Running an ag business and trying to keep up with all the things you should be doing can be exhausting.
Rising at dawn and going to bed late at night can take its toll and when the busy spring period comes round, it’s hard to keep up with all the other aspects of your business.
Every day you may have to:
- Keep track of the welfare of the livestock
- Stay on top of the soil conditions and the health of crops
- Take note of all the finances
- Monitor how your team is getting on and whether they’re working efficiently
...and so much more.
There’s a lot to do and with all this on your mind, there isn’t much room left to stay on top of your marketing and advertising efforts.
Luckily, there is a way to keep on top of your daily to-do list and keep your business front and center in the minds of your potential customers.
Automated processes.
Automated processes allow you to put all your energy and efforts into performing your main tasks and help minimize the number of disruptions throughout your day - especially during the busy season of spring.
What is marketing automation?
Marketing automation uses apps, software, and website plugins to automate your online marketing activities for your business.
You can use it to automate tasks like:
- Email marketing
- Social media posts
- Ad campaigns
The technology behind marketing automation makes these tasks easier to perform and gives you more time to focus on other day-to-day jobs in your business.
How can ag companies benefit from marketing automation?
With marketing automation, you’re able to target your customers with automated, personalized messages.
You can use these messages through an automated email marketing scheme, over your website, social media, and even through SMS.
These messages are sent automatically at your preferred time and date. Many automated marketing software usually allows you to build your messages easily with the help of templates.
With this automated marketing not only do you have more time to spend on the rest of your business, but you’ll also be able to create a better connection with your audience by providing them with continuous, automatic communication (that still feels personal).
Here are the 3 main benefits of marketing automation:
Increased revenue
Automated online marketing is brilliant for increasing your revenue and maximizing the efficiency of your business.
Marketing automation has many features that are perfect for helping you deliver high quality, relevant content to your audience.
It helps you increase your revenue by building up your relationship with your clients without the need for any man-power from your team. This will help you keep your sales cycle shorter and bring in more revenue quicker.
More leads
Lead generation is the lifeblood of any business, regardless of where you are in terms of growth or scale. Without leads, you won’t have any clients and without clients, you won't have a business.
Automation helps generate leads by helping you build relationships with your clients faster. The more leads you have the more clients you can obtain and the more your business will continue to grow.
Automating your marketing is perfect for helping you and your team handle any repetitive tasks that would otherwise take up a lot of your time.
For example, with email marketing, you usually have to scan through your subscriber list, find suitable candidates for the email series and then individually send them out the email.
With an automated email series you only have to define your campaign’s ideal target and the automation takes it from there.
These automatic messages also remove the fear of human error and you won’t have to worry about checking and double-checking emails before they go out.
The 4 steps towards marketing automation in your business
Before implementing automation into your agricultural business check out these four steps to make sure that you’re prepared to get the most out of it.
1. Identify tasks to automate
Make a list of your team’s most repetitive marketing activities to see where you will gain the biggest improvement from automation.
For example, you can automate response emails to reduce the administrative work for your team - especially when it comes to FAQs.
Mark out all the tasks you think are the most time-consuming and see if they’re compatible with automation.
There are a lot of choices when it comes to automation software and there are loads of apps and plugins to choose from.
List your ‘must have’ features first, followed by your ‘nice to have’ features. Do your research into what options are out there. Read online reviews of software you’re thinking of using.
Getting the best option for your business can often be quite difficult which is why it’s always good to try a few out to see which one works with your business the best.
A lot of platforms will offer a free trial so we recommend you take the chance to test run your choice before agreeing to a long-term contract.
3. Train your team in automation
Automation does make marketing a lot more efficient - but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Take the time to train any members of your team who have tasks that are being automated.
This will help you and your team know what to do if anything ever goes wrong or there is a need for human intervention with an automated system.
4. Evaluate the success of the automation
Implementing automation isn’t the end.
The key to success in marketing automation is to consistently check-in to see how well your processes are working. See if anything needs improving or if a new software needs to be tested or trialed.
Improvements can always be made so never settle for what’s good enough and make any adjustments necessary so your marketing can continue to work successfully.
Marketing automation should alleviate some of the pressure of keeping your business relevant and important in the minds of your customers - and attract new customers too. If it’s not performing how it’s meant to, it’s time to upgrade it.
We hope you found this intro to automation helpful and that it will help you improve your marketing efforts over the busy spring period.
