How To Get Started With Marketing Automation

In a recent podcast with Josh Barkin and Billy Bateman, they discuss how the path to Automation is a little bit different than most people think. “In 2016, Facebook declared that you would be able to chat with a business like a friend.” Now, this sounds incredible right? Encounters with businesses are known for being difficult sometimes, and turning them into friend material seems like the perfect solution. Well, according to Barkin, this statement turned out to be too good to be true. There was a lot of hype, and then a lot of people ended up really frustrated.

Why You Can’t Chat With a Partner Like a Friend

As people started recognizing the difficulties in Facebook Messanger Automation, the idea of “chatting with businesses as friends” faded out of everyone’s minds, replaced with questions on how to actually understand and implement AI.

Managing the Path to Automation

Before you even jump onto the bandwagon of automation, there are some steps that can’t be skipped. We have created the most basic pathway to follow as you implement AI:

1. Start with a foundation. You need a cause, as well as a plan for execution. Why is this business going to benefit people? Is there a need that you are fulfilling? Once you’ve determined that your business will be beneficial to the business community- determine what you are going to be offering, and how to achieve it reasonably. Do you need to hire people for your teams? Create a product to sell?
2. Build on the foundation- add goals. Once you’ve established the why and how behind your business, it’s time to take a look at where you want to go with it. Dive into lead generation or customer support and really focus on improving in those areas.
3. Consider buying a Marketing Automation tool*. If you feel that you’ve grown to a point where you need some outside help to achieve your goals, look at platforms that can help you! There are plenty of businesses out there willing to walk you through automation integration or even run things for you when your plate seems too full.
4. Put your business on autopilot. Once you’ve established or considered these 3 steps, you might be ready to put your business into Autopilot. A marketing automation tool can often help with this, and this can free up a LOT of time!

*Every business wants to turn on that autopilot, but there is a path to getting there. And you have to take the path. One. Step. At. A. Time. There are super helpful companies with the sole purpose of helping you figure it out. BUT before you jump straight into buying a Marketing Automation tool, here’s a checklist (according to LeadFeeder) that you should go through to see if purchasing help is the right step for you.

Do You Need a Marketing Tool Right Now?

• You have one or more people working on your marketing team- and they only do marketing. Marketing Automation is great, but you still have to know what you’re doing. It won’t run your marketing for you, and you still need at least one person (depending on the size of your business) behind the magic to make everything work.
• You have a specific strategy for your marketing efforts.  You still have to know what you want and how you hope to achieve it. According to LeadFeeder, “You don’t need an automation tool to throw more spaghetti at the wall in hopes that something sticks.“
• You have enough money for it, and it’s worth the money to save you time. It’s true that a tool can help your team accomplish more, with more time to spare. However, it still comes at a cost. Is that saved time worth the money? At some point it probably is, you just have to make sure that’s the stage you’re in.

If you’ve already completed both our Managing Path to Automation List and our Marketing Tool Checklist, there are a lot of great options our there for you! One example is Josh Barkin’s company, Janis.

3 IMPORTANT STEPS FROM JANIS (WHAT DOES IT DO?)

1. Janis has integration with ManyChat and ChatFuel. This is super helpful in connecting AI, and neither ManyChat or ChatFuel had AI even though they dominated the market- Janis filled this gap by onboarding the user and helping them get connected.
2. Accelerate Time to Value: allows you to experience the benefit without spending ALL the time you normally would, so you can see improvement even at the beginning. (AKA immediate time to value.) This was possible because of pre-training!
3. Gives a foundation to build on so it’s easy to scale a business and customize for whatever niche you’re in- and THEN they even have live training.

There are so many options out there for your business, not just Janis. Understanding the best Marketing Tool for your company (when you’re ready) is a super important step for turning on autopilot! Check out this list of tools you might be able to use!