How Automated Email Campaigns Can Save Small Businesses Time

Small business owners are busy people with a lot to do. Where the owners of larger companies can afford to hire specialists for each task that needs to be done, many small business owners have to do it themselves. Hiring someone like an email marketing specialist is a luxury many of them just don’t have. In 2015, Constant Contact confirmed small business owner’s time crunched feelings when they found that 56% of feel like they can never leave their business and 40% felt like they didn’t even have enough time for friends and family.

That’s why it’s so important for small business owners to learn about (and embrace) new automation technologies such as automated email marketing. These tools allow a business to continue generating leads and making sales even if the owner decides to watch their son’s little league baseball game. There are 3 areas where automated email can be particularly helpful:

1. Automated newsletter sign ups. Whenever a customer goes to purchase one of your company’s products or even better, asks for more information, you can have them opt-in into your newsletter. When they agree to receive your newsletter, these tools can automatically send a thank you message with links to your social media platforms.
2. Automatic lead follow-up emails. If your business requires consultations with sales reps (or just you since you are the sales rep), an auto-responder can be used to confirm with customers that you received their request and tell them the next steps in your sales process such as how they should expect to hear from you.
3. Finally, automated email marketing tools allow you to create drip campaigns that begin with each new sign up. These tools can keep track of each individual and send out the next step in a campaign whenever it’s appropriate for them. Furthermore, since each customer is receiving a personalized version of the same email, you can use him or her for testing out what subject line or call to action generates the highest click through rate.

Running a small business is a lot of work, but technology can help make it a little easier. Good use of automated marketing and email campaigns can both free up time and increase sales by reliably following up with 100% of your leads.