25 Things Every Small Business Should Automate

25 Things Every Small Business Should Automate

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Big businesses seem to be on top of it all. They respond to requests for information immediately. They retrieve your lost password, remind you about your next appointment and give you a nudge when you leave something in your shopping cart. They even manage to wish you a happy birthday.

The secret to their success isn’t necessarily in their size, but in the technology they use: sales and marketing automation software. By automating tasks and processes, companies benefit from less manual work, more leads and better customer engagement—all of which translates to increased sales.

The best part: You don’t have to be Amazon to take advantage of automation. Small business owners can automate many aspects of their operations—at least 25 of them, in fact. Our free e-book, 25 Things Every Small Business Should Automate, explains how it’s done.

Six Areas to Automate

In the e-book, we cover how automation can help you gain and retain leads, organize your sales process, make the most of e-commerce, provide great customer service, promote events and complete routine office tasks.

Here’s a preview of the 25 things small businesses should automate, divided into six main categories.

1. Leads

  • Respond quickly to email contact requests
  • Assign leads to a sales representative
  • Get in touch with every customer whose call you miss
  • Follow up with new networking connections on the fly
  • Capture leads by offering free content

2. Sales

  • Set a framework for your sales pipeline
  • Use lead scoring to focus on your hottest leads
  • Stay engaged with prospects through lead nurturing
  • Welcome a new customer

3. E-commerce

  • Generate recurring revenue
  • Follow up on abandoned shopping carts
  • Stay on top of failed billing charges

4. Customer service and engagement

  • Ensure customers receive help when they ask for it
  • Send appointment reminders
  • Gauge customer satisfaction with surveys
  • Ask customers for referrals
  • Clean up your email list to lower your spam risk
  • Retrieve lost passwords
  • Remember customer birthdays
  • Gain social media followers

5. Events

  • Automate the event registration process
  • Promote Facebook events

6. Office management

  • Make repetitive tasks more efficient
  • Send and receive documents
  • Collect job applications