Automation – those using it are winning and they don’t even know it yet! Understanding why marketing automation is a winner in entrepreneurship and business and when it comes to learning more automated follow up systems, you need to buckle up – it’s go time.

Quick Links:

• TIP: How to create an automated follow up system [Infographic Download]
• Episode Overview – Marketing automation for small business examples
• Personal Note from Jenn Neal on Automation
• Episode audio [Podcast on Spotify]
• Blog Post – Automation for the Win!
• Related Posts

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TIP: How to set up your own automated follow up system

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What’s In This Episode

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One of my passions is Formula 1 racing – and I had a moment when watching a race where my worlds collided.

-Jenn “worlds collide” Neal

The time I was on the news…

In college, I was part of an elite vocal group of 12 students. To be part of the group, we had to audition and be able to carry our own singing role on our own.

For me, that was the alto voice.

We also had to be willing and able to participate in various appearances and engagements as part of the group.

This one morning, we were to be featured on the news and we were supposed to share some of our signature songs.

Given that the news had to record at something like 4:30 am my part as the alto should have been redone as the baritone since it was so early my voice wasn’t woken up yet. 😉

However, we made it through the recording and singing and all came out well in the end.

And then the news aired and my phone was blowing up that day. Family, friends, people I hadn’t heard from in a long time were reaching out and saying “I saw you on the news!”

It was funny, it was almost like a moment of “when worlds collide” type thing.

Singing as part of the group wasn’t new for me. But when I appeared on the news it was new for many who knew me.

It became an example of that thing I do and how it fits into “real life.”

Kind of like the example I share in this episode.

One of my passions is Formula 1 racing – and I had a moment when watching a race where my worlds collided.

Of course, I had to make a business analogy out of it – so here you go! An exciting story about marketing automation and Formula 1 racing. (Plus, an epic loss for my least favorite driver, haha)

Marketing automation for small business examples

Why Do I Need Marketing Automation?

You might have heard all about marketing automation – or you’ve at least heard the word hovering around your business circles – but do you really understand what it could mean for you?

There’s plenty of myths surrounding automation that we need to bust, and one of the biggest is that it makes you sound like a robot in your industry. It doesn’t!

We use automation to make life easier; that’s literally the best bit about it. Automation and automated follow up systems in digital marketing can literally save the day in your business, and it’s clear as day how it works when you take a look at Facebook.

What Does Facebook Have To Do With It?

You see the handy helper of a bot on Facebook that can answer your questions without needing to speak to a human being, right? It’s programmed to answer the questions you have and give you the right directions to help you to solve a problem.

It works by identifying what you’re asking about and serves you up the correct answer – which is a super cool way automation can work. Facebook is just like any other website that serves to help people, so an automated follow up system with a bot teed up and ready to answer questions is a great way for people to get what they need without picking up the phone.

Sure, it’s a robot-type thing, but it gives Facebook customers the chance to at least solve some of their problems before they speak to a human, which takes half the workload off the agents.

What About Automation Elsewhere?

Another excellent example of automation is email marketing of an email list. It’s the underdog of digital marketing techniques because so many people mistakenly believe that email marketing is dead. Most definitely it is not dead and it’s something that almost every business is using.

You can set up your emails to go out automatically to customers with an automated follow up system, and when you do it’s like a hug in an inbox, filled with discounts and offers all tied up in a personalized, automated box of goodness for your target audience.

Automation can also be found in text messaging and voicemails, but it’s social media marketing and email that win it for automation. When customers open an email that’s been automatically sent out to them, the company receives that click information and continues to tailor emails to them.

Automation gives you superhuman business powers – isn’t that neat!?

If It’s an Automated Follow Up System, How Is It Personal?

Here’s the fun thing about automated follow up systems: they may be controlled by picking up the right words to answer questions, but it’s the personal touches that make it so successful.

Chat bots, for example, still hope the customer is well and they still ask for names that they can instantly pick up. Emails are sent based on preferences that the customers have already chosen in advance.

Marketing Automation works to help people to make those snap purchasing decisions – but you don’t want to automate all the things.

Finding A Balance with Marketing Automation

There is a sliding scale for marketing automation. You want to give people the answers and replies that they need quickly, but you want to add a little humanity into it.

This isn’t an I Am Legend situation, where the robots have personalities that eventually take over the world. This is a situation where you want to do something faster for people with a smile so they don’t feel like they’ve been brushed aside by a computer.

Formula One & Automation

One of the best examples about automation this year has been with the Formula One Monza race in Italy. Right now, no one is allowed to head to the races because of the pandemic, but they are still racing Formula One races.

Mercedes has always been a top performing team for many years, and Lewis Hamilton has been a notable name in Formula One. There was a race that happened that he went into a pit lane 12 seconds after it was closed, and got a ten-second penalty as a result. This put him at the back of the pack and he didn’t have enough time left to get back to the front of the line.

For me, this was wonderful news as Hamilton is NOT my favorite driver. By the end, he was in seventh place.

Now how about the race winner? Pierre Gasly’s race but his team had set up automated systems that flashed his steering wheel as soon as pit lane was closed. This notified him to avoid it and he was able to continue without getting a penalty and boom – he won.

At this stage, Gasley was a total underdog. But because Hamilton’s team Mercedes didn’t even have this automation in place – loss for Hamilton and automation for the win!

Related Posts

7 Online Marketing Tools That Are Totally Worth the Investment

How to Reinvent Your Digital Marketing Strategy

How will you use automated follow up systems for the win in your business?