Tips & Tools to Automate Small Business Marketing in 2022

Today I want to talk about some modern marketing and lead gen strategies that can be automated and can help any small business increase their number of customers and grow their bottom line in 2019.

These 4 marketing tips we'll be discussing today are worth considering in my opinion and, depending on your business model and current levels of traffic, can begin bringing in more leads and sales immediately.

If you or someone on staff is available to answer questions via chat for part of the day, then you need a chat widget on your website. Customers in 2019 expect to be able to communicate directly with businesses through websites and social media, without having to pick up the phone or send an email. This is applicable to both local and ecommerce businesses.

Many tools exist now to help you add a chat widget to your website. The great thing about many of them is you can also answer questions on the go from your phone, and if needed you can set your availability on a regular or impromptu basis. This means you can answer chats just like you would answer incoming texts!

Some live chat options you can choose from are....

• Facebook Messenger
  
• Drift
  
• Zoho SalesIQ
  
• LiveChat
  

To implement this on your website yourself, simply sign up with the chat service of your choice, go through setup, and embed the code on your website.

If your website is already hosted with us, we can give you a quote for adding this feature, or you can send us the code to have it implemented as part of your website change plan.

If you aren't a client yet and would like help with features like this, get in touch !

So, you may not be a hairstylist or other service provider that requires a full fledged appointment management system - but does your sales process involve talking to potential clients and customers? If yes, then you should consider appointment booking software.

Why? Well there are a few reasons.

For starters, what about the potential clients who are browsing your website at 1 in the morning and would prefer to talk on the phone, but don't feel like filling out a form or sending an email, so they leave never to be seen again? ... What if you had a consultation booking page where they could self-schedule an upcoming time to speak with you, automatically offering them appointment times based on your availability, and sending them automated appointment reminders to reduce no-shows?

Or, what about the clients who simply want to book an in-person meeting (for example, an initial consultation) with the first expert they find, and don't feel like doing the back and forth phone/email tag in the beginning? What if they could grab a time in your schedule without even speaking to you?

What about the myriad of other situations we might not be discussing here? Essentially what it comes down to is can you increase lead volume from your current website traffic by offering self-scheduled appointments? If yes, put this on your website.

Some tools you can use are.....

• Calendly
  
• Setmore
  
• ScheduleOnce
  
• SimplyBook.me
  

Other benefits of appointment booking software - you no longer have to play call-tag and can just send someone your scheduling link when discussing a future conversation via email. You may have fewer missed calls from website visitors, instead knowing exactly what your schedule is. You have a built-in receptionist on your website who can pre-qualify and schedule calls for you once set up correctly. ;)

It's 2019 - the Yellowpages are no longer relevant - and getting online reviews and social recommendations are king when it comes to the reputation of your local business.

If you are a local business, you should be encouraging every single customer to leave a review after interacting with them. That's step one. This can be done manually if your volume is low enough, but if you want to up your ante.. Automate your review generation system.

We offer an automated review generation funnel for this that allows you to automate getting reviews to all of your high priority online listings, which helps increase your visibility and conversion rate across the board, because both search engines and customers care about your volume and average rating of the reviews you get.

If you want to automate this yourself, we recommend setting up an email marketing automation software such as ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, or whichever service you prefer, into which you can upload email addresses of recent customers into an automated review request sequence, greatly increasing your chances of garnering those positive reviews. This is definitely something that can be DIY'd, but if you want it done for you, we can get you a quote on our review generation & reputation management service.

As a small business owner, you might be sick of hearing about email lists. You might be of the school of thought that you don't want to "pester" your potential customer's. But here's the thing -

If someone has submitted an inquiry to you, or has opted in to your email list, it's because they are already interested in you and they want to hear from you . If you have the ability to create a sequence of valuable and informational content, you should be getting people onto your email list and sending them educational email sequences. And for many consumers, they need to hear your businesses' voice and see its brand multiple times before they will make any sort of transaction with you.

If you own a business and you are worried about scaring people off by telling them about what you do, then why are you in business?

Your messages don't have to be salesy. It can be as simple as sending educational materials once per week or even once per month, simply to remind your audience that you exist and you're the best choice in your field. This is applicable not just to ecommerce store owners - but restaurants, home services, consultants, local shops, and more.

Appropriate email topics include:

• Recent customer results
  
• More information on your services and why people love them
  
• A recent idea or opinion that establishes your expertise in the field
  
• A self promotional discount... every once in a while. The key is to keep the overly-promotional content to a minimum, so that you are simply filling up your customer's inboxes with value instead of with irritation . (If you don't value what you say, why should they? )
  

Armed with this knowledge, we hope you consider some of these strategies this year to automate your marketing and lead generation. Best of luck to you and your business in the new year!