Certain people say that success is all about making your money work for you. It refers to the mindset of investing on something that will passively generate recurring income for the long-term. That’s why successful entrepreneurs can sit on a beach or tour a picturesque town somewhere in Europe and still make more money than employees who work round the clock.
But before you can afford that kind of lifestyle, you have to pour blood, sweat, and tears to grow your brand and make your businesses profitable even without your involvement.
The principle of making money work for you directly applies to growth strategies that involve automation. As opposed to working harder, work smarter and invest in platforms that can automate key areas of your business such as marketing, lead nurturing, and customer service. Doing so allows you to dedicate more time drawing up expansion strategies and bringing your company to the next level.
Without further ado, below are 10 platforms you can invest in to run your business on autopilot:
Email Marketing Tools
Communicating through emails is still the best way to forge closer relationships with your audience. As a growing brand, having a mailing list provides you with a reliable distribution channel for new content, promotions, surveys, and stories about your company. Here are some of the best email marketing platforms with built-in automation features you should use:
1. GetResponse
GetResponse is a modern email marketing platform with a visual mail editor, landing page builder, and comprehensive automation tool. It lets you design workflows that automatically send emails based on certain triggers. For example, it can help you send “thank you” emails to verified buyers, remarketing emails to shopping cart abandoners, and so on.
2. MailChimp
MailChimp, just like GetResponse, allows you to automate customer interactions through trigger-based emails. Its key advantage over GetResponse is the “Forever Free” plan, which allows you to send up to 12,000 emails a month to a maximum of 2,000 subscribers – free of charge.
3. Moosend
Apart from the clean interface, another feature that makes Moosend worth mentioning is the availability of real-time analytics. This allows you to make quick, data-driven decisions even while campaigns are ongoing.
4. OptinMonster
An email marketing strategy isn’t complete without landing pages and forms to facilitate the conversions. With OptinMonster, you don’t need to be an expert developer to create both things. The platform is also equipped exit-intent popup forms that convert abandoning visitors – as well as A/B testing features to help you optimize your campaign over time.
Marketing Automation and Services
It’s common to have a brilliant business idea, but lack the necessary skills and knowledge when it comes to marketing your brand. Fortunately, there are services that can help you with the number crunching to elevate your marketing efforts.
5. HubSpot
HubSpot is a popular, all-in-one marketing platform that can help you with integral marketing aspects like SEO, social media, content marketing, and email marketing. It primarily focuses on digital marketing, but it’s also packed with software for CRM and sales.
6. Marketo
Marketo is a flexible marketing automation platform that offers solutions for customer base marketing, lead management, email marketing, and every other facet of your online marketing. It also offers CRM integration, A/B testing, a marketing calendar, and a host of other features that enable you to run your business in one place.
7. Pardot by Salesforce
The B2B audience is a lot more sophisticated than everyday consumers. For them, you need a B2B marketing automation platform like Pardot that can help with lead generation, lead nurturing, and ROI reporting. Pardot is part of the Salesforce ecosystem, which means it is compatible to all AppExchange integrations.
8. Magento
Magento is an all-in-one platform specifically designed for eCommerce businesses. It is packaged with everything you need for a successful online store – from themes you can apply to your virtual storefront to consulting services that help it grow. Just remember that this platform is not suited for a DIY entrepreneur. Given its complexity and high ceiling, consider connecting with Magento developers or refer to learning resources here to help proficiently build your site from the ground up. The platform also integrates with third-party tools such as TaxJar, PayPal, as well as workflow automation services like Zapier.
Accounting Automation
Lastly, managing the financial side of things is one of the most stressful responsibilities that entrepreneurs need to shoulder. Although you can always rely on your accountant friend to handle everything, you can also invest in cloud accounting and accounting automation software to manage your finances.
9. SMACC
SMACC is the first accounting software to utilize AI in a fully automated accounting environment. It is intended for startups and SMBs that barely have enough time for their day-to-day financial tasks. All you need to do is to scan your invoices, receipts, and other financial documents and the AI will do the rest.
10. FreshBooks
Although FreshBooks is not marketed as an automation tool, this cloud accounting platform can be integrated with platforms like HubSpot, Zapier, and Braintree. This allows you to automate entries into your financial reports and make running your business simpler than ever.
