Here are three things I know every agency owner wants. 1) A shortcut to landing new clients. 2) A way to prove ROI for their clients’ marketing budgets. 3) A way to automate tasks around data that allow them to guide their clients in the right direction faster and more accurately. The good news is – we can get all of that from marketing automation. If we use it wisely and well.

Agencies are constantly working to find ways to help their clients attract right-fit prospects, stay relevant to them during their buyer’s journey, and shorten the entire sales cycle. We have many tools at our disposal to accomplish those goals and a sophisticated marketing automation system is certainly one of them. Many agencies have barely scratched the surface of what marketing automation can do for their own agency and for their clients.

When we don’t delve into the power of marketing automation, we’re relying on email marketing circa 2000. But in this era of clients demanding ROI stats for their marketing spend, we are missing out on what can be a very compelling tool that can drive revenue for both our clients and our agency! In fact, my guest, Rick Carlson suggests that marketing automation is an outdated moniker for the tool. He believes we should call them revenue growth systems.

Rick is the founder and CEO of SharpSpring and has seen how a marketing automation system can transform the way you connect and communicate with your leads and clients. In this episode of Build a Better Agency, Rick explains how using your marketing automation system to its full extent can enable agency owners to multiply their efforts, expand their communication, and build deep meaningful relationships as they build their agency.

A big thank you to our podcast’s presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They’re an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

A marketing automation system can help agencies shorten the sales cycle and strengthen their client relationships. Learn how to use them in your agency with insights from Rick Carlson about:

• How to think about the tools in a marketing automation system through a different lens
• Stand apart by having true one-to-one conversations at scale
• Best practices for using marketing automation to generate leads
• How agencies can create effective landing pages that align with their marketing goals
• How agencies can communicate with their audience without burning them out
• Different ways agencies can use marketing automation to bridge the gap between their marketing and sales teams
• How agencies are leaving money on the table by not using their marketing automation system to its full potential

“Agencies have been called upon to help their clients fortify relationships with their existing customers, and they have been called upon to shorten the sales cycle. I think marketing automation tools play a role in both of those things.” @sharpspringCLICK TO TWEET“As marketers, the opportunities to spend money on leads are endless. But a disproportionate amount of time is spent on lead generation instead of nurturing the leads we’ve landed.” @sharpspringCLICK TO TWEET“The key to nurturing leads with a marketing automation system is truly knowing your customers’ business so you can apply the tools properly.” @sharpspringCLICK TO TWEET“A marketing automation system is about having a one-on-one conversation with your prospects at scale based on each individual’s interests.” @sharpspringCLICK TO TWEET“Marketing automation is an antiquated term. These tools are revenue growth platforms, and so many of them are geared towards the sales process as well.” @sharpspringCLICK TO TWEET

Ways to contact Rick Carlson:

• Demo: https://sharpspring.com/ami/
• Agency Acceleration Series: https://sharpspring.com/agency-acceleration-series/
• Website: https://sharpspring.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickcarlson/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sharpspring/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SharpSpringInc/
• Twitter: @sharpspring

Tools & Resources:

• Sell with Authority (buy Drew’s book)
• Podcast Giveaway
• Facebook Group for the Build a Better Agency Podcast
• Agency Edge Research Series