With the new year already started, many small businesses are looking into ways to improve their marketing efforts. One option is to use online market places like Shopify and Venmo to accept online payments for products and services. However, marketing through online marketplaces can be difficult. You will need to set up accounts on multiple platforms, monitor your performance on each platform, and update your strategy as needed.

If you are looking for a simpler solution, you can try using an online marketing tool like QuickBooks for small businesses instead. Doing so can drastically simplify your marketing efforts while also significantly increasing your effectiveness. Here’s why:

Marketing In An Age Of Personal Tech

One of the unique things about the 2010s is the explosion of personal technology. We live in an age where everyone is constantly connected to their phones, tablets, and laptops. As a result, we’ve seen increased use of online marketplaces as customers have become comfortable shopping online and making purchases on their phones. In fact, according to HubSpot’s 2018 State of Retail Marketing Report, 69% of consumers plan to make at least some of their purchases online, and 55% of respondents plan to research products online before making purchases.

Now is the perfect time to integrate online marketing tools like QuickBooks into your marketing strategy. The accounting software can be accessed from any device, and you can set up automated marketing and email campaigns in minutes. Plus, you can download the software to your computer so you can access it anytime, anywhere.

Marketing Automation Made Easy

Even small businesses with limited marketing budgets can benefit from marketing automation tools like QuickBooks. These tools can help you automate the marketing tasks that you perform multiple times a day. For example, you can set up auto-responders to send out email newsletters or schedule social media posts in advance.

Marketing automation allows you to set specific email or social media campaigns to run based on triggers in your CRM (customer relationship management) software. You can use the automation tool to set up complex sequences of events, such as email campaigns that send out multiple newsletters or social media posts on a specific day or at a specific time.

For example, say you run an eCommerce store and you want to send out a weekly newsletter to your customers. With marketing automation, you can set up a sequence where, once a week, a new email containing a link to the latest product is sent out to all your customers. With this type of setup, you don’t need to perform the task of sending out the newsletter manually. The email can be sent out automatically once a week using the email campaign configured in the sequence.

Similarly, on the social media front, you can set up automated social media campaigns that are triggered based on events in your CRM software or an email campaign. For example, if you run a dental practice and you recently sent out a newsletter to your patients, you can set up an automated social media campaign where, once a week, you post on social media about oral health based on the content of the last email campaign.

The benefit of this is that you don’t need to be physically present to operate the machine. So, even if you are traveling or attending a conference, you can be sure that your email and social media campaigns will run as planned.

Free Email And Social Media Accounts

Another great thing about QuickBooks is that you don’t need to purchase a premium account to use the tool. You can register for a free email account and use the service to send out daily emails or weekly newsletters to your customers or potential customers. If you run a dental practice, you can use the tool to send out appointment reminders, invoices, and other important information.

Social media is a great place to build a marketing presence, and, as a result, many online marketplaces have popped up to help small businesses increase their presence on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. One great option is Venmo. You can use this service to accept payments online, and you don’t need a merchant account to do so. As a result, you don’t need to worry about signing up for a third party’s service to use the tool.

Easily Create Reports For Budgets And Analysis

The best part of any tool, apart from the ease of use, is the ability to create reports. For small businesses, this can be a massive benefit. You can set up automated email or social media campaigns, and you can use the reports to track the performance of those campaigns. This can help you identify what’s working and what needs to be changed.

From daily to weekly to monthly reports, you can track everything from the number of visits to a particular url to the performance of an email or social media campaign over a period of time. The choice of metrics is quite vast, so you can tailor the report to suit your needs. For example, you can track the performance of a specific campaign or the effectiveness of a particular strategy.

Marketing Automation Helps You Be More Effective

One of the unique things about QuickBooks is that it helps you be more effective by breaking down the tasks that you perform into easy-to-follow steps. This is great for busy marketers who want to improve their efficiency. With marketing automation, you can set up automated tasks that can be repeated time and time again with little to no effort put in by hand. As a result, you can have more time to focus on the aspects of marketing that you enjoy doing the most: analyzing data and strategy.

Marketing automation makes it easy to track the performance of your campaigns and to determine what’s working and what needs to be changed. The bottom line is that if you’re looking for a more simplified and effective way to market your business, consider investing in QuickBooks.