Top 4 Ways Marketing Automation Can Benefit Your Business

Sales and marketing teams run on limited budgets and time. Knowing exactly who to call and what to look for can help save time and money in the long run and help you close more deals.

Marketing automation tools can help generate more qualified leads and cut down on wasted time targeting bad prospects. These tools can track leads' activity, automatically email them in order to help push them through the sales funnel, identify when a lead is ready for a sales call, and send automatic alerts for lead updates. All of these features help nurture your leads automatically so you can save time and money by focusing on more important things.

Here are four of the top benefits to marketing automation:

1. Reduce the need for large teams of people. Manually sending out thousands of emails daily and interacting with all of your leads requires a large marketing team. On the other hand, setting up and monitoring automated emails can be handled by a few employees.
2. Easily segment your prospects. Quickly group your site visitors and leads by location, demographic, industry, job title, and more to help determine who your prime targets are.
3. Ensure your emails are successful. Marketing automation tools provide the ability to easily test which versions of email are most effective. You can quickly test different subject lines, content, or links to see what your leads respond best to. Using what works best can help prevent wasting time on sending emails that don't convert.
4. Track your leads' activities. Track your leads' activity on your site, email open rates, and much more. You can then set up scoring systems to determine when your leads are ready for your sales team.

There are several benefits to setting up marketing automation and these types of tools are excellent for helping small marketing teams succeed. Take a look at all the the benefits our marketing automation program has to offer here and sign up for a risk-free trial.

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Benefits Of Getting Business Reviews On Google +

Online reviews can have a huge impact on whether or not a potential customer calls your business or not. Although good online reviews are good for potential customers to see, they're also important for SEO purposes. Search engines, like Google, crawl the web and look for reviews of your business to try to get an idea of whether or not they should recommend you.

Every business should take advantage of this opportunity and as current or past clients to review their business online. One of the best platforms to get reviews on is Google +. Reviews posted on here have the potential to automatically show up in search results. 

Here are some quick and easy steps to pass along to your customers when asking them to review your business on Google +.

If you already have a Google account (Gmail):

1. Go to https://plus.google.com. Sign in with your current Google email and password.
2. Fill out your name, gender, and birthday and click "Upgrade".
3. Skip the next few steps until you reach a prompt that says "Finish". Click "Finish".
4. Once you are finished go to this link: https://plus.google.com/+ForemostMediaJanesville [insert your business's Google + page here]
5. Click "Write A Review".
6. A window will pop up in which you can type your review. Select "Poor," "Good," "Very Good," or "Excellent" along the top by clicking on the words.
7. Enter your review in the box provided.
8. Click publish.

If you go do not currently have a Google account:

1. Go to https://plus.google.com. 
2. Click on the red box in the upper right corner that says "Create An Account".
3. Fill out the information in the box with your name, gender, etc. Click "Next Step".
4. Follow the steps provided to verify your account.
5. Add a photo and personal information if you wish. Click "Next Step".
6. Click "Continue to Googe+".
7. Go to https://plus.google.com/+ForemostMediaJanesville [insert your business's Google + page here]
8. Click "Write A Review".
9. A window will pop up in which you can type your review. Select "Poor," "Good," "Very Good," or "Excellent" along the top by clicking on the words.
10. Enter your review in the box provided.
11. Click publish.

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The Benefits Of Setting Up A Lead Scoring System

Inbound marketing focuses on drawing leads to you and saving valuable time and resources. Once those leads start coming in, it is important to have a plan of action for categorizing and reaching out to your most qualified leads.

Lead scoring is a method of assigning a potential customer points based on their demographics, actions, or online activities. These points will then help you determine which leads will be best to focus on.

The most efficient method for reaching out to qualified leads is through lead scoring. In short, this is a method of assigning scores to potential customers based on what you think is best.

For example, a client that not only clicks on the "About Us" page to research your company, but goes to and lingers on a specific product page may receive a score of 10. Visiting product pages indicates that that online visitor is considering a purchase. An email sign up may add another 10 points to their score. Based on the total points a visitor receives, you can decide when to pass their information on to your sales team. Here's an example of what a typical lead scoring system might look like:

Action:                                                               Point Adjustment:
Whitepaper Download                                       + 10
Brochure Download                                           + 10
Visit Product Page                                            + 5
Opens email                                                     + 8
Watches Video                                                 + 7
Signs Up For Email                                           + 15
Works in Manufacturing Industry                        + 20
Visits Career Page                                            - 20
Visits Investor Page                                           - 20

Foremost Media offers software tools that will help you gather this information and set up a lead scoring system to help ensure you are only focusing on qualified leads. For more information email info@foremostmedia.com or call 608-758-4841. Visit us online to set up your free 30 day trial today!

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