As a small business owner, you’re often tasked with managing marketing alongside running your business. Even if you do have a dedicated marketing team, it may be a small and nimble crew. You and your team know digital marketing is a cost-effective way to build brand awareness and connect with potential customers. However, effective digital marketing can be time-consuming.

Enter marketing automation tools. These digital platforms automate some of your more repetitive and tedious marketing tasks. The best marketing automation tools for small businesses enable you to execute your digital marketing strategy without sacrificing time you could be spending with customers. 

Check out these tools to make your life easier while reaping the benefits of digital marketing. 

Key Benefits of Marketing Automation

Marketing automation software refers to programs that enact certain marketing functions without you or a marketing team member having to trigger the action. For example, without marketing automation tools, you must manually assess every contact on your mailing list and assign them to a list segment based on predefined characteristics. 

While segmentation makes marketing messages more effective, it takes time to do it yourself. Marketing automation tools can analyze how contacts interact with your messages and automatically segment them into lists. 

Automation platforms handle everything from email to social media comment responses. Key features of marketing automation platforms include: 

• Social media automation
• Reporting automation
• Content marketing automation
• Customer relationship management (CRM) automation
• Ad campaign automation

Many digital marketing automation tools are starting to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities that analyze large datasets for stronger data. These tools allow you to personalize your digital marketing efforts more effectively to generate higher-quality leads and convert more customers. 

AI-powered tools can also give you deeper customer insights to guide your marketing strategies. You can choose the most effective digital marketing platforms and create messages that resonate with different audiences based on their preferences. Most importantly, you get digital marketing results without spending more time on each campaign. 

Essential Features To Look for in Automation Tools

When choosing the right marketing automation tools for your business, consider these features: 

• Automation capabilities: Look for a platform that automates multiple marketing mediums, such as SMS, email, and social media.
• Integration capabilities: Look for platforms that integrate with your existing software, such as social media management or CRM platforms, to simplify your digital transformation. 
• Personalization: Choose platforms with the ability to personalize content to customers at different stages of their journey with your brand. 
• Analytics and reporting: Decide your preferred level of analytics and reporting and choose platforms that offer the data analytics and reports you need to perfect your digital marketing strategy.
• Price considerations: Determine your budget before you start shopping for marketing automation platforms. Consider long-term costs, including subscriptions and tech support.

If you’re unsure where to begin, we break down the top 10 marketing automation tools, starting with those offering a full range of capabilities. 

All-in-One Marketing Automation Platforms

These marketing automation platforms have a full range of features to help you manage customer outreach and stay on top of digital marketing trends. 

• HubSpot is an all-in-one tool offering multiple automation solutions, email personalization, customer tracking, and lead scoring, among others. It lets you create personalized emails and dynamic content with a single tool. This user-friendly platform handles email outreach, generates leads, and manages client relationships. 
• Marketo is another full-service business-to-business marketing and CRM platform that lets you personalize messages for different channels. You can create landing pages and convert them to social media posts, manage leads, and track social media engagement. This tool is great for segmentations, personalized digital campaigns, and analytics. 
• Marketing Cloud Account Engagement — formerly Salesforce Pardot — automatically qualifies leads from forms, landing pages, social media posts, and other channels. It offers customizable templates and other tools to personalize outreach automatically. Use it to find and nurture leads. 
• Keap is a full-service marketing and automation platform customized to small businesses. It offers customizable email and text message templates, landing page builders, and automated outreach. Keap also offers other small business automations, such as invoicing and payment processing. Use this tool if you want to cut down on your tech portfolio. 

Email Marketing and Automation

If you only need a platform to manage email outreach, here are some of the best options:

• ActiveCampaign lets you automate your email and SMS outreach with a single tool. It features over 130 triggers that enable more precise personalized outreach based on where a lead falls in your pipeline. It also automatically sets appointments, follows up with leads, and recommends products. Use this tool if you’re looking for detailed segmentation and automation capabilities. 
• MailChimp started as an email marketing and CRM tool and gained popularity because of its user-friendly interface. The platform has evolved to include marketing automation capabilities, including email, retargeting messages, transaction updates, and more. MailChimp is flexible and easy to use, with templates that reduce the time you spend designing an email. Its Customer Journey feature lets you build automations based on your audience. Use this tool if you frequently engage with your customers through email and SMS messages. 
• GetResponse offers email messaging automations based on pre-defined customer sequences. If you often respond to hundreds of leads, this tool cuts back on the outreach and follow-up. You can design email responses with drag-and-drop tools or templates based on your goals. Choose specific triggers for your automated messages and use analytics to improve your open rates. This tool is an excellent option for businesses with robust contact lists. 

E-Commerce Marketing Automation

Digital marketing in e-commerce is unique, so a generic platform may not be the best tool for your business. These marketing automation tools meet the specific needs of e-commerce businesses: 

• Klaviyo offers omnichannel automation tools for email, SMS, mobile marketing, push notifications, reviews, and other digital channels. This tool lets you automate workflows to trigger customer messages on the right platform. For example, you can send an automated product review request after customers receive their merch. Use this tool to make customer communication consistent across digital channels. 
• Drip lets e-commerce companies personalize email outreach based on a customer’s interests, behavior, and purchase history. Its customizable templates cover multiple messaging strategies from flash sales to cart abandonment. It also lets you send retargeting messages based on how people interact with your social media. It is an affordable tool for smaller e-commerce businesses seeking to grow their email lists. 
• Omnisend is another e-commerce-specific marketing automation platform for personalizing outreach through email, text messages, and push notifications through your app. It also offers customizable analytics reports that help you tailor customer outreach based on previous campaign success. This platform is affordable and easy to use. 
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Choosing the Right Tool for Your Business Needs 

As a small business owner or marketer, you must balance your marketing needs with your budget. You might not need a full-service automation tool like HubSpot if you’re only interested in growing your email list. 

Optimize can help you choose the right platform for you based on specific analytics. Schedule a free consultation to learn more about our services and our Optimize HQ dashboard.