All businesses could benefit from automation, and small businesses are no different. Marketing automation tools can be especially useful for small businesses, as they can both save you precious time and help you scale. But, apart from big business, choosing marketing automation software for small businesses may be difficult.
If you choose wisely, a marketing automation platform can help attract customers, as well as cultivate old relationships. Choose poorly and you could be wasting money on software you won’t use.
Keep reading to find the best marketing automation software for small businesses that you can use, and learn how to use these marketing tools to the height of their abilities.
MailChimp
MailChimp features many tools for marketing and commerce, creating a sort of “all-in-one” platform. It includes features for audience management, analytics, and other creative marketing automation tools.
MailChimp has been a dominant player in email marketing for quite a while now, and they’re constantly adding new features that further cement their place. You can have turnkey e-commerce, embedded customer relationship management (CRM), and better automation, all great new features from MailChimp. With all these new features, you may think that MailChimp would be unrecognizable to long-time users, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. MailChimp has kept all of its new features familiar within an intuitive and user-friendly framework.
If you want your marketing strategy to grow with your company, MailChimp is for you. With the continuous growth of its expanded features, MailChimp offers new ideas and automation tools for your business.
Tailwind
Tailwind includes Instagram and Pinterest scheduling tools to help you schedule your content before posting.
This social media marketing assistant helps with scheduling, designing, and analyzing social media posts. You can even learn more about caption creation or writing posts from the Talwindapp website.
Tailwind will also give hashtag suggestions for Instagram, which further increases lead generation. You can even use Tailwind to analyze your successful posts to help improve your future posts.
Last of all, Tailwind offers “power-up” features to further improve your marketing efforts. For example, the SmartLoop Power-Up lets you reshare posts, which could include resharing your seasonal posts when needed.
Keyhole
Keyhole is one of the easiest social media analytics tools for automating report generation. Users can add profiles across multiple social media platforms to the tool and gather vital analytics around those. Moreover, the platform also offers features for influencer management where small businesses can add profiles of their onboarded influencers and measure their performances.
Keyhole is a great fit for competitive analysis as well. You can compare your presence on social media against your followers and bridge the gap in your marketing strategy. If you are running any marketing campaign, Keyhole can aid in tracking hashtags, keywords, and specific events in one place too.
Last but not least, Keyhole is the ultimate tool for automating your monthly marketing reports. Instead of managing spreadsheets, you can share live dashboards with teammates and clients or download presentable reports in PDF or XLS format. Saving hours of manual digging, Keyhole is best suited for small businesses for social media automation indeed.
SeedProd
SeedProd can be useful to use your marketing automation solutions consistently, even before you launch your site. Using SeedProd, you can collect leads for your marketing and sales team while building your site. This helps you catch possible missed opportunities when starting up.
You can also use SeedProd to help improve your landing pages, or design eye-catching calls to action. And of course, you can also use SeedProd when automating webinar signups, newsletter subscriptions, product sales, eBook downloads, and much more.
SeedProd also helps build urgency with your clients through opt-in forms and countdown timers. This can help improve your customer relationship management.
NotifyVisitors
As businesses continue to navigate the online landscape, it has become increasingly important to identify effective ways to engage with visitors and convert them into customers. Enter NotifyVisitors, a leading marketing automation software designed to streamline the customer journey and increase conversions.
With NotifyVisitors, businesses can easily personalize their communication channels and create targeted campaigns that resonate with their audience. From email marketing to push notifications and web pop-ups, NotifyVisitors offers a wide range of tools to boost customer interactions and engagement.
With robust analytics and reporting features, businesses can track the performance of their campaigns and make data-driven decisions for continuous improvement.
In today’s digital age, NotifyVisitors is a valuable tool for businesses looking to enhance their marketing efforts and grow their online presence.
Klaviyo
Klaviyo is one of the best email marketing automation tools on the market. It is designed specifically to drive sales using relevant and targeted messages through Facebook, Instagram and—you guessed it—email. Klaviyo includes multiple features, such as segmentation, web tracking, autoresponders, automated email flows, AB testing, reporting, email content creation, and much more.
Klaviyo also tracks the important data you need from whichever e-commerce platform your company uses. Due to its integrations with big platforms like BigCommerce, Magento and Shopify, you don’t need to worry about losing data anywhere. Klaviyo also uses a flexible pricing model, which lets you pay for the tools that you want to use, for no unnecessary costs.
OptinMonster
For marketing automation systems to be successful, they need people to talk to. You need subscribers to keep those systems busy, and OptinMonster is great at finding subscribers.
OptinMonster uses an easy drag-and-drop builder system that can send multiple campaign types in just a few clicks. You have the option to start with pre-built campaign types, or you can freeball them with your style. It’s your choice.
OptinMonster can also help you design eye-catching landing pages, lightboxes, and pop-ups to catch leads quickly. From there, you can use WPForms blocks to embed custom newsletter signup forms to capture those leads for good. Additionally, you can use their great ChatBot to turn those leads into customers.
Finally, you can also segment leads and customers into the right campaign using OptinMonster’s behavior personalization features. Then you can just sit back and watch the numbers rise.
Zapier
Zapier is a connection tool that lets you combine other apps, and its range is incredible. It can be a great way to move your content from one location to another. As an example, you could “Zap” together to apps to automatically create new stories whenever you publish posts in WordPress.
You can also automate many other tasks using Zapier. A couple of examples are
- adding new leads to spreadsheets or databases and
- creating Trello cards when new WooCommerce orders arrive.
Keap
Keap is a great marketing automation software for small businesses that specializes in CRM. They use marketing software to help small and midsize businesses convert leads using automated personalized follow-up messages. This feature helps to capture lead behavior as well as increase future engagement.
Keap’s marketing campaign builder is great for several reasons. For one, it’s ideal for building email message sequences. Keap also lets you set rules for how the automation acts based on how the client acts or other triggers. This is great for follow-up messages, as it increases the utility of automation.
Keap’s marketing automation features also can integrate with many third-party apps. This allows you to work at marketing from multiple angles, as well as increase sales opportunities.
Outfunnel
Outfunnel is an email marketing automation tool, but its uses go way past that of an email marketing tool. When you connect Outfunnel’s email data to marketing, sales, and CRM, that data can be used for any number of purposes.
Outfunnel has many useful features. First of all, Outfunnel collects data from CRM systems and email analytics. From there it will perform lead scoring using this dataset, and then display or possibly integrate the scores into CRM actions. Either way, the information can prove useful.
Outfunnel also lets you sync CRM data to email marketing. This allows your CRM contact lists to seamlessly connect to your email campaigns from CRM-defined segments.
Advanced Coupons
Advanced Coupons is a WooCommerce coupon plugin that focuses on automating your online deals. You can set conditions or criteria for your coupons so that customers will be automatically eligible for coupons when necessary.
These coupons can be scheduled for convenient times and auto-applied to a shopper’s online cart. This is a very useful feature, as it can both speed up the coupon process and encourage shoppers to complete their purchases.
You can also use Advanced Coupons to add loyalty programs, create BOGO deals, offer URL coupons, and a lot more.
HubSpot Marketing
HubSpot Marketing is an automation software that has many facets. Marketing, sales, services: just a few of the powerful resources you can find from Hubspot. They also offer courses and certifications to help you learn the ins and outs of marketing automation.
Hubspot has many advanced tools that can give you information about your customers’ journeys in real time. Using these features, you can both track the behavior of website visitors and follow up with personalized emails with discounts and offers.
But that’s not all; you can automate many other tasks with Hubspot. Here are some examples:
- Score leads
- Rotate leads to sales
- Use workflows to set up webhooks
- Trigger internal notifications when contacts take important actions
Drip
Drip is a marketing automation tool specifically for eCommerce websites. It lets you automate your marketing campaigns for each step of your customer’s journey.
Drip also has many customer relationship management features for online shops and businesses. Using Drip, you can collect customer data to create a marketing strategy that works.
If you own an eCommerce store, Drip can be a great way to increase sales and grow your business.
Campaign Monitor
Although there are many email marketing platforms, Campaign Monitor distinguishes itself through its ease of use and quick-moving features. The platform also performs well for multifaceted marketing campaigns, as it can also automate the tracking process for customer data. As for the platform’s design, there are many additional design features. For example, there are drag-and-drop graphic features and an easy-to-access stock image library.
Although Campaign Monitor can be a bit pricey, their alternate price ranges can make the purchasing process a little easier.
Smash Balloon
Smash Balloon is a combination of four different WordPress plugins that add social feeds to your website. They also have useful integrations to apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, so that no part of your social media marketing is left out.
Smash Balloon has great customization features for the entirety of the plugin. Do you have some posts you want, and others left on your feed? Smash Balloon can filter whichever you choose using hashtags, post types, and more.
Smash Balloon even has social share and follow buttons that you can display on your website. This can be an important feature for small businesses that need more traction with social media subscribers or lead engagement.
SendX
SendX is an email marketing software that is both affordable and intuitive. Its objective is to solve problems for small business owners, and they accomplish it well. Here are some of their most notable features.
- Email Templates
The free version of SendX includes over 50 free templates, which is a sizable amount for costing nothing. On the other hand, the premium version of SendX includes one of the largest collections of email templates on the web, with a whopping 1,500+ templates.
- Ability to send Unlimited Emails
Unlike many email service providers on the market, SendX does not limit the number of emails you can send in any way. Using SendX, you can grow your email marketing with your business.
- User-Friendly Email Editor
SendX uses a simple-to-use WYSIWYG draft-and-drop email editor. Although the title is a mouthful, you can go into this editor without any HTML coding skills and do an exceptional job.
GetResponse
GetResponse is an user-friendly marketing software platform that’s designed to give you the tools you need to create content, generate sales, and improve traffic. Whether you are an entrepreneur, an online marketer, a marketing manager, or a business owner, GetResponse can work for you.
GetResponse is very versatile. It has always been a great marketing software platform, but now with its improved focus on e-commerce, it can become a powerhouse in the industry.
It also has some of the best marketing automation tools on the market, including:
- Pre-built workflows
- Email automation
- Contact segmentation
- Behavioral targeting
GetResponce has four separate pricing models—Basic, Plus, Professional, MAX, and a free trial for 30 days. These pricing models make GetResponse a viable option for companies of various budgets and sizes.
TrustPulse
TrustPulse is one of the best marketing automation software solutions available, as it builds trust and confidence with shoppers. It is a distinguished notification app that has proven to drive conversions by a significant percentage!
TrustPulse will automatically capture your website’s activity, such as recent sales or sign-ups. Then it creates discreet pop-ups to help showcase these sales or sign-ups, to be used as social proof.
These social proof pop-ups help add a FOMO (“Fear of Missing Out”) feeling, which will encourage customers to take action because they will see others doing the same.
TrustPulse also uses smart targeting features so that your social proof pop-ups appear to the right person at the right time.
Sendinblue
Sendinblue is a marketing and sales solution that gives you marketing opportunities through social media, live chat, email, and even text messages.
Sendinblue also has a great catalog of automation tools for small businesses, especially when communicating with your clients. Everything is automated to save you future time.
They also have an easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder which makes creating email campaigns a breeze. Last of all, if you are worried about your email deliverability, Sendinblue uses WP Mail SMTP to ease your mind.
Zoho Campaigns
Zoho Campaigns has many exceptional features. First, it is very simple, which means your staff can become acquainted with the platform quickly. Second, it’s low cost, so you can be sure it won’t break the bank. Last of all, it’s very useful, so you know it will get its job done.
Zoho Campaigns is also very well-rounded as a digital marketing and automation solution. This is largely due to their solid integrations of the entire Zoho suite of SMB solutions, but it is also partly due to their focus on small or midsize businesses.
Zoho Campaigns can be great for small businesses or startups with low budgets, as the core marketing automation functions can be very affordable to start. However, if you are looking for a more customizable marketing tool, you may want to choose something else.
Campaigner
Campaigner is an expansive email marketing solution with a competitive price, many third-party integrations, 24/7 live chat support, and a large number of automation options. It also has a refined and intuitive interface that stands out from the competition. Together it creates an attractive choice for small and midsize businesses, as well as one of the best email marketing segments on this list.
Campaigner’s biggest strength lies in its customizable workflows. Their customization options let users fine-tune their marketing efforts for exactly what they need.
FluentCRM
If you own a WordPress website, you’ll surely need to send emails and store users’ information. FluentCRM can help you with both. It is a self-hosted plugin that works as a CRM and email marketing automation tool. You can store unlimited data without worrying about paying extra, and on top of that, you get tons of features.
You can do everything from segmenting a large database based on users’ actions, behavior, purchase history, etc., to sending automated emails. Utilizing the automation funnel feature, you can set up as many funnels as you want. These funnels will deliver your email sequences if the funnel is triggered. You can also send unlimited emails and run email marketing campaigns effortlessly.
FluentCRM provides detailed reports and analytics on your email marketing campaigns and funnel performances. A/B testing the subject lines is also possible with this amazing plugin. And to get the most out of FluentCRM, you can integrate it with many popular plugins for free. Woocommerce, LearnDash, Memberpress, and LifterLMS, are some of them.
Now guess how much you need to spend for all of these? Well, you can get started with FluentCRM for free and enjoy most of the features. And FluentCRM Pro will cost you only $129/year.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign provides customer experience automation (CXA) to businesses across many industries. The platform also has other marketing automation capabilities for contact management and tracking, automated email follow-ups, custom fields, performance reports, and more.
Another useful feature that ActiveCampaign offers is “Single-View Automations.” There, you can see all your automation tasks in a single place, allowing you to instantly tweak systems without interrupting other workflows.
ActiveCampaign also offers Audience Segmentation. Much like EngageBay, ActiveCampaign lets you segment your audiences in order to understand them better. Your marketing teams can use that understanding to create a more personal and meaningful conversation with your customers. This can lead to improved personalization and higher engagement rates.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit is a very easy-to-use and quick-acting email marketing platform. It has many useful features for bloggers and creators, but it is also very popular with small businesses.
It offers email automation to save time every day. Whether it’s automated funnels or email scheduling, it can be easy to lose a lot of time with emails. Why not automate it with ConvertKit to save time?
ConvertKit also makes it easy to segment contacts from leads and existing customers, and then send applicable emails to each. And it makes this process simple with an easy-to-use email builder that creates sleek emails for all devices.
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is an amazing automation software vendor for many reasons. Not only is it beginner-friendly, but it also has a powerful group of tools to make your email marketing great.
Constant Contact lets you send emails depending on user behavior and actions on your website. This means you choose to segment your audiences so that the perfect message will arrive at the best possible time.
For example, you could send welcome emails on a visitor’s first entry, or send an email series to nurture new relationships. You could even send thank-you emails when they leave.
FAQs about marketing automation software for small business
1. What is marketing automation software and how does it work for small businesses?
A technology that assists organizations in automating their marketing activities is marketing automation software. Small firms can use it to automate repetitive marketing processes like lead scoring, social media posting, lead scoring, and customer segmentation.
The program uses pre-programmed triggers and actions to automatically send clients tailored messages depending on their activities or interests.
This frees up time and resources for small firms, allowing them to concentrate on other crucial areas of their operations.
2. What are the benefits of marketing automation software for small businesses?
Small firms can benefit from marketing automation software in a number of ways. Automating repetitive operations can boost productivity, save time, and cut costs.
Additionally, it can assist small businesses focus their marketing efforts on the correct clientele, boosting conversion rates and return on investment.
Additionally, it can offer insightful data about consumer behavior and preferences that can be used to enhance subsequent marketing plans.
3. What are the features to look for in marketing automation software for small businesses?
Email marketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring, CRM connection, social media management, and analytics are some of the important elements to look for in marketing automation software for small businesses.
There should be a variety of templates and automation procedures available, and the software should be user-friendly and adaptable. In order for small firms to readily update as their needs change, it should also be scalable.
4. How much does marketing automation software cost for small businesses?
Depending on the vendor, features, and size of the small business, marketing automation software prices change.
With monthly costs ranging from $50 to $500 or more and price plans based on the number of contacts or users, many suppliers are available. A free trial period or a freemium version of the program is also provided by some vendors.
5. Can marketing automation software be customized for the specific needs of small businesses?
Certainly, the needs of small organizations may be catered to through the customization of marketing automation software. A variety of customization options, including templates, workflows, and integrations, are typically provided by providers.
Also, small firms can engage with the service provider to develop personalized automation workflows and integrations to suit their particular requirements.
6. How does marketing automation software integrate with other tools and software used by small businesses?
CRM systems, social media networks, and e-commerce platforms are just a few of the various tools and applications that marketing automation software can link with.
This makes it possible for small businesses to centralize all of their client data and streamline their marketing initiatives.
Further features and capabilities that are not offered by the marketing automation software itself can be provided by integration with third-party tools and applications.
7. What level of technical expertise is required to use marketing automation software for small businesses?
The majority of marketing automation software has drag-and-drop editors, and pre-built templates, and is intuitive and user-friendly in design. However, setting up the software and integrating it with other tools and applications could need a certain level of technical know-how.
To make the most of the software, small businesses might need to collaborate with a consultant or the customer support staff of the vendor.
8. How does marketing automation software help small businesses streamline their marketing efforts?
By automating tedious procedures and offering a centralized platform for managing marketing campaigns, marketing automation software assists small firms in streamlining their marketing operations.
As a result, it takes less time and money to maintain various marketing channels like social media, emails and mass texting.
Additionally, the software offers insightful data about consumer behavior and preferences that may be used to enhance the next marketing plans.
9. What are some examples of successful small businesses that have implemented marketing automation software?
To enhance their marketing efforts, many small businesses have used marketing automation software with success.
A small e-commerce company, for instance, might utilize marketing automation software to send clients tailored email campaigns based on their browsing and purchase habits.
To nurture leads through a series of automated emails and give personalized content depending on their interests, a small B2B company may employ marketing automation software.
Another illustration is a small retail outlet that sends consumers individualized offers and incentives based on their purchasing patterns and preferences. This retailer employs marketing automation software.
10. How does marketing automation software help small businesses generate more leads and increase sales?
By enabling them to send focused and personalized communications to clients at the appropriate moment, marketing automation software aids small businesses in increasing sales and lead generation.
Businesses may identify prospects that are most likely to convert and offer them pertinent information to bring them further down the ecommerce conversion funnel by employing automated workflows and lead scoring.
Additionally, the software enables companies to watch and analyze consumer behavior and preferences, allowing them to refine their marketing initiatives and gradually increase conversion rates.
What Is the Best Marketing Automation Software for Small Businesses?
Choosing the right marketing automation software for your small business is not an easy task, but it is doable. With so many on the market, you will likely be able to find one that’s perfect for you. One with the right price range and the right configurations.
If you are still not sure which is best for you, take another look at the 22 extraordinary platforms in this list.
One last tip: Before you commit to a large contract, try to demo the software you are considering. Then you will be able to tell which interface or functions you need and be able to act with that information. Doing so will prove vital in choosing the best marketing automation software.
Trying to make “small business” in the key phrase sound a little more natural.
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