Here are some tools that you might consider using in order to automate your email marketing efforts. Remember the famous adage: Automate everything you can, then delegate the rest.
Doing so will save you time and money.
- CRM (Customer Relationship Management) — A CRM allows you to manage leads, contact prospects, and even coordinate sales processes. If you’re new to email marketing, then you probably don’t need a CRM (an adaptable ESP will do the trick). But if you want more advanced sales and email marketing automations, you’re going to want a CRM’s help. Consider using HubSpot or Salesforce, two of the best CRMs around.
- Adaptable ESP — Not all ESPs are created equal. Most high-quality ESPs will let a beginning email marketer automate everything they could possibly want to automate (if you’re advanced, you’ll want some of the additional tools mentioned in this list). But some ESPs won’t allow you to automate as many things as you’ll want to automate down the road. So make sure you look at your ESP’s capabilities, integrations, and services before you pay any money or build a massive list on it. That said, don’t overthink it — most reputable ESPs will give a beginning email marketer all the automation potential they need (and you can always switch services once your list grows if need be). Mailchimp and Klaviyo are a couple of our favorites.
- Cross-Channel Marketing Software — As your email list grows, you have drip sequences going out to different segments, you’re running Facebook Ads, you’re building multiple organic social media followings, and running Google Ads… all at the same time. Quickly, those different marketing channels and automations become too complicated for any one person to manage. Which is why you might consider getting cross-channel marketing software to give you a hand. With software like Keap (better known as Infusionsoft), for example, you can create drip sequences that involve multiple marketing channels and build a more seamless subscriber and customer experience.
- Hub For Connecting Different Marketing Tools — Similar to the benefits of having cross-channel marketing software, but equally important for advanced email marketers, is having a hub where all the data from different marketing channels live. And the hub you choose should automatically pull from your marketing reports (that is, you shouldn’t have to enter any data manually). This will make your life a whole lot easier when you’re trying to determine which channels are performing the best, which ones are slacking, and which ones require further testing. Consider using Keap or Zoho (both extremely powerful tools).
- Project Management Software — Your external marketing efforts aren’t the only thing you should try to automate. The more that you can automate your internal processes and work-flows (or at least, systematize them), the more efficient and effective all of your marketing efforts will be. Consider using a tool like Asana or Trello (or any of the CRMs mentioned above) to manage your internal processes and automate internal accountability.