Marketing automation is any technology, program or software that automatically performs marketing functions – like sending emails or text marketing messages to customers or prospects – without human intervention.

Marketing automation software can determine who should receive specific targeted marketing communications and when those emails and texts should be sent to maximize response.

For many years marketing automation was seen as something only big businesses needed. Then it was seen as something only the big companies could afford. Today, small to mid-sized businesses are realizing the major impact marketing automation can have – saving them time, growing their business, and increasing customer loyalty.

Small businesses can use marketing automation in many different ways:

• Email marketing
  Email marketing automation allows businesses to automatically send emails to targeted customers and prospects at precise times with specific messaging. For example, automatically sending “Welcome” emails to first-time customers.
   
• Text marketing
  Similar to email marketing automation, text marketing automation send marketing messages to a person’s phone, tablet, or computer at a particular day and time, with a well-timed message. Businesses can schedule these messages to be delivered at the exact time when the recipient is most likely to respond to the message, reminder, or offer.
   
• Customer reviews requests
  One of the most useful uses for marketing automation is automatically asking customers for a rating or review. These review requests can be sent via email or text and timed to go out when the customer is most likely to give a positive review. For example, customer review requests can be sent automatically at the successful completion of a project.
   
• Special offer communications
  With marketing automation you can schedule marketing communications months in advance, setting them to automatically reach customers on those days when you want to send them offers – holiday discounts, seasonal offers, anniversary specials, etc.
   
• Customer loyalty campaigns
  Perhaps the most beneficial use of marketing automation is the simple, basic ability to maintain constant communication with your customer base. Businesses can automatically send emails at specific intervals – weekly, monthly, annually (for seasonal messaging). This way, customers feel that you care about them and you maximize customer loyalty, which in turn increases repeat sales.

Marketing automation addresses the two top challenge most small businesses face… not enough time and not enough customers.

With marketing automation, a small business can maintain a constant customer communication loop – staying in touch with established customers, building customer loyalty, and using customer reviews to attract new customers. Plus, according to a recent study, email marketing automation has been show to generate up to six times the revenue. And all of this is done automatically, taking little or no time away from day-to-day business tasks.

While the benefits of marketing automation are easy to see… a small business trying to get started on their own could find it less than easy to pull off. The business will need to Identify who to mail to, what to mail to them, and when the email will have the best chance to generate results. In addition to all that, you’ll need to create content – email text, videos, whitepapers – that will appeal to your audience. In most cases, it’ll be easier and more effective to partner with someone (like Hibu) who does all the work for you. Hibu Assistant, for example, does everything listed above and also provides 24/7 analytics on your campaigns.