Stop Wasting Money on Marketing Automation You Don't Need! | Small Business #Marketing Tips

Far too many smaller businesses over-invest in marketing automation tools. They spend way too much time getting their head around how to use the tool and how best to implement it. Whether they admit to it or not, many business owners and marketers invest in marketing tools because they think the tool is going to fix a bad strategy or a lousy product. The fact is, the majority of small businesses don't actually need marketing automation tools at all. Most would be far better served by taking the time to understand their customers. Instead of looking what marketing tools to invest in, let's turn the question on its head. What are the things most valuable for a marketer? Number one by far has to be customer insights, actually going out and speaking with customers, and not just happy customers, but unhappy ones, and not just unhappy ones, but people who didn't become customers in the first place. Ask them the right questions and they'll tell you the outcomes they expect, so you know what you need to do. Questions like: How do they want to buy? Who are the people they trust when they're making buying decisions? What channels do they consume information on and do their research? What events they go to? Are there marketing tools out there that are application-specific that will do something important and help improve process? Well, yes, of course there are, but any tool is only going to make something you're already doing work better. It's not going to make something work that currently doesn't.