Chances are, as a business professional, you’ve become a multitasking master. Maybe you put dinner in the oven while you get work done in the evenings, walk the dog as your daily exercise, or listen to an audiobook on your commute to work. Your marketing strategies can function in a similar way with automation tools, which help save you time and keep your digital marketing outreach consistent. On average, marketing automation drives a 14.5% increase in sales productivity and a 12.2% reduction in marketing overhead.
Need more convincing? Check out just a few marketing automation statistics:
- 67% of Marketing Leaders currently use a marketing automation platform. – Salesforce “State of Marketing” (2017)
- Spending on marketing automation tools will grow to $25.1 billion annually by 2023 from $11.4 billion in 2017. – Forrester “Marketing Automation Technology Forecast, 2017 to 2023” (2018)
- Almost 40 % of those not yet using marketing automation are going to invest in it in the next 12 months. Only a tenth of the respondents don’t plan to invest in marketing automation within the next 12 months. – Liana “The Benefits and Challenges of Marketing Automation” (2017)
The first thing you should consider when laying out a marketing automation schedule is what content can be automated. Remember: one of the key aspects of social media is that it’s just that- social! Social automation is not a “set it and forget it” structure. It may alleviate some of the pressure you feel to post every day, but you should check up on how your strategy is playing for your audience regularly. Some common topics that work great on an automation schedule may include:
- Personal posts (quotes of the day, holiday well wishes)
- Evergreen content
- Curated content from other sources
- Regular tweets and Facebook posts
Once you have your automated content, you need to decide how often you will post this content. There are no absolute rules about how often to post on social media because every practice is different, but service professionals often find it helpful to follow the “5-3-2” rule of social sharing. For every ten posts on a social media platform, five of them should be curated content from other sources, three should be interesting pieces that are unique to your firm, and two should be personal posts.
You’ve got the “what” and “when” of social media automation, but what about “how”? There are many different ways to answer this question, and service professionals will need to find the tools that work best for them. For example, FMG Suite offers automation tools, including social media content, email campaigns, and the use of our content library that continually refreshes on our clients’ websites.
You’ve mastered the speakerphone calls while brushing your teeth and the one-handed cooking while helping with homework. Isn’t it time that you mastered multitasking in the world of digital marketing? Automation is the answer to help save you time and keep your social posts consistent.
