Business Development for Startups (Part 3)

Businesses need a flow that allows new customers to come regularly to increase profit performance. However, sometimes the role of the marketing team is already preoccupied with serving prospective customers who have been in the spotlight before, or consumers who have already subscribed so that their relationship must be fostered. For that we need an effective way to explore new potential customers.

Along with the development of the marketing world, the concept of "Marketing Automation" (or marketing automation) is now known, a sub-marketing activity that helps businesses utilize tools and technology to create effective programs. With specialized software, marketers can prioritize and carry out their tasks more effectively and efficiently. The main goal of marketing automation is to convert and transact business leads that are presented through website traffic, email interactions, and other channels.

The old way of doing it – whether digital or traditional – is that marketers usually do mass distribution of information about a product or service, for example through email campaigns or distributing brochures. However, there are some risks that may occur, for example, the targeted contact is not someone who is interested in the product being offered. Less effective for now, so enhanced with marketing automation.

The thing that needs to be underlined is that this marketing automation does not abandon the tools that were previously used, it just fixes the process that is carried out. For example, in an email marketing process, the flow could be like this:

The main mission of this activity is to make a more personal relationship with potential customers. The easiest way to validate is to imagine when you are a consumer, what kind of information you prefer to receive when you are offered a new product.

The above method is the basis of marketing automation, to allow marketing to target relevant contacts and deliver content based on their behavior. So marketing automation is about nurturing consumers, not "roughly" making sales.

Setting up marketing automation

Understanding who is in the contacts database is also one of the challenges for marketers. At startup, these contacts are usually mixed, collected from various sources. There is no more effective way to get started than grouping according to certain characteristics. In more depth, marketers still have to segment customer segments, generally based on personas and life cycle.

Personas are defined to find out the differences between these consumer groups. Generally obtained through marketing or sales activities. Personas usually define such as industry landscape, company size, location and other details. Whereas life cycle refers to the buying process carried out by the consumer. This process is only the earliest stage for marketing automation.

After getting the contact database grouping, there are several things that can be done. The first is to dotarget e-mail content", sending each customer segment with interesting email content. Some of the suggestions are relevant blog posts, offers that focus on consumer issues, to offers of free consultations. Both can do "target website content", leading potential consumers to the site with the lure of content, for example resources in the form of white paper or other promotional needs.

From the two activities above, interaction was obtained, then to invite prospective targets to explore the potential use of the product, conduct a campaign that involves them more deeply. One of the effective ways that can be done today is to organize webinars – online sessions to conduct consultations, presentations, and product demonstrations. Or even hold a face-to-face meeting with prospective prospective customers, and carry out various campaigns that if they also provide benefits in the form of general knowledge and products.

The marketing automation process will occur here. So that the process can be concluded: leading the target in the right way, then bringing it deeper into understanding the product or service you want to sell. Everything is done collectively, but it is possible that there must be follow up form 1-to-1 marketing for special needs.

- See also:

• Business Development for Startups (Part 1): The scope of business development.
• Business Development for Startups (Part 2): Marketing activities for business.