes, and showing a history of how that contact has interacted with your marketing. Similarly, marketers are able to execute email and social media marketing campaigns, A/B test landing pages, and automate a variety of other marketing tasks.

  • Marketo is a standard marketing automation platform that offers tools including email marketing, landing page creation, lead scoring and more. Marketo offers enterprise-level solutions, with direct integrations to major CRMs, Dynamics and SugarCRM.

  • SharpSpring is an all-in-one sales and marketing automation platform that combines the functions of a typical CRM and everyday marketing execution. The software includes tools to execute email and social media marketing, analyze campaign performance, nurture leads, and report on revenue.

How to Get Started

Depending on resources and strategy, organizations may only need an email automation tool or other similar marketing automation tools to achieve their goals. Most automation services will offer free trials or demos on their website where companies are able to learn more and test the tool and get started easily and quickly.

On the other hand, the above-mentioned marketing automation platforms require a monthly commitment and take time to set up and learn for everyday use. It can be challenging and complex to navigate this decision, as well as implement and set up automation rules. In fact, in most cases when implementing Pardot or Sharpspring, it is highly encouraged to work with consultants to ensure a smooth integration.  Learn more about our SharpSpring partnership by reading below.

LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR SHARPSPRING PARTNERSHIP

&Marketing is a partner of SharpSpring, working together to provide small and medium size businesses with an all-in-one marketing automation platform. To help business owners understand the basics, &Marketing offers a free downloadable guide with tips to improve your lead generation and nurturing campaign. Download the marketing automation guide below.

DOWNLOAD MY MARKETING AUTOMATION GUIDE

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

What Marketing Can And Can’t Do

What Marketing Can And Can’t Do

by | Apr 29, 2019 | Insights, Marketing Planning & Execution

What Marketing Can And Can’t Do

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Often, the reason people hate their marketing is because of bad expectations.

&Marketing’s Chris “The Brain” was recently invited to speak at the Boone County Home and Business Expo in Lebanon, IN on Digital Marketing. The video and article is an excerpt of his opening talk on what marketing can and can’t do as a whole. It is an important concept for anyone to understand before they invest in marketing.

Marketing CAN…

…Help People Know You Exist

This is probably the most essential power of marketing. After all, no one can buy from you if they don’t know you exist, right? While this may seem obvious, many people overlook this basic objective. The reason for this is that the ultimate goal is to get sales, but jumping straight to sales can hurt your marketing. You don’t always know how ready to buy your market is, so starting with a focus on getting the word out is the fastest way to find out if your market is ready to buy.

…Communicate Your Value

Once people know about you, you have to explain the value of your products or services. Sometimes this is possible in the same ad or message you use when you letting people know you exist, but sometimes it requires a next step, like asking people to call or visit your website to learn more. Either way, if your market doesn’t have a clear path to learning about your value, and what makes you different, they won’t be very motivated to do business with you.

…Give People an Incentive to Try

Coupons, special offers, and demos are all great ways to give people an incentive to try your products or services. You can talk all you want, but consumers usually want the proof before they jump in. It is critical that you make it easy for people to sample or experience some part of your product or service before they have to make a buying decision.

…Listen to Your Customers

The biggest “change” that Digital Marketing has brought to the industry is the ability to hear your customers talk back to you. Social Media allows customers to talk to you directly, and online advertising can give you data on what your customers are really looking for. This feedback can be extremely powerful in helping you improve or tweak your offerings to better align with what your market is demanding.

Marketing CAN’T Make People Buy!

Sadly, marketing ultimately can’t make people buy. If your market doesn’t see the value in your products or services, doesn’t understand them, or if you just aren’t very competitive or different, marketing can’t fix that. Too many business owners waste money on marketing they should have spent on improving their own business.

Digital Marketing has added a lot of tools, but it doesn’t change the primary strategy of marketing. If letting people know you exist, communicating your value, and giving people an incentive to try isn’t working, then you might need to rethink other parts of your business. Digital Marketing can help you find the problems or misalignments in your offerings, but it can’t reach out across the Internet and make people buy. 

Invest in What Marketing CAN Do, Not What it Can’t

As you consider marketing, think about which of these things marketing CAN do will help you the most. Spend money on campaigns that will help a market looking for your products and services find you, or spend money on better understand what your market wants. If you have a great product or service that people want, marketing can be effective and affordable. If you aren’t aligned with your market, nothing you spend will help.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

Don’t Be A Hero (The Story Isn’t About You)

Don’t Be A Hero (The Story Isn’t About You)

by | Apr 26, 2019 | Insights, Storytelling & Branding

Don’t Be A Hero (The Story Isn’t About You)

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In our first post in the Narrative Marketing series, we looked at this road map from Building a Story Brand (see right).

This post will focus on the first two sections: 1) A Character (2) Has a Problem. The character in this narrative is the hero of the story, and this is where the majority of marketing agencies fail their clients. They place the business in the role of the hero by making the story all about them: who they are, how they were founded, what they believe in, and why they are awesome.

When companies make themselves the hero instead of their customer, they create direct competition for the lead role in someone else’s story. Remember, none of us feel as motivated when we’re sidelined to supporting roles instead of starring. Let’s break down how you, as a brand, can take control over who your hero really is and how you can be the solution to their problem.

A CHARACTER

Your customer is looking at your business and your product/service as something to propel their story forward to a happy ending, NOT become another obstacle or competition. We’ll unpack this more in the next post in the series, but the key takeaway is that your role is not the hero, so take a backseat to your customer in the story.

Every hero has an ambition, and your customer is no different. The key is finding out what it is, and how to succinctly describe it. Often, in an effort to expand their reach, a business will list out a myriad of products or services to potential customers that serve a variety of needs. While diversity isn’t a bad thing, odds are that there is an underlying need you fulfill. You need to make that need the primary focus of your marketing so customers can quickly and easily recognize your business and your product/service as the one that can best meet that need.

HAS A PROBLEM…

Like we discussed in the previous post, most of your customers’ desires will be relevant to their drive to survive and thrive. Some common desires are:

  • Conserving Finances

  • Saving Time

  • Building Community/Social Networks

  • Gaining Status

  • Accumulate Resources

  • Being Generous

  • Discovering Meaning/Purpose in Life

Imagine going into your local grocery store and discovering they’ve just renovated and moved stuff around. You approach the first available employee and ask where to find eggs. The employee then begins to tell you about the founding of the grocery store, the owner’s vision for the store’s impact, and their other store locations. You just want them to tell you where the eggs are! The goal for your business is that every potential customer knows exactly what you offer, from the first moment they engage with you.

…AND A VILLAIN

Every customer/hero has a problem. In a story, the problem manifests itself as a villain and the obstacles the villain places in the hero’s way. The villain needs to be the source of your customer’s frustration. The villain doesn’t have to be a person, but it does need personification. Let’s use eggs again as an example. If you sell organic eggs, the villain would be inorganic, genetically modified mutant eggs! Conversely, if you are selling inorganic eggs, the villain would be the higher cost of feeding your family the “so-called” natural eggs!

Next, we have the obstacles, or problems, the villain places in your customer’s path. Most businesses know the general problem but fail to recognize that it has three layers: external, internal, and philosophical. A business typically addresses the external problem facing the customer but fails to address the internal or philosophical ones. The issue here is that most customers make their decisions at the internal or philosophical level. Odds are, someone else is selling a product or service that is similar to yours. Why is someone choosing you over your competitors? It all depends on whether or not you can identify the internal or philosophical issue.

At &Marketing, the villain our clients often face is noise. They struggle to be heard, seen, and understood by potential customers in the sea of advertising. The external problem is that their potential customers are inundated with a myriad of ads and offers from competitors, some of whom are offering an inferior product or service. The internal problem our clients face is the question, “Do I have what it takes to succeed, or am I destined to fail? Is my product/service good enough to compete with the big dogs, or am I just delusional?” Finally, the philosophical problem our clients face is that the best product or service should be the one to succeed, NOT the loudest one or the one with the largest marketing budget.

When we speak primarily to the internal problem our potential clients face, we engage with them on the issue that keeps them up at night; the issue that makes them feel known and understood. When your customers hear you speaking to their internal and philosophical problems, they will want to do business with you.

In our third post in the Narrative Marketing series, we will look at the next two sections:

  • Your place in the story (the guide), and how to share your product/service as a solution to the hero’s obstacles.

About the Author

Matt Vincent is the Creative Director at &Marketing.  He has worked in digital illustration and graphic design for over 6 years. During this time, he has worked for a variety of clients, including IGN Entertainment and Salesforce, and a host of smaller & medium sized companies. As a self-taught graphic designer and illustrator, he is constantly learning and growing his repertoire of creative skills, and sharing those with the world. His primary passion is equipping creatives to be storytellers; to see the narrative threads and archetypes that exist in all things, and to tap into them to get their audience to think, grow, and act.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

Point of View: What are Marketing Leaders’ Top Priorities for 2019?

Point of View: What are Marketing Leaders’ Top Priorities for 2019?

by | Apr 19, 2019 | Insights, Marketing Planning & Execution

Point of View: What are Marketing Leaders’ Top Priorities for 2019?

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According to a recently released infographic from CMO Council that was featured on MarketingProfs, more than 100 senior marketers (CMOs, SVPs of Marketing, etc.) indicated that improving go-to-market processes and digital marketing capabilities are top priorities for 2019. According to the infographic, 40% of all respondents said that improving their go-to-market processes and digital marketing efforts were their top priority, and 33% said finding new sources of revenue and improving retention/monetization.

However, 43% of respondents identified their biggest challenge in optimizing digital marketing efforts as a lack of skills within their organization. 40% said that not having unified data across all marketing systems/platforms was their biggest obstacle. To address these obstacles, 74% of respondents stated that they would encourage knowledge transfer and peer engagement, whereas 53% said they would add new resources, and only 47% said they would bring in consultants.

What is surprising about these results is the path that respondents are going to take to meet that goal. With 43% of survey respondents feeling that there was a lack of skills within their organization, it’s notable that marketing leaders felt that they could overcome that obstacle by encouraging knowledge transfer and peer engagement. Yet, if a team lacks the skills to navigate the challenging and tumultuous waters of digital marketing, how can leaders expect knowledge transfer within that team to help improve digital marketing capabilities?

“However, 43% of respondents identified their biggest challenge in optimizing digital marketing efforts as a lack of skills within their organization.”

If marketing leaders take this approach, they will be setting up their teams for, at best, half optimized campaigns that aren’t maximizing their ROI and fully achieving organizational goals. At worst, they’ll be setting up their people and themselves for failure. The tools marketers have at their disposal are nuanced and can be complicated. Never before have we had tactics that can provide so much valuable data and insights. If a marketing department doesn’t understand how to use these tools and uncover data trends using their full capacity, then no amount of in-team knowledge transfer will help.  

Some more effective ways to empower marketing teams to improve and learn new skill sets that closely align with organizational goals could be:

  • Conferences & seminars

  • Hiring new employees who specialize in specific digital marketing efforts

  • Consulting with specialists

  • Partnering with a third party to augment teams

All of these avenues offer current employees access to experts within the digital marketing field that will provide them with actionable insights and information that can be leveraged within teams to further their digital strategies. At that point knowledge transfer should not only be encouraged, but a best practice.

Lastly, another insightful takeaway from this infographic is the 40% of respondents who stated not having unified data across all marketing systems and platforms was their biggest obstacle. Consider these stats from a Dun & Bradstreet survey of 250 B2B professionals:

  • In 2018, 89% of respondents stated that data quality was increasingly important to the sales and marketing organization (63% stated it was extremely important)

  • Confidence in data has reached a new low, with only 51% saying they’re confident in the quality of their sales and marketing data

  • 88% of B2B marketers believe data quality is important to executing an ABM strategy

Good data allows Senior Leadership to determine what’s working, what’s not, and more importantly, to uncover valuable insights into an audience. The better the data, the more prepared leaders are to create a strategy that best reaches the targeted audience. As marketers continually look for ways to measure their effectiveness, it’s equally important to ensure data is accessible quickly and effectively.

Do you have questions about how you can improve your digital marketing efforts or gain better insights within your data? We’re happy to help!

About the Author

As a Marketing Director of &Marketing, Paul Ferguson helps clients develop fully integrated marketing solutions that make impressions and drive results. Whether it be design-oriented campaigns or digital market execution, Paul skillfully creates strategies to effectively reach client’s desired audiences. With over 14 years of B2B Marketing experience for companies ranging from $12 million to $350 million in yearly revenue, he is uniquely qualified to develop innovative solutions that generate awareness and ROI. Paul graduated from La Salle University with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and a double minor in Marketing and Business Administration. Visit Paul’s LinkedIn.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.