There’s really no business activity automation can’t improve.
As an automation expert, there’s nothing more satisfying for me than the change people experience when automation’s working hand-in-hand with their daily efforts, bringing about results that are greater than the sum of its parts.
Automation’s about working smarter, not harder, and when it comes to combining your sales and marketing efforts with automated approaches, this is where it can truly excel.
Sales = the action of selling something. Automation = the technique of making a process or system operate automatically.
Sales automation = the automatic operation of sales.
It’s an attractive proposition.
There’s another equation that should be coming pretty apparent right about now… sales automation = the potential to increase profits without adding any additional manual work.
True sales and marketing automation applies simple logic to the overall sales process that’s previously been carried out by manual means. By integrating customizable sales tools into your workflow, your sales cycle can be streamlined. Sales and marketing automation functionality may cover areas such as….
- Customer interaction tracking
- Automated sales activities
- Pipeline management
- Automated alerts and triggers
- Automated follow-up of leads and enquiries
Sales and marketing automation can be customized to suit your business as required, reducing manual communications processes and limiting the risk of errors as a result of manual input. It can allow you to grow your team’s capabilities on a daily basis without adding a single cent to your payroll and overheads. It can lead to increased profitability and effectiveness, keeping your business running even as you sleep.
Blog posts over these next couple of weeks will introduce some of these techniques and systems. There’s a world of automated solutions for just about any functionality required to set up an effective sales pipeline and see your marketing efforts multiplied, so we’ll step through a few simple ways you can integrate automation into your work in these areas – immediately.
In preparation, take note this coming week of any manual activity you carry out on a regular basis that’s related to either selling or marketing. Sending repetitive emails? Placing follow-up phone calls? Scheduling social media content? Keep your list close by and we’ll tackle it together.