As your security business grows, you know how important it is to maintain customer relationships while still trying to scale your opportunities. Marketing automation is a great way to effectively manage your time by nurturing customers and prospects while increasing your efficiency.
What is Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation may be a term you’ve heard thrown around a time or two, but what does it actually mean? Marketing automation software enables the user to automate day-to-day tasks in order to save time, reduce human error, and provide the most value to your business efforts.
By utilizing marketing automation software, you can more effectively capture, analyze, and nurture customer data. A good marketing automation strategy leaves you with time to focus on the parts of your business that you care about most, by allowing you to keep the menial tasks on your “to-do” list at bay.
Pain Points
As a dealer in the security or fire industry, you have a lot on your plate, and marketing automation may not seem like a viable option, for reasons such as:
- Minimal Funds to Invest in Marketing
- Lack of Expertise
- A Limited Amount of Employees
But, thanks to a myriad of available tools and resources at your disposal, you’ll find that marketing automation is more user-friendly and affordable than ever.
Before You Jump In
Before you start the process of researching and implementing marketing automation tools, it’s important to review your marketing goals. Here are a few questions you’ll want to consider:
1. What are your ultimate marketing goals?
Are you seeking to take a load off of your task schedule, convert more leads, and drive more revenue? Break down each of your goals to see what kinds of tools would best serve your needs.
2. What goals do you have for your current customer base?
What can you be doing to nurture the relationships you've already established? Maybe this looks like providing some educational resources to your customers or creating a plan to keep your company top-of-mind.
3.What goals do you have for obtaining new customers through online marketing efforts?
It is essential to have an end-goal in mind when deciding how best to implement marketing automation tools. Also, establishing a solid online presence will be required before automation can work effectively for your business. Make sure that your website is clean, your "Google my Business" information is up-to-date, and your social media channels are established.
Marketing Automation Tools
In today’s digital world, new digital marketing tools crop up every day. Here are a few marketing automation categories to consider, and some tried and true tools you available.
Customer Account Management
SecurityTrax is a marketing automation tool designed specifically for the security and connected home industry. SecurityTrax integrates with Alarm.com to provide your business with real-time smart tools in order to generate leads, organize customer information, and manage daily workflows.
Cost: $399 one-time fee + $50/per user license (other pricing available for limited functionality)
Email
Mailchimp is probably the biggest email marketing platform available to small businesses, and its user-friendly set-up, coupled with its extensive capabilities, makes it pretty clear as to why. Mailchimp makes it easy to manage contacts, segment lists, and execute basic workflows. Its templates, along with its drag and drop interface, allow even an email novice to easily put together a sleek email design with minimal effort.
Cost: Free (limited functionality) up to $299/month (for large email lists and access to advanced tools)
Social Media
Hootsuite is a well-known social media management platform that allows you to oversee all of your business’s social media accounts. Through Hootsuite, you can schedule your posts, reply to comments, and track post performance in order to more effectively manage your company’s social media presence and evaluate your campaign effectiveness.
Cost: $29/month up to $129/month (for bulk scheduling and multiple users)
Link Shortening/Tracking
Bitly is the most commonly used link-shortening tool. Not only does Bitly allow you to generate concise links, but it also supports custom links as well as real-time analytics. So you can monitor how your links are performing on various channels.
Cost: Free (limited functionality) up to $499/month (for large businesses)
Don’t Just “Set it and Forget it”
Marketing automation can be just what your business needs in order to take your online presence to the next level. But be sure to plan out a strategy for maintaining your automation efforts and keeping your campaigns up-to-date.
It’s important to remember that marketing automation is just a part of the larger marketing puzzle for your business. To learn more about marketing your security alarm business, be sure to check out our step-by-step eGuide on the topic.
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