Sales and Marketing Automation is quickly becoming a household term for many small businesses.
But along with the rise in it’s popularity, we’re also seeing a rise in misunderstanding how it works.
Here are three marketing automation myths we’re going to dispel:
- It’s cold and robotic
- It’s only for big businesses
- It only helps with marketing activities
If you’ve heard any of these before, or even if you haven’t, take a few minutes to join us as we bust these myths and share some healthier perspectives for thinking about the expanded role of sales and marketing automation in your business.
1. Marketing Automation is cold and robotic
Many people feel like marketing automation is going to lack personalization and be cold and robotic, because they have been on the receiving end of automation that felt that way.
And sometimes it is cold and robotic - but only if it’s done poorly.
Remember, automation isn’t arbitrary. It takes an architect - so you can feel confident that you have agency in this equation.
The truth is, when marketing automation is done well with the right tool, it feels seamless and intuitive. And so for that reason, we often don’t notice when it’s done well - because it feels natural, or personal.
This creates a disproportionate perception that marketing automation has to be cold, or has to feel robotic - but that’s only the reality if it’s done poorly.
2. Marketing automation is only for big businesses
This is another falsehood that can artificially limit what we think we can do.
Too many small business owners treat automation as something they’ll add once they get to a certain point of growth. Or reach revenue goals.
We tell ourselves we don’t need it yet, and we put it off, because we’re small, or because we manage lead follow up and email campaigns manually still.
But the truth is that automation isn’t necessarily the reward for reaching a certain level, oftentimes it is the thing that gets you there.
Adopting automation when you’re first starting out is wise for two main reasons.
- First, because it’s easy to adopt systems that grow with your business when you are small. It’s much harder to try and retrofit automation into a manual process when it’s large, or unwieldy.
- And the second reason it’s wise is because automation allows you to be more strategic in what you focus on.
When a business is small, the owner and employees tend to do everything. We all wear multiple hats, because that’s just what it takes.
But not everything that needs to be done, needs to be done by you.
And so automation’s job is to take the things off your plate that don’t need to be done by a human, which should free up your time to focus more on the highest return activities - the things that you are uniquely qualified to do, that you enjoy, or that are genuinely the best use of your time and talents.
3. Marketing Automation only helps with marketing activities
The phrase “marketing automation” itself has some inherent flaws.
The flaw isn’t that it’s wrong, because it absolutely can help with the marketing and lead generation activities in your business.
The flaw is that it’s just...incomplete.
Yes, it can help capture and nurture leads.
But it can also help turn leads into prospects.
It can help deliver your customer experience. Support your partner program. Collect receivables. Onboard new employees.
Or any other number of business activities.
If you want to start with marketing activities that’s fine - but don’t fall into the trap of limiting the scope of where automation can be useful, because automation is a versatile tool that can help your business grow in any number of ways.
If you limit yourself to thinking about it as a “marketing only” tool, then you’re going to artificially limit the ROI it makes possible.
Wrapping up
Automation is a powerful tool - but popular misconceptions like these can pop up as artificial obstacles that slow us down, or derail the progress that we might otherwise make.
For more automation case studies and examples, check out the resources on the Keap site.
Or, to experience the power of Keap in your own business, start a free trial today.
About the Author
Greg is the founder of Monkeypod Marketing, where he focuses on empowering entrepreneurs through online courses and educational resources. More specifically, he helps small businesses understand and use automation in different ways, and at higher levels, to maximize the return on efforts.
Prior to starting Monkeypod, Greg worked at Keap as a curriculum developer and lead trainer for Infusionsoft University. In addition to small business and marketing automation, he loves hiking, traveling, watching basketball, and binging Netflix. And also dogs, he really loves dogs.
