Small Business Marketing Automation Platforms

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Marketing automation is extra beneficial for small businesses. Especially if your business is in the growth phase. It can help you reach your target audience. It will allow you to focus on other important areas of your business. But above all, it will help you achieve your business goals faster than you would otherwise.

🚀Read: Customer Service: A Guide for Successful Business Growth🚀

The number of communication channels keeps growing. Even though it’s good to have a lot of opportunities to attract clients, managing many channels can sometimes turn into a full-time job. This accounts for the fact that small and medium-sized enterprises are the largest group of marketing automation buyers.

What is Marketing Automation?

Some people claim that MA is a software that handles different tasks for your company. Others say it’s a way of connecting with your audience without repeating the same tasks. We can say it’s both – even more.

The main idea behind marketing automation is not to make your life easier by automating as many tasks as possible. Even more, it is rather to help you create better, more effective marketing campaigns. That leads to more conversions and new customers. And we can all agree that new customers boost our business performance.

Picture 1. What marketing automation tools do you use?

By text, email or web, companies can target their customers. They can also collect customer data through many interactions, such as emails, website visits and more. Everybody who handles things on his own should consider implementing marketing automation software.

Related: Start-Up and Small-Business Crowdfunding

Marketing Automation Platforms

Small businesses will always struggle without marketing automation platforms. Especially to survive in a customer-centric environment. You’re always at the mercy of your competitors’ business and marketing decisions. But with these platforms, you have a lot to gain because you’ll have the tools you need to grow and sustain your business.

Great customer experience is the right key to growth. If you are able to connect with customers then you’ve found the key. And because of great and personal customer experience, successful companies are able to pull off with the help of technology like marketing automation.

Top 5 Platforms for Small Businesses

If your business is small or mid-sized (SMB) and you are looking for a MAP, then check these five platforms.

HubSpot Marketing

HubSpot Marketing is an inbound marketing software. It provides a complete growth stack of software for marketing, sales and customer management. Their main focus is on improving traffic and increasing lead conversions. Tools that HubSpot uses are for blogging, emailing, SEO, MA, lead management, and analytics.

With those tools, this marketing automation platform is perfect when launching effective campaigns. The system also integrates with many CMSs, email service providers, eCommerce tools, and social networks.

HubSpot’s MA solution lets you configure automated workflows that take care of lead nurturing with drip email campaigns. The MA platform offers tools for blogging, landing pages, emails, analytics, social media, lead management, CMS, SEO, and ads. HubSpot integrates with MailChimp, Salesforce and many others.

Marketo

Marketo is a flexible marketing automation platform. Founded in 2006, Marketo has been named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management for the eighth consecutive year.

It can be accessed on both mobile and desktop apps and it provides a variety of features. Also, you can easily engage your target market because this platform allows real-time personalization.

Also, Marketo developed a product that is designed especially for small businesses, Spark. And this product allows businesses to set up and track any marketing campaigns.

Active Campaign

Active Campaign is a business marketing application for small companies. Accordingly, it’s used by over 100,000 people globally, and it is to be one of the most affordable providers for SMBs. Plus the quality of their software is great. Simply, this software can offer you the tools you need to boost your business from MA.

The tool also offers a convenient set of messaging features and emails. And it features links to marketing automation platform. Along with built-in CRM and sales automation functionalities.

Keap (former Infusionsoft)

With over 200,000 users, Keap is a platform dedicated to small business owners, to help them save time and get better results. This platform was one of the first marketing automation providers to offer a visual campaign builder.

With Keap, you can do different things. From building landing pages to designing marketing campaigns. In their marketplace, There are more than 300 apps and integrations. And that makes possible to integrate the solution with a large variety of tools.

Keap offers integrations with over 200 applications and platforms. Some of them are BigCommerce, WordPress, Outlook, Gmail, Zapier, OptinMonster, Leadpages, and QuickBooks.

Ontraport

Ontraport is one of the most powerful visual MA and reporting platforms. Designed to help manage your entire marketing workflow. It is here to bring new customers and to make them feel welcomed. Once you’ve set it up, it can do most of that on its own, and you can as well focus more on growing your core business.

Ontraport provides customer relationship management (CRM) system. That system mostly serves to automate content, marketing, sales, and information management. The purpose of this provider is to make strong maintaining relationships with clients and customers. It includes tools for affiliate marketing, task management, lead capture and many more.

Conclusion

If you’re planning a marketing automation software for your business, it’s crucial to choose the right one. That’s why the right thing, indeed, would be to look at the current state of your business. In what position it is now. Consider what your next steps should be and how you’re going to achieve them.  It is important to choose a tool that will help you both to improve and grow your business.

MA can definitely help every business that aims to attract more customers. Whether you’re a tailor, a chemist or a rock star, automated marketing is the way that your business and brand should be interacting with the public. Because with an excellent strategy, all you need is a tool to make your business more efficient.