7 Signs You Need Marketing Automation Help

7 Signs You Need Marketing Automation Help

by | Blog, Marketing

You’re running a successful online business. Students are enrolling, clients are booking, and revenue is flowing. But behind the scenes? Your marketing automation feels like it’s held together with digital duct tape and prayers.

Maybe you’re manually copying email addresses between platforms. Maybe your checkout process requires three different logins. Maybe you’re just crossing your fingers every time you launch a new marketing campaign.

After nearly two decades of implementing marketing automation and business systems for online businesses, I’ve seen these patterns play out hundreds of times. Here are the seven red flags that tell me a business owner is ready for professional marketing automation help, whether they realize it yet or not.

1. You’re Spending More Than 5 Hours a Week on Marketing Tech Tasks

If you’re the CEO, strategist, and content creator for your business, why are you also manually managing your marketing automation?

When I ask clients to track their time, they’re shocked to discover they’re spending 5, 10, even 15 hours a week on tasks like manually adding people to email sequences, troubleshooting broken automations, or copying data between platforms.

That’s 5 to 15 hours you could spend creating offers, serving clients, or marketing your business. At your hourly rate, that’s thousands of dollars of lost revenue every single month.

The fix: A properly integrated marketing automation system handles these tasks automatically. What takes you hours every week can run on autopilot with the right setup.

2. Your Team is Confused About Which Marketing Tool Does What

“Wait, do we send that email from Kartra or MailerLite?”
“Is their payment in Stripe or are they still on the old PayPal link?”
“Which spreadsheet has the updated customer list?”

When your team (or you) can’t answer these questions instantly, your marketing automation isn’t serving you. It’s creating friction, errors, and wasted time.

I once worked with a course creator who had student data spread across three different platforms. Every time someone had a login issue, it took 20 minutes just to find their information.

The fix: A streamlined marketing automation system with clear roles for each platform. Everyone knows exactly where to find what they need.

3. You’re Afraid to Launch Because “Something Might Break” in Your Marketing Systems

Launch anxiety is real. But it shouldn’t be about your marketing automation.

If you’re lying awake the night before a launch wondering whether your checkout page will work, whether people will actually get added to your course, or whether your marketing automation will fire correctly, that’s not normal launch jitters. That’s a systems problem.

I’ve had clients delay launches by weeks because they were terrified their systems wouldn’t hold up. That’s not just stressful, it’s expensive.

The fix: Tested, reliable marketing automation systems that you trust. When your business systems are set up correctly, launches become exciting instead of terrifying.

4. You Have Multiple “Band-Aid” Marketing Solutions Stacked on Top of Each Other

Started with one platform, added another for email marketing, then added Zapier to connect them, then added a third platform because the integration wasn’t working quite right?

This is how marketing automation systems turn into expensive, complicated messes.

Every band-aid solution adds another point of failure, another subscription fee, and another thing to maintain. Eventually, you end up with a system that’s so fragile you’re afraid to touch it.

The fix: Strategic platform selection from the start, or a clean business systems migration that consolidates your marketing tools into platforms designed to work together.

5. You Can’t Onboard a New Team Member Without a 10-Page Document About Your Marketing Systems

If bringing someone new onto your team requires a novel-length instruction manual just to explain how your marketing automation works, your processes are too complicated.

Complexity isn’t sophistication. It’s technical debt that slows down your marketing.

Simple, well-integrated marketing systems are intuitive. Your team should be able to understand your marketing workflow without needing to become tech experts themselves.

The fix: Streamlined workflows with clear documentation. Your systems should make sense, not require a decoder ring.

6. Customer Support Issues Are Mostly Marketing Tech-Related

“I can’t log in.”
“I didn’t get the email.”
“The payment went through but I can’t access the course.”
“Your checkout page isn’t working.”

If more than 20% of your customer support inquiries are about technical problems rather than actual questions about your content or services, your marketing automation is actively hurting your business.

These issues damage trust, create refunds, and eat up support time that should be spent helping people get results from your offers.

The fix: Reliable marketing automation integrations and tested user journeys that just work. Your customers should never have to think about your tech.

7. You’re Making Business Decisions Based on Marketing Tech Limitations

This is the biggest red flag of all.

When you say things like “I can’t create that offer because my platform won’t support it” or “I’d love to add that marketing funnel but I don’t know how to set it up,” your marketing technology has stopped being a tool and become a constraint.

Your business strategy should drive your marketing technology choices, not the other way around.

I’ve worked with clients who were turning down opportunities because they couldn’t figure out how to implement them technically in their marketing systems. That’s leaving money on the table.

The fix: A marketing automation consultant who can translate your business vision into technical reality. Your offers should be limited only by your imagination and market demand, never by technology.

Frequently Asked Questions About Marketing Automation Problems

How do I know if my marketing automation needs professional help?

If you’re experiencing three or more of the red flags in this article, spending more than 5 hours a week on marketing tech tasks, or if technology limitations are preventing you from creating the offers you want, it’s time to get professional help. The clearest sign is when your marketing systems are costing you more in time and lost opportunities than it would cost to fix them properly.

What does marketing automation implementation cost?

Investment varies based on complexity and scope. A VIP Day for focused fixes starts at a fixed rate, while full marketing automation implementations are custom-quoted after a strategy call. Most straightforward setups fall in the mid four-figure range, with comprehensive overhauls requiring higher investment. The key is comparing the cost to what you’re currently losing in time, revenue, and opportunities.

Can I fix my marketing automation myself or do I need help?

You can fix some issues yourself if you have the time and technical aptitude. However, if you’ve already tried DIY solutions and are still experiencing problems, or if the learning curve is taking you away from revenue-generating activities, professional help pays for itself quickly. The question isn’t whether you can do it yourself, it’s whether you should.

How long does it take to fix problematic marketing automation?

A VIP Day provides immediate solutions in one focused session. Standard implementations typically take 2 to 4 weeks for basic fixes, while comprehensive marketing automation overhauls may take 4 to 8 weeks depending on the number of platforms and complexity of integrations. During a strategy call, you’ll get a specific timeline based on your situation.

Which platforms should I be using for my marketing automation?

The right platforms depend on your business model, offers, and growth plans. Common combinations include platforms like Kartra, GoHighLevel, MailerLite, ClickFunnels, and Kajabi, integrated with payment processors and automation tools. A marketing automation consultation helps you choose the right systems for your specific needs rather than following generic advice.

What to Do If You Recognized Your Business in This List

If you saw yourself in three or more of these red flags, it’s time to get professional help with your marketing automation.

That doesn’t necessarily mean a complete overhaul. Sometimes it’s about integrating what you already have. Sometimes it’s about replacing one problematic platform. Sometimes it’s about adding automation to eliminate manual work.

The key is getting an outside perspective from someone who understands both business strategy and marketing automation implementation.

Here’s what that looks like:

A marketing automation consultation starts with understanding your business model, your offers, and your growth goals. Then we audit your current systems to identify the bottlenecks, redundancies, and points of failure.

From there, you get a clear roadmap showing exactly what needs to change, what can stay, and what the implementation will look like.

No more guessing. No more cobbling together solutions. Just a clear plan to get your marketing automation working for you instead of against you.

Ready to stop fighting with your marketing systems?

Book a free 20-minute strategy call and let’s look at what’s actually happening in your business systems. I’ll tell you honestly whether you need a complete overhaul, a few strategic tweaks, or if you’re actually in better shape than you think.

After 19 years of implementing marketing automation for online businesses, I can usually spot the core issues in the first 10 minutes of conversation.

Book Your Free Strategy Call

Understanding Funnels: Key to Business Success

Understanding Funnels: Key to Business Success

by | Blog, Marketing

Owning a business means understanding how to present your product or service effectively to potential customers, encouraging them to make a purchase or engage with your services. If you’re versed in marketing analytics, you’re likely familiar with the term “funnel.”

Curious about what a funnel is and how it can benefit your business? Keep reading to find out.

What is a Funnel?

Consider your website’s main goal: you want visitors to take some kind of action, whether it’s to purchase, sign up, fill out a form, or enroll in a class.

This desired action is known as a “conversion.” Essentially, it’s when a visitor transitions from just browsing to taking definitive action. A funnel is the journey a visitor undergoes to reach this conversion point.

A classic example is the Amazon purchase funnel. A customer must visit the website, view a product, add it to their cart, and complete the purchase. Other actions, like visiting the ‘about’ page or viewing other items, exist but aren’t considered primary steps in the funnel. The funnel focuses on the necessary steps leading to a conversion, starting broad and becoming narrower as the potential customer moves closer to the commitment stage.

The Purpose of a Funnel

The concept of “widening the funnel” means expanding your reach to engage a broader audience. A funnel isn’t just for direct sales; it’s also applicable to actions like newsletter sign-ups and other forms of conversions. The key is to align your funnel with the actions you want your website visitors to take.

Real-Life Funnel Examples

Funnels exist both in digital and physical retail environments. For example:

  • Retail Store Funnel: Customers see ads, visit the store, browse products, add them to their cart, and complete the purchase.
  • eCommerce Store Funnel: Visitors land on your website, view products, add them to their cart, and finalize their purchase online.
  • Social Media Funnel: Users click on an ad, read your landing page, provide their email, and eventually make a purchase or subscribe.

Streamlining Your Website for Better Conversion

It’s crucial to make your website as user-friendly as possible. This means clearly defining the desired actions for visitors and simplifying these processes to boost conversion rates. The easier it is for visitors to navigate and complete actions on your site, the higher your conversion rate will be.

I hope you find this information useful. If you’re looking to delve deeper or have specific challenges in your business, I’m here to help. Click here to schedule a call with me, and let’s work together towards the success of your business!

Grow your business with this all-in-one platform

Grow your business with this all-in-one platform

by | Blog, Kartra, Marketing, Sales Funnel

Are you looking for an all-in-one solution to help you manage and grow your online business?  If so, then I believe that Kartra is the right platform for you. The tools and features provided by Kartra can help you save time and money while growing your business.

Let’s take a look at why Kartra is a must-have for your business.

Why You Need Kartra

With Kartra, small businesses can manage their operations from one central location. Among its features are website builders, email marketing, sales funnels, automation, surveys, and calendars. In other words, you don’t need to sign up for multiple services or platforms in order to access the features you need. It’s all right there in one place – easy and convenient!

With Kartra’s analytics feature, you can also keep track of your progress. By monitoring the performance of your website or sales funnel, you can identify areas for improvement. As a result, you’ll be able to identify which pages are performing well and which ones need some tweaking. As well as the ability to create split tests easily, you can quickly compare different versions of your webpages or sales funnels to see which one performs best.

Last but not least, Kartra integrates with a variety of popular services, including Zapier, PayPal, Stripe, and WordPress plugins. With these integrations, you can easily add additional functionality without having to worry about compatibility issues. Furthermore, these integrations make it simple and easy to sync all of your data across multiple platforms so everything runs smoothly.

Overall, Kartra is a great platform for businesses looking for a cost-effective and efficient all-in-one solution. As a result of its wide range of features and integration capabilities, it’s no wonder so many businesses are turning to Kartra as their go-to solution for managing their operations online. Look no further than Kartra if you’re looking for a comprehensive way to streamline your business processes!

My business has been using Kartra for over 4 years and it’s by far my favorite all-in-one platform.

Do you want a 14-day trial of Kartra? You can click my affiliate link here.

Reasons Your Marketing Department Needs Help

by | Blog, Contributed Post, Marketing

Your marketing department is one of the most important departments in your business. With the proper marketing, you’ll be able to target your audience precisely so that you always have the right people wanting to buy and be interested in your services and your products. The problem is that marketing changes year on year, and there are so many changes happening right now but it can be really easy to overlook what your department is doing. Are you staying ahead of the curve? Are you getting the most out of your marketing efforts? 

You can choose to use a small business marketing agency to really bump up your marketing department, but you also need to know why your marketing department needs help. If the content that has been created is struggling to appear on the first page of google then something is going wrong. So here are five signs that your marketing team is in dire need of assistance.

  • Nobody is performing any keyword research. When you are writing for your website, or your marketing team is writing your content, Need to ensure that you are actually performing keyword research. It’s this research that’s going to be able to help you to localize your content and pinpoint you on the right page on the search engine results. Keyword research is actually one of the most valuable in essential activities to perform for your marketing department, so if you’re not performing the keyword research on something is going wrong with your experts.
  • You’re not automating your content sharing. You should already have your social media pages linked to your website, but you should also be sharing your contents from one to the other. If you are using content on your website, that should be automatically shared to your social media so the conversation can be created and you can advertise more things to your customers. The easiest way to automate your social media effort is to just ensure that you have the right software and apps built-in. Automating your content sharing is actually an integral part of your social media, and there are so many tools that you can use to do this.
  • You are not abreast of your analytics. You need to be up to date with her analytics and that means sharing and discussing analytic take reports. The marketing department in your business should be analyzing all of these reports every single week, otherwise you’re never going to know where you stand. You also need to know which campaign is bringing you the best return and where you are spending money that you shouldn’t be spending it. Unless you are checking your analytics you’re not going to know which means you’re actually going to be spending more money than you make.
  • You are not optimizing your content for Google. The Google search engine results pages really do matter and if you want to appear on that first page you need to make sure that you are optimizing your site correctly.

Image Source: Pexels

3 Steps to Successfully Navigate the Digital Marketing Landscape of 2022

by | Blog, Contributed Post, Marketing

There’s no denying that digital marketing is constantly changing. The landscape of the industry has completely shifted since the early 2000s. It can be hard to keep up with emerging technologies, new platforms, and an ever-evolving set of rules. However, there are ways you can stay on top of all these changes and know what to do when your business reaches a crossroads in marketing. Here are three steps for navigating the future of digital marketing in 2022.

Know the marketing environment in 2022

It’s essential to understand the digital marketing landscape when planning for the future.

One way to do this is to look back at what has changed in the past. For example, social media platforms have seen a lot of changes over the past decade. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have all had their ups and downs regarding who’s using them and what content they allow on those sites.

It’s also helpful to look at the most popular digital marketing techniques from the 2000s and 2020s to see how those techniques have evolved. This can help you identify aspects of digital marketing that will be different in 2022 and give you an idea of what your strategy should look like when you’re ready to jump into the future.

You need to be following your customer’s behaviors, which means researching the newest and emerging trends in digital marketing such as Yelp advertising, creating video content, utilizing AI, and paying attention to your customers’ needs in a more personalized way.

Be a visionary

The future of digital marketing is constantly changing. One week, you might be doing Facebook advertising; the next, you’re doing email marketing. 

It can be hard to keep up with all the changes, so it’s essential that, as a business owner, you take time to envision where your business will go and what technologies will be relevant shortly. Look to your competitors to see what is and isn’t working for them to give you a better idea of what to incorporate and what to avoid.

Take time every quarter or year to imagine what kind of digital marketing strategies you want to invest in and how they’ll continue to evolve with time. This will help you avoid making short-sighted decisions and wasting resources on projects that won’t work in the long run.

Stay on top of your marketing strategies.

It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day of marketing and forget how your business has grown. It can be tough to know when it’s time to change your company’s marketing strategy. When you feel that it is time for a change, take a step back and look at your business’s overall goal.

If you’re not sure what your goal is, try answering these three questions:

1) What is my number one priority?

2) What are my overarching objectives?

3) Where am I headed?

Once you have the answers, evaluate whether your current marketing approach is helping you achieve those goals. If it isn’t, it may be time to update your strategy.

Image credit

Marketing Strategies Need To Go Beyond The First Sale

by | Blog, Contributed Post, Marketing

For a lot of business owners, much of your energy and attention will go towards getting customers to the point of conversion. When you finally get them to click on that purchase button on your website, for instance, it can feel like a big victory. However, when it comes to maximizing profits, retaining your customers is just as, if not more, important.

The higher the lifetime value of your customer, the more money each and every conversion is worth. As such, it’s important to look at the marketing strategies designed to keep your customers coming back, too.

Offering the support they need

First of all, you should anticipate that many of your customers will need some kind of customer support or service after they have already made their purchase. Few things can be more frustrating to your customers than to find they are having trouble with their purchase, but they can’t do anything about it because they don’t have any means to get in touch with your support team. Connect with your customers online with technology like on-site live chat windows. The smoother you make the process of requesting and receiving the help that they need, the less frustration your customers deal with, making it more likely they have an overall positive experience with your brand.

Staying in touch over time

Of course, you don’t have to leave it entirely in the hands of your customers for them to form their own impressions of the business. The more consistent your communication with them, the better your chances of influencing those impressions. Staying active on social media and engaging with those who get in touch can not only help you influence the brand perception of that individual but also creates a better public brand image, too. Click here to see how social media marketing can benefit your business. It not only drives new sales but also creates a positive rapport with existing customers that a) shows positive social proof of your brand loyalty to newcomers and b) fosters stronger connections with existing customers.

Incentivizing their return

You can always make a repeat purchase much more exciting if you sweeten the pot a little. Customers love good value deals and there are plenty of ways to make it happen. You can click here, for instance, to see how loyalty systems work, utilizing the points that customers earn in making purchases with you to help them get discounts and exclusive offers that see them becoming repeat customers. You can also incentivize them to utilize positive word-of-mouth. By setting up a referral program, not only can you use existing customers to help you convert new customers, but you get them engaged with the brand in a positive way, and those positive perceptions are likely to linger on even after the referral offer is over.

With the tips above, hopefully, you can recalibrate your focus to ensure that you’re not always looking for what’s new and exciting too. With a lot less investment, you can ensure customer retention that is truly key to business growth.

Photo- Pixabay License

This is a contributed post