It is a fascinating experience to “practice what you preach” in the business world. In the world of marketing automation software, companies like Zymplify can both sell and to use their own products as part of their sales & marketing efforts. Marketing automation in its purest form takes different pieces of the sales & marketing cycle and puts them together into an integrated platform.
There are millions of businesses that are in the position that Zymplify was in not too long ago. Starting from scratch with a new product and how to generate those initial leads and revenue is a common topic for a startup. In the upcoming pieces, I will write about how we use our product to generate leads and revenue. By discussing specific examples and actual sales, I will make the connection on how marketing automation can help any small and medium-sized business grow.
Build a contact database
The first thing that we did, was to build a contact database. First, we created an email using our own easy to use templates. The Zymplify templates use our colours, styles, and branding and allow a novice to put together an email blast in no time at all. Many small businesses may be familiar with products such as Constant Contact or Mail Chimp that provide this service.
Our email builder is integrated into the rest of our platform allowing for full analysis of delivery rates, opens, click-throughs, etc., to see the effectiveness of the email blasts. Most importantly, when someone clicks through to our website, the platform then tracks the pages that person has visited and allows us to then tailor messages based on those actions. Landing pages help gather contact information and pop-ups can encourage the leaders to take specific actions.
The key to attracting people
The key to attracting people to the platform is to generate informative content. Links to content can be posted on social media, or within email campaigns and directed towards segmented audiences who might be interested. Examples of creative content that the Zymplify team has generated include guides like ‘Marketing Automation Made Easy’ and ‘How to Build a Landing Page’, and webinars on relevant topics such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the impact businesses in the European Union when it comes into effect in 2018.
GDPR is a great example of timely content. It’s a relatively new regulation that most businesses have little understanding of. However, if it’s not handled correctly it can put a business in a position of having to pay large fines and cause much disruption. These webinars have attracted dozens of people in the short time we have made them available.
Digital Marketing Experts
They have helped improve Zymplify’s profile, highlighting our team as subject matter experts. When you think about it, you are likely a subject matter expert in your chosen industry and have information that others would find useful. Putting that information down on paper is the first step to building a library of content that can be a key part of your marketing efforts.
Once we draw people to our website to view this content, you can collect their contact information, reach back out to them, and determine where they are in the sales funnel. The answer to that determines whether you can take a more hands-on approach with direct sales contact, or put them into nurturing mode, sending them additional content over time to ensure that you are in front of them at the time when they are ready to engage in an active decision-making process.
The beauty of what we do is that we can use our own company as a real-time example of how any small business can use the platform. In future pieces, I will talk about additional functionality that we use and how you might use it in your business.
