When you have a small marketing team, or worse, none at all, then the struggle to stay on top of everything becomes very real. After years of working with marketers of all stripes, we’ve seen one thing help alleviate this pain—B2B automation.

Automation allows you to front-load social media marketing campaigns, set up customized email designs, and schedule website content. It’s the key to creating an efficient, well-oiled marketing machine for your business.

And once you have a system in place that executes your marketing campaign strategy, you’ll have more time to focus on what matters—your customers.

So What Exactly is B2B Automation?

There are only so many hours in a day to write content, create designs, respond to social comments, and look up new marketing trends. And this doesn’t even begin to touch the day-to-day tasks a marketer needs to keep up with.

B2B automation gives businesses the ability to simplify recurrent tasks using software. These are the tactics that aren’t difficult to do, such as scheduling a social post but can take precious time away from other activities.

Businesses benefit from using software to run efficient inbound lead generation campaigns and nurture people through the marketing-sales cycle.

Evaluating Automation Tools for Your Business

Before you sign up for every automation tool under the sun, it makes sense to set your priorities.

So, where should you start?

Set Your Budget

Automation software can run from free to thousands of dollars depending on the features, number of users, and data it provides. Take this into account before investing in the latest app. It’ll save money and prevent you from being locked into a system that doesn’t work for your marketing.

Research, Research, Research

One of the best and worst things about researching different automation tools is living in a time of too many options. It might seem overwhelming at first, but we recommend spending the time upfront to learn about the different products, check out reviews, and kick the tires during free trials.

Assess Your Business Needs

Create a marketing automation software comparison checklist with each of their features, pros, and cons. The list serves to break down which ones make the most sense for the business and set realistic expectations based on your current and future needs.

And since all apps aren’t the same, here are a few other questions to ask yourself:

• – How many users need to use the software?
• – Are there a certain number of emails/social posts/etc. that you plan to send each month?
• – Does the business need any integrations with tools like Salesforce or custom APIs?

It also doesn’t hurt to reach out to other people who can provide recommendations and feedback about their experiences.

What Tools are Available for B2B Marketing Campaigns?

In our business, we often work with clients who have their preferred marketing software. Our team designs emails, social graphics, and other branded visuals to work within quite a few of the most popular automation tools. If you need a few ideas, here are some recommendations based on price, flexibility, and usability.

Email Marketing Tools

Mailchimp
As one of the OG email campaign tools, Mailchimp works for businesses of all sizes. They have a lot to offer new companies without a large audience by giving them up to 2000 email contacts for free.

But if you need more, they have three additional tiers to scale up and use for larger contact lists. They’ve given users other CRM capabilities as well. We love the company, not because their headquarters is in the same city as ours, but because they provide stellar customer service and documentation.

Price: Free – $299/mo

Constant Contact
This software is perfect for companies who need more robust features in their email marketing campaigns. Constant Contact has two separate plans for small and large businesses. The latter offers more ecommerce features and the ability to push email series to multiple segments based on behavior.

Price: $20-$45/mo

Pardot
As part of the Salesforce suite of products, Pardot helps businesses focus on growth while supercharging their entire sales and marketing funnel. Where this email software shines is in its analytics. Pardot allows users to view detailed data about leads, identify the ones most likely to convert, and manage the entire customer relationship from end to end.

Price: $1250-$15,000/mo

Social Media Marketing Tools

Hootsuite
For social media marketing, Hootsuite gets the job done. They have a wide range of plans to help businesses of all sizes manage their accounts. Hootsuite also provides users with features such as feed monitoring, image libraries, and powerful analytics to elevate your social posts.

Price: Free – $599/mo

Buffer
Influencers love it, and so do small business owners. Buffer is one of the most used social scheduling tools on the market today. With its beautiful, simple interface, you can easily create posts and measure their performance. They’re constantly improving their software to help the little guy get more social engagement.

Price: Free-$99/mo

Sprout Social
Social Sprout was one of the first apps marketers used in their campaigns when social media was in its infancy. Now they give users the ability to control multiple social media accounts and review various reports and analytics. Social Sprout is a powerhouse tool for businesses, from sending standard emails to automated link tracking and chatbots.

Price: $99-$249/mo

Sales & Marketing Automation Suite

Marketo
Marketo serves enterprise teams with a full CRM suite of services. It’s the perfect software for large groups spread across different countries. One thing to note is this software requires a considerable investment and isn’t recommended if you’re starting out. However, as the business scales, you could consider this option if the goal is to have an international presence.

Price: Based on database size

HubSpot
Hubspot has one of the largest footprints in sales and marketing software. While they provide products for enterprise businesses, they also serve SMBs, enabling them to create marketing campaigns with a smaller budget. Their documentation, knowledgebase, and customer service are unmatched in this space, with one of the most referenced marketing blogs online.

Price: Free – $3200+/mo

Keap (formerly Infusionsoft)
Now known as Keap, it’s one of the most used automation tools for SMBs. With an easy-to-use interface, Keap integrates well with other APIs, and users also tout its CRM functionality. It’s one of the best lead generation automation tools available for marketers.

Price: $79-$200/mo

Time to Automate

If the plan is to scale your business up—and we hope it is—automation will be a major part of achieving this goal. It’ll enable you to free up time to manage the business and quickly launch and optimize your email, content marketing, and social media campaigns.