If you haven't heard of marketing automation, you probably don't actively market your business.

Marketing automation typically consists of software and technologies that allow marketers to automate repetitive tasks through a variety of channels such as social media, websites, and email.

Many marketers opt to use MailChimp for their marketing efforts, and rightfully so! MailChimp offers great tools including list and audience management, social media integration, data driven insights, and marketing automation. The last of which will be the tool we're focusing on today.

According to Software Advice's Marketing Automation Buyer Report, 85% of manufacturers cited the need to nurture leads due to a relatively long sales cycle associated with their product. 

You may believe that your inbound marketing tactics will be over at lead generation --  but, you're wrong. In order to carry out a lead during the marketing funnel process, you need to nurture it. Lead nurturing is a vital role for all inbound marketers in order to gain valuable and sustainable relationships.

Manufacturing has a long buying cycle -- which is why lead nurturing is especially essential for this industry. B2B companies should be making consistent contact with prospects at all stages of the buying cycle to receive all of the awesome benefits of lead nurturing.

Before you start writing blogs, before you even start an inbound marketing campaign, you need to know who your audience is and how to talk to them. If you’re not truly speaking to them, you may as well be talking with a mouthful of crackers.

Hey Sales and Marketing Professionals!

We all want more leads through our website, but ultimately, we want those leads to be customers.

According to HubSpot, lead nurturing can produce 50% more sales-ready leads, at 33% lower cost! That sounds to me like a winning strategy!

In this video, we’ll layout how lead nurturing fits into your online marketing plan, and even show some examples.

Marketing automation is fantastic (if done right). It helps turn your leads into revenue and helps time-strapped small businesses use their marketing more effectively.

Are you still teetering on whether or not you are going to use marketing automation? Here are some interesting things (you may not already know):

Think back to your teens and early twenties, when you were paddling around in the dating pool. There were some real weirdos in there, right? (Maybe you were one of them.) 

What Is Lead Scoring?

Lead scoring is a method of prioritizing leads - usually by their level of interest in your product and how good a fit they are for your company - to maximize the use of your sales and marketing resources.

In other words, lead scoring keeps you from wasting your time and money on leads who aren't likely to make a purchase.

Having a small marketing team (or even a non-existent one) doesn't mean that you cannot be successful with marketing. With proper planning and implementation, small to medium enterprises (SMEs) can destroy their competition, especially online. When trying to make your small marketing team efficient and EFFECTIVE, start with these 3 tips.

Content marketing cannot be something you do for 3 months and then forget about it. A proper content marketing strategy WILL be successful, but it must be ongoing. Here are 10 tips to maintain an ongoing content marketing strategy.

Do you frequently generate leads through your website? If not, you may be struggling with one of many potential roadblocks to lead generation online. That is, assuming you are driving the right traffic to your site in the first place!