Max Sabwa

Benefits of Automated Marketing for Online Business At their core, all businesses operate on a simple principle: Letting people know about the products and services offered and then have as many people as possible purchase their offerings. Identifying potential customers and guiding them towards making a purchase is a process known as lead generation and nurturing. The process of generating and nurturing qualified leads helps boost efficiency in marketing efforts, increase market share and maximize Return on Investment. Why Marketing Automation Works For Online Businesses For online businesses, their websites are their main method of attracting new business. However, statistics from www.searchenginejournal.com show that only 2 percent of website visitors to most websites eventually purchase the advertised products or services. It is tedious and inefficient for a marketing team to follow up all visitors individually in order to generate leads. However, by using an online lead generation company or marketing automation software, it is possible to use inbuilt marketing intelligence to identify interested visitors. Converting Prospects into Leads A marketing automation system helps to convert prospects into leads through introducing interested visitors, identifying companies and providing contacts of individuals within these companies. Once a sales team has the identity of anonymous visitors, they can find the right time to make follow-up calls to their company. Other features that automated marketing systems use to generate leads easily and automatically include integrated search engine marketing, email and webinars. Lead Scoring Most prospects will carry out their research on a vendor online long before they make the decision to buy. The result is that a significant number of prospects may be interested in a product but may not be ready to buy yet. In order to avoid losing potential business and save on the cost per lead, a business needs to identify and engage with ‘sales-ready’ leads. Through the ability to qualify leads online, a sales team can then respond appropriately by either calling a hot lead or nurturing a still-undecided prospect. Lead Nurturing Only a small percentage of all online leads are sales ready and many are not qualified. The result is that businesses run the risk of wasting many generated leads through delays in taking appropriate action. Lead nurturing is maintaining communications with website visitors who are still undecided as they carry out more research into the business or product. An automated online marketing system should ensure that contact between the prospective customer and the business is constant but not annoying. Tracking Return on Investment Every lead generated, nurtured and converted into a sale carries a cost. An automated lead generation system is therefore incomplete if it does not offer a business with the ability to track the return on investment. This involves complete visitor tracking starting from the ads that visitors respond to and a progressive profile of the lead. Successful automated lead generation should be a win-win situation for both the consumer and business. By providing website visitors with a smooth transition from prospect to happy paying customer, a business enhances the chances of repeat business. Effective lead generation and nurturing increases profitability and allows a business to concentrate on the kind of marketing that brings the best results.