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Running a marketing agency is no walk in the park. It requires repetitive, time-consuming tasks. With the client list growing, the manual workload increases to a point where you need at least one — if not more — employees to tackle the pressure.
I realized this to the bone as repetitive tasks and manual work piled up. The first blow was that it became harder for our employees to execute tasks on time. Also, it frequently caused burnout or fatigue that interfered with the quality of our work.
To address this, the first and immediate solution that came to my mind was hiring multiple employees. But that wasn’t feasible, as recruiting more employees would require additional management and increase overhead costs.
So, after re-evaluating some workable options, I finally found a better way to streamline my operations — automation. Despite the skepticism, I decided to give it a shot and started automating my business processes. The result? I was able to offload 50% of my business tasks.
Here’s my whole journey, from switching to automation to achieving sustainable growth without hiring extra employees.
Related: Smart Entrepreneurs Use Automation to Become More Efficient. Here Are 6 Ways to Adopt It.
Determining the time-consuming tasks
Before diving into my automation strategies, let me highlight the tasks that slowed me down and became the biggest bottlenecks in my workflow:
1. Manual lead generation
Initially, I spent half my business days just nurturing qualified leads. I had to target companies that needed optimization for customer acquisition and funnel management, which took a great deal of time.
Even after sifting through countless websites, social media profiles and directories, I hardly found businesses that needed scalable marketing systems and growth strategies.
And the result? I gradually started to miss opportunities.
2. Customer support overload
As I inspected further, I found out that the customer support representatives of my company had to respond to every inquiry, manage complaints and provide solutions — all manually.
As you can imagine, with the growing number of customer support requests, it became harder to keep up, resulting in slower response times. The worst part was that the repetitive queries consumed too much time, leaving little scope for them to handle serious customer issues.
3. Financial tracking and reporting
Processing invoices, reconciling accounts and generating financial reports were more than a time drain for my team. Manually tracking finances led to miscalculations and inaccurate reports. The inefficient management made future income predictions and budget planning a great obstacle, as it all resulted in errors and lost revenue.
4. Client onboarding and communication
The next big challenge I faced was managing client onboarding and communication. Each client required personalized attention, contract processing and documentation.
So, it consumed a large portion of our workweek to keep track of every interaction, address queries and ensure a smooth onboarding experience. The lack of a structured system impacted our client satisfaction and retention.
5. Meeting scheduling and follow-ups
Efficient communication and timely follow-ups are essential for my team, especially when executing the Attention, Interest, Desire and Action (AIDA) framework. However, the manual processes, including scheduling meetings, turned into a major roadblock.
Plus, we had to coordinate meeting times across different time zones and make endless back-and-forth emails, which impacted the precision of that framework. At its worst, we were at risk of potential client drop-offs.
Related: From Mundane to Magic: The Incredible Benefits of Automation for Small Business Owners
Opting for specific solutions
That said, after noting down the issues, I realized that most of the time-consuming tasks could be worked around using automation. And here’s how I did it:
1. LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Apollo.io for automated lead generation
I integrated LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Apollo.io to eliminate my manual lead generation drain. These advanced tools are designed for highly targeted searches based on specific criteria such as industry, service or company size.
Apollo.io’s email finder and verification features were a lifesaver, significantly reducing the time I spent on manual research.
More than that, we could reach our target audience in minimal time. We narrowed down our search with LinkedIn Sales Navigator and as a result, our company also witnessed up to a 17% higher win rate on average.
2. AI-powered chatbots for customer support
First, I tried addressing customer overload issues by implementing an AI-powered chatbot on my website CRM. It was programmed to handle customer queries and provide basic troubleshooting.
After testing multiple chatbot designs, I decided to review one and connect it with our CRM. It was effectively linked with HubSpot to access customer data, track conversations and update customer records.
This ensured personalized help and reduced our workload by up to 40%. The efficiency allowed my team to provide 24/7 customer service with improved response time.
3. QuickBooks Online for financial tracking and reporting
For financial monitoring and reporting, I found QuickBooks Online, which integrates with our payment gateways and bank accounts.
This advanced software effectively automated our invoice generation, payment processing and financial reporting. Also, I integrated a dedicated reporting and business intelligence tool, Fathom, with QuickBooks and ensured seamless financial reporting.
As a result, I witnessed an increased accuracy of my reporting by nearly 95% and was able to reduce the reporting time by 75%.
4. HubSpot for client onboarding and communication
I used HubSpot’s robust suite of automation tools to manage our clients’ onboarding and communication processes. The powerful workflow automation builders of Hubspot helped to automate contract signing through an integrated e-signature tool.
It automated our document collection via file request workflows, and the sequence tool allowed us to send personalized and targeted emails to clients. We could easily monitor client interactions and progress through onboarding stages and identify issues.
Overall, we turned a complicated process into a time-saving, smooth system and ensured a streamlined client engagement by 50%. We could also track our marketing success and adjust the plan accordingly. However, the key benefit was reducing our onboarding time by 20%.
5. HubSpot and Calendly for meeting scheduling and follow-ups
To improve follow-ups and deploy the AIDA framework, I implemented HubSpot. With HubSpot, my team effectively manages follow-up emails, reminders and tasks based on specific actions and timelines. We were able to improve our direct mail automation and retargeting consistency by 90%.
I used Calendly — one of the popular scheduling tools — to automate our scheduling. It was integrated with my team’s work schedule, and we could set the meeting times accordingly.
This helped my team big time as some of the repetitive tasks like adding new leads, sending alerts and syncing data were completed in no time.
After all that automation, I successfully streamlined manual tasks and boosted efficiency by a whopping 50%. The result was clear: My team became more productive, client satisfaction improved, and the overall quality of our work increased — without any additional employment. Automating the processes not only saved my valuable time but also helped my team reduce errors, improve accuracy and focus on what’s most important.
Related: 3 Things to Consider When Automating Your Workflows
Pro tips
Though automation processes can be game-changers, you need to tackle them wisely. Here is my take on it:
Dos:
Instead of trying too many tools at once, it’s better to automate one process at a time and measure its impact.
Training team members on how to use the new automation tools and processes helps ensure the best outcomes.
It’s compulsory to regularly review automation process results and find new ways to improve efficiency.
Don’ts:
Keep the automation process as simple as possible to increase the team’s expertise and customer satisfaction.
No matter the tools used, they must be safe and comply with data privacy regulations.
