A bemused businessman once said:

I know half my marketing isn’t working, I just don’t know which half.

This guy tracked his marketing campaigns on paper.  He used pencils and erasers.  Clouds meant it was going to rain.  His idea of advanced business technology was:

Today you should know if your marketing is working – or if it isn’t.  You should know why.  You should have a plan to build off what’s effective and eliminate what isn’t.

And you should be able to see it all anytime you want on your PC, laptop, tablet, or phone.

You can’t accomplish this with lined paper or landline phones.

You need marketing software in the cloud, which offers you two huge benefits:

1. You have access to far more powerful tools than you would if you had to program and host them yourself.
2. You can use them on any device without time or location restrictions.

Accessing marketing software in the cloud isn’t just a small business advantage you can leverage – it’s a necessity you must use to keep up.

You might think your business is too small to need marketing software.  Here are 4 considerations that will change your mind.

 

#1.  Marketing Software is Cheap

Many small business owners think marketing software is too expensive for them to get ROI.

But the cloud – with its infinite scalability – makes software access cheap.  You don’t buy marketing software on discs and download them, paying licensing fees for each user.

You (and everyone who wants to) access software in the cloud without restrictions.  There are no bottlenecks, no scarcity.

At Marketing 360®, your business (meaning everyone at your business) can use our cloud-based, marketing software for less than it used to cost for a quarter page ad in the Yellow Pages.   Get started with our CRM software.

Technology’s powerful efficiencies have reduced costs so that any business can afford these tools.

What you can’t afford to do is not use them and plan marketing meetings with pencils:

 

#2.   Marketing Software Focuses Data

You might be thinking:  Ya, I get this.  I access all my marketing data on the software that comes with each platform. 

True.  Facebook has its own analytical platform.  So does Google, Bing, Yahoo, Twitter, Youtube, Snapchat, WordPress…everything online comes with analytical tools.

This abundance is actually the problem.  There’s so much data available on so many platforms, small businesses can’t put it together into a complete picture.  People are now saying I know three-sevenths of my marketing isn’t working, I just don’t know which three-sevenths.

Marketing 360® solves this problem by pulling data from all these platforms and making it available in one place.  Instead of having to access more than a dozen platforms, your data comes together:

Say you have a team of five people who need to discuss your marketing.  Two of them work remotely.  How are you going to view, discuss, and analyze your marketing from multiple platforms with different reporting methods?

Marketing software is a logistical tool.  It brings data and people together at a focal point in the cloud.

 

#3.  Marketing Software Provides Automation

Do you enjoy typing emails into every campaign you need to send out?  Do you want to manually make every touch with leads in your marketing funnel?  Do you love to input data across multiple platforms for the same client?

Of course you don’t.  This is another huge advantage of marketing software:  it automates steps in your funnel and updates the system automatically.

This is effective for top of funnel lead generation where you use informational content to educate leads and get them familiar with your brand.  Use newsletters, white papers, videos, social media posts, and more in a series of touches automatically sent in sequence.  And the software updates your records so you know who’s gotten what.

With marketing automation, all you have to do is capture an email and scheduled content is sent automatically.  You get them ready for a sales pitch – with literally no effort.

As you build up contacts, you create a consistent brand experience without having to scale up your workforce.  Automation alone provides huge ROI on software for most businesses.

 

#4.  Marketing Software Brings Goals, Strategy, Tactics, and Execution Together

Most small businesses have relatively straightforward goals for their marketing:  generate sales or new leads.

The strategy level starts to diversify efforts.  In some cases you’re going for brand awareness, in others you’re going right for direct-response.

As you plan tactics, you’re working on multiple levels that overlap.  On Facebook you want to create awareness and get people into the top of your sales funnel.  You drive them to your website so you can increase your retargeting ad list.  Or you use SEO to get people doing informational searches to your blog.  Your conversion goal is your email newsletter sign up, but you also use RSLA ads so you can hit them when they do follow-up searches.

Then there is the execution of each tactic.  How do you assign work, and to who?  Who has ownership and plans follow-up?

Last, how do you reverse-engineer your process so that the execution ties back into your original strategy?

Two words:  marketing software.

The cloud may sound nebulous and disconnected, but software in the cloud is anything but.  When you centralize your process and connect your people via one platform, you seal many of the leaks that turn marketing into a series of haphazard guesses.

With properly set-up tracking, you can create goals and follow them through to execution.  You’ll look at the process in reverse so you can identify problem areas.

It’s a tenet of marketing:  do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.  With digital, you need to track activity and results so you can discern what’s effective.

It’s not enough to track data.  You need to be able to view that data across the marketing spectrum, from initial goals to final execution.  With digital marketing, this isn’t possible without software designed for that purpose.

We often discuss how much more complex small business marketing is in the digital age.  There certainly are more channels than there were 30 years ago.

Marketing software simplifies things and condenses them into data sets you can understand.

Marketing 360®:  Software and Service Provider

Marketing 360® offers something additional for those who still feel a bit mystified by the “cloud”:

Melea is part of the team of people who support our software, which is why we have a software and service hybrid solution.

The internet cloud is impressive, but ultimately marketing must be brought back to Earth – and the needs of human beings.

Internet technology continues to grow with machine learning, but it’s a long way from being able to develop a creative, effective strategy for a specific business.

Furthermore, there is still a lot of execution people must do.  Your creatives require the creativity of people.  The best copy has the imagination and humor of a human voice.   Robots don’t shoot video – yet.

If your last fear about marketing in the cloud is that you’ll get stranded out there, then Marketing 360® is for you.  When we say we’ll lend a hand, it’s flesh and blood.  We don’t automate customer service, we pick up the phone and talk you.

Combine human talent with powerful software and you’ve got a winner.  When you get your marketing dialed in, you’ll plug into cloud nine.