Top Marketing Automation Platforms for Your Small Business

Marketing automation is hot. All the notable reasons for this from three years ago still remain: limited human error, nearly infinite scalability, and the opportunity to get your message out without someone always manning the controls. Marketers are continuing to take note.

In a Spear Marketing Group survey, B2B marketers were asked which marketing technologies were important to them. The results:

Source: eMarketer.com

Content marketing was king for both now and in the future, but look down the list at marketing automation: No. 4 currently and No. 2 in the future. As we know, it’s hard to effectively manage your content marketing efforts without a marketing automation platform.

If you’re a small business, though, this presents a challenge. You need marketing automation, but you can’t throw cartoonish bags of gold at it—at least not yet. What are your different options? What are the pros and cons? Let’s take a look.

GetResponse

Billed as “the world’s easiest email marketing platform” with 350,000 subscribers in 182 countries, GetResponse began as primarily an email marketing platform. Now it’s an all-in-one online marketing solution for small businesses. It has an amazing ease of use, which provides an advantage over bigger names like HubSpot and Marketo—those platforms require a full-time CRM manager, and GetResponse does not.

GetResponse also has tons of tools under one roof: It has a landing page builder, email marketing, an auto-responder, and a webinar tool. Plus, it’s better-priced than its competitors. Among the limited cons: There is a limited range of newsletter templates, and sometimes the user interface can feel clunky.

Marketo

Marketo’s current slogan appears to be “If you’re going to play, play to win.” This platform offers a vast range of features and analytics, and the A/B testing and overall interface are really easy to use—those are pros, but there are cons as well. The naming conventions in Marketo are more confusing than any other automation suite, and it is extremely “Salesforce-centric.” If your sales team is on a different CRM, using Marketo poses a challenge.

SharpSpring

When it comes to setting up automation within your business, it’s important to find a solution that can seamlessly integrate with your existing applications and business tools. This is what SharpSpring says makes it stand out from the competition.

With a powerful dashboard and marketing solution in place, it allows for businesses and brands of all sizes to zone in on their target audience and provide them with the best messaging or engagement required. Analytics provided through SharpSpring make it possible for businesses to track and analyze their audience and engagement on all levels. SharpSpring also boasts that it offers a more affordable solution over competing services.

Act-On

Billed as “marketing automation for fast-growing businesses,” Act-On offers excellent customer support in terms of training, basic tips, and strategy development. Its pricing structure can be on the high side—$2,000/month for the more advanced Enterprise Plan with 10,000 active contacts and six marketing users—and some users feel the reports are static. Act-On’s superior training and customer service, however, may help to alleviate those concerns.

Infusionsoft

Infusionsoft has strong all-in-one functionality which allows you to track behaviors, actions, and purchases all in the same system. It also has a strong learning curve for responsive email marketing, whereby if customers do “X action” on your website, they subsequently will receive “Y email.” Infusionsoft is generally more expensive than other marketing automation options for small businesses, though, and oftentimes the lead tracking can be spottier than similar platforms.

HubSpot

If you stumbled upon this article as a SMB founder and have never even heard of the idea of marketing automation, the name you probably have some context for is HubSpot. HubSpot is typically thought of as the big name on the block in this space. It has strong training programs and its certifications are respected in most of the marketing industry.

The HubSpot platform is generally very easy to use and learn, although as new integrations are added, that may adjust a little bit. Its major drawback is a steep price creep—as your lists and contacts grow, so do your charges (and more rapidly than you might think). This works well for enterprise or established companies (or can), but it creates a challenge for SMBs. Additionally, while the personas are very strong in HubSpot, A/B testing is only available at higher price points. 

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Salesforce is best known as a CRM, but it does offer an email marketing automation suite. Because of its power as a CRM, one of the best functionalities is “cross-channel journeys,” where you can craft customer journey experiences from email to social to ads to your website. The problem is that Salesforce is an enterprise-grade product, and the Marketing Cloud is no different—the levels of complexity make it hard to manage for most resource-strapped SMBs. Additionally, Salesforce is designed around account-based marketing, reaching out to several decision-makers, while SMB marketing is often designed around marketing to individuals.

Overall

If you’re an SMB looking to scale, you will need an all-in-one online marketing solution/automation suite. Each of the above, as noted, have pros and cons. Hubspot and Salesforce are probably the most well-known of this group, so resources and tips are easier to come by (because the user base for the products is higher). Act-On has excellent customer service, and InfusionSoft has great all-in-one functionality, but those two platforms can get expensive for SMBs (as can HubSpot and Salesforce). Marketo offers a great range of features, but unless you’re using Salesforce as your CRM, the value for your money might not be there. GetResponse might be the best play for a small business. The value is high relative to price, and the ability to create landing pages within the automation suite is something most of the other major players on the market don’t currently offer. 

The post Top Marketing Automation Platforms for Your Small Business appeared first on AllBusiness.com

The post Top Marketing Automation Platforms for Your Small Business appeared first on AllBusiness.com. Click for more information about Zac Johnson.

from neb biz feed 1 http://ift.tt/2jKNNOr
via Nebula Biz Local Loans