Automation
Spend time making money or spend money making time!
"If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep you will work until you die." Warren Buffett
Maybe Warren wasn't directly referring to automating your marketing but the idea is the same. Capture leads in your sleep, convert while you dream, retire early...
An automated marketing machine could be something like this:
Lead attraction, lead creation, lead education, lead qualification, booking a meeting, making an online purchase, building a community, customer support, upselling…
All this without making one phone call or answering a single email.
Of course this all depends on your services or products but the principles are the same. Automate processes you can so you can do the things you are good at or the things you would rather do. Give yourself more time.
First of all, do you know all the things you can automate? A great service to explore automation possibilities is Zapier [1] although this is not the know all and end all. Zapier is an automation creator or a process linking service. You should find out if a service you are using can be automated. Or better yet, find out if a service you are thinking of using can be automated. This might help you decide which service to choose.
Another consideration is that automation can be complicated. Just because you can connect two services or automate some tasks does not mean that it is easy to create the automation. So now you need to evaluate if automation is really going to save you time if you have to spend so much time creating and managing it. This is a very valid concern. Some processes can be automated but it just isn't easy or the cost out weighs the benefit. Again, find out before you start using a service what can be automated and how easy or difficult it is.
You should also consider the cost of automation. Some processes can be done free or for a very low cost. If you have a Google account there are tons of automations you can create for free. Or you might want to invest in a CRM, Customer Relations Management, system. These can come with some or a lot of automation. Some are free with limited functionality and some are super expensive but may be just what you need. First you should know your marketing funnel and what processes you will use, then you can evaluate which CRM to choose.
And finally you can lay all this on the shoulders of an expert who can advise you which service to use or what tasks can be automated and then create all the automations for you. Digital automation can be the difference between a small eternal startup or world dominance at lightning speed.
