Do you really need Marketing Automation and Social Integration in order to excel in business?

Chances are if you’re reading this blog post, the answer in your mind is a resounding yes.  But, the answer isn’t as intuitive to everyone. That includes owners of very small companies, very traditionally sales-oriented companies, and others who have simply never known the power of CRM automation.  And, I write this in hopes that someone reading this gains a bit of insight.

I decided to write this as a followup to a prior post where we compared Zoho CRM to Method:CRM.  The problem I noticed is that while Zoho CRM allows users to set up automated marketing and social media campaigns, Method:CRM doesn’t provide users a way to carry out those seemingly fundamental tasks.  And, I have a feeling it’s because of the mindset that marketing automation just doesn’t matter, or that a business can get by with a simple contact management system and an integration with QuickBooks.

So, for those skeptical folks among us, what does marketing automation do for you?  It’s more than meets the eye.

Increase engagement by promoting via email

Obviously, drumming up business is never a bad thing.  So, what do you do when contacts and leads fall by the wayside and you haven’t reached out to them in months?

Just like in world of social interaction, engaging someone who’s gone cold can prove tricky.  But, you shouldn’t use that as an excuse not to try it.  Chances are if you got someone’s contact info, that someone was engaged enough at one point and just got sidetracked.  Or you got too busy, or life just happened, as it often does.

With marketing automation, you have the opportunity to re-engage that person – and perhaps countless others.  You could even land a big deal that was a long time coming. Use anything of these excuses to send a message:

1. A change of seasons
2. The beginning of the month
3. An approaching holiday
4. Anything else you can think of!

Note that no one ever gets 100% engagement in an email campaign.  But, if the product you pitch generates enough revenue, you’ll win with just one sale anyway.

Does chat really help?

When thinking about whether or not installing a chat box on your website will really help customer engagement, it’s easy to think of it as too invasive.  For example, just think of that annoying kid who comes up to you in Target when you’re just trying to find anything.  No, of course you don’t need any help!  But, being accosted in a department store is much different than receiving a chat message from someone when you’re on an unfamiliar site, perhaps unsure of how to proceed after landing on the home page…  You could be under a tremendous time crunch and need help finding information quickly.  Or, you may not even know if you’ve hit the right site at all.

The truth is chat really does help.  People who you engage via chat are more likely to trust you.  This makes them more likely to buy from you in the long run.  By communicating with visitors on your website, you’re able to find out a good deal about them: why they’re visiting, what their respective companies do, their level of authority…as well as more personal things, as often happens over chat.  You can use the information you get from your prospects to simply follow up with them in the future, or even research them more in depth later.  But, no matter what, you’ll have them in your own CRM in a flash.  And, that’s miles better than either double-entering the lead into your database manually or not having the lead to begin with.

What are you missing without marketing and social automation?

Well…kind of a lot.

Without marketing automation, you probably have a way to contact your leads through your CRM… But, you likely have a limited number of email templates to choose from.  And, you definitely won’t have any way of keeping track of who actually opens and clicks on your emails.

One of the greatest things about a social plugin for your website is the notion that visitors have a way of reaching you from the comfort of their chairs.  This means no picking up a phone or even using their voices!  By using chat, you’ll engage people whose attention you simply may never have garnered before. This leads to sales you never would have had, and relationships that never could have been possible.

And, another thing: chat makes users more likely to engage you themselves.  On a website with chat enabled, customers or prospects usually face three possible contact options:

1. Send an email (and, it could take hours or even days to get a response)
2. Pick up the phone (where you could get a voicemail or thrown on hold indefinitely)
3. Chat (where you know someone’s waiting at their desk to service your request)

It’s easy to see why someone might pick the chat option.  No long wait time, no pressure to articulate thoughts correctly the first time (because of your backspace key).  And, of course, the knowledge that someone is waiting to help you.  (As long as the box says they’re available, of course.)

Without chat, you’re quite limited.  Customers and potential customers can only reach you if they pick up the phone, send you an email, or fill out a form.  And, some of your potential customers will certainly do that.  But, I would guess many more will opt for chat for the reasons aforementioned.

Zoho gives you an edge with marketing automation and social integrations

Zoho has a good deal of clout just from its CRM, but the addition of marketing and social apps like Zoho Campaigns and Zoho Social make its offering of apps much more enticing.  SalesIQ rounds it out with a great website chat feature, too.  All of their social and marketing apps integrate with the CRM, so you won’t need to manually copy information from app to app.  And, the addition of Zoho MarketingHub to its arsenal further expands Zoho’s marketing sphere, putting it in the same realm as a HubSpot or Salesforce Marketing Cloud.  Futhermore, all of these apps are available in Zoho One, which is Zoho’s entire family of apps bundled together for a fairly low price.  With that kind of offering, there’s never been a better time to take your first steps into Zoho.

This post is admittedly lengthy, but, I hope you gain at least one bit of valuable knowledge from it.  Marketing automation and social integration really do help boost overall engagement by giving you insight into your customers’ behavior patterns.  And, if you have a choice between picking a CRM with marketing tools and one without…go with the one that includes them!