A musician can have great material, and a good distribution strategy, but without quality execution, that music may never be heard or enjoyed. It’s true for artists and it’s a principle that can be applied to most businesses as well.
Just ask Ben Marshall of Artist Management Services Ltd. His company books music for weddings and events in the United Kingdom (where up to 200,000 weddings are held annually). He found himself in the position where business was being generated, but service implementation needed to be changed.
Automation frees up time to focus on the big picture
Overwhelmed, Ben knew he needed a plan. He was determined to focus on a few areas like automating certain marketing processes and providing incredible customer experience. He realized manual lead follow up created holes in his sales funnel and a lesser client experience.
Fortunately, Ben discovered small business automation software that could streamline his marketing and sales efforts and free up his time to focus on big picture activities like refining the company’s vision and executing a growth plan.
“We were in this unique position where we needed to expand our business very quickly, but didn't have the team members to do it. So we found ourselves needing to automate a large percentage of the tasks that we had to perform within our business, and Keap was the solution to that problem,” he said.
Specifically, he wanted to focus on email content. Using their lead generation model, Ben knew that the more they pumped into digital advertising, the more leads were driven through to the other end of the sales funnel—a good problem to have.
Perfecting the lead generation and follow-up process
Artist Management Services Ltd. now uses Keap to collect leads, convert clients and create fans. Keap also acts as a full-time salesperson by putting new leads into an automated follow-up system. This system allows Ben and his team to nurture, segment and follow up with leads over a 12 to 18-month period by triggering tasks, prompting sales follow-up calls, sending personalized automated emails, offering upsells and more.
“Without Keap, it simply wouldn't have been possible to generate the amount of email content that we do, and we're talking thousands of emails a day,” he said. “It removes all the manual elements of our sales process so effectively and so efficiently.”And that process, which reduced client error, along with Keap automation, has helped Artist Management Services scale in ways they never imagined.
“We have grown from being just an 80,000 pounds turnover business to over 3 million pounds now, and we've done that in the space of four years. Growing our staff team from just myself and one other member of staff, through to 11 of us,” he said. “Again, automation and software have been pivotal in replacing so much of the laborious work that comes with running a small business.”
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Booking becomes a breeze with the software
In addition to managing email through the tool, Infusonsoft has greatly improved the company’s booking process. Not only do they develop new leads and customers through the software, they use the software for post-service communication and even requests for referrals.
“What we're able to do is to automate the whole process of finding out what sort of music they like, what time they would like the band there, all the nuances and the specific details that come with each event. We used to have to get on the phone to people and have those conversations, which was both massively time-consuming and ineffective,” Ben said.
By automating these processes, Ben estimates that he saves 2.5 hours per booking.
Automating processes and using Keap to extract that data from customers has allowed Artist Management Services Ltd. to be more cost effective, more efficient, and to give end users a much better experience. This platform has also resulted in a much higher referral rate and customer satisfaction score. See how Artist Management created fans-- the third stage of Lifecycle Automation -- by writing hand-written notes and creating task reminders to post on Facebook.
“Which is ultimately for us as small business owners, what it's all about,” Ben said. “Keap has benefited our business and strongly contributed to our growth. Keap’s got to take a huge amount of credit for that. It's just been a fantastic resource to us as a business.”
Additionally, Ben has been able to grow his team to 11 from 2, grow his lead list to 25K from 350, lift his conversion rate, lower his customer acquisition costs, and enhance his lifetime customer value.
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Moving forward with Keap
Besides streamlining his marketing and sales processes and scaling his business, Keap has also had a huge impact on his family life. His one-time 60-hour work weeks have been whittled down to about 32 hours a week. As the father of two kids, Ben was concerned that his business would cut into family time.
“The biggest benefit to me is being able to spend time with them. You ask any entrepreneur what they're short of, and it's rarely cash, it's rarely resources. It's normally time, and that is the most precious thing of all,” he said. “Having Keap at the heart of our business has given me, as the founder, time back that I never thought I'd get as a business owner.”
See Artist Management Services' Lifecycle automation playbook
