Grow With Owwtreach - The weekly digital marketing shortcut for local businesses.
Automations make all the things we’ve spoken about since issue 13 run without you clicking on a thousand buttons.
This is the final Structure issue in our launch series.
Everything we've covered since Issue 13, your Google Business Profile (GBP), your website, your mailing list, and your lead capture system, has been building toward this. Automations are what make the rest of it run without you standing in the middle of it and clicking on a thousand buttons every day.
Not yet ready
Remember April? Our Northampton hair stylist? She has the full setup now. Her Google Business Profile is active. Her website does one job per page. Her lead capture system feeds her mailing list.
If any of these things sound like Greek, go back and read issues 13 to 19 of Grow With Owwtreach.
There’s one big challenge for April, though. She's still the one following up on every enquiry, sending welcome emails manually, and remembering to ask for a review after a good appointment.
Despite all the work she’s done, she doesn’t have a complete system yet. She’s not ready for the Owwtreach 3S stamp of approval.
Automating April
Here’s what we’ll put in place for her business.
We’ll start with her welcome sequence in Mailchimp. The moment someone joins her list, they get an email within minutes in her voice, welcoming the person reading it to the April experience.
Three days later, a second email with answers to the questions new clients always ask.
A week after that, a list of the most popular treatments she offers, and a discount code.
These go out automatically for everyone who joins her list.
The second thing we’ll take care of is speed to lead; the time between when someone raises their hand and when you respond. This is where most leads go cold.
We first spoke about this in issue 18. Now, I’m giving you a way to improve it.
In that issue, I shared some jaw-dropping stats about the power of responding quickly.
So if you’re quick to return calls, texts, and emails, you’re winning already.
April's enquiry form now triggers an immediate reply with a direct booking link. A question about pricing receives an accurate answer thanks to an AI response agent we set up for her.
By the time she sees the notification, the lead has already heard from her. She now has some foundational marketing systems in place.
That’s the third S of our 3S framework. Structure. Signal. Systems.
What else can run without you?
You can take this a few notches further. Here are more ideas for processes your business can automate:
A review request is timed for a day or two after a completed appointment. Most clients who would leave a review simply forget. A prompt costs nothing once it's set up.
A re-engagement email for contacts who've gone quiet.
A booking confirmation that sends the reminder, the preparation notes, everything; automatically sets off the moment someone schedules.
A referral prompt for your best clients, going to the right people without you having to remember who they are.
Your imagination is the limit.
What you've built so far
Here's the chain you've built. Your GBP is the door; it shows up first when someone searches for what you do.
Your website earns the trust your GBP creates.
Your mailing list banks the relationships your website builds.
Your lead capture system feeds that list actively instead of waiting for someone to find a contact form.
Your automations make sure none of it depends on you being in your inbox or DMs every waking minute
Most local businesses have parts of this. Very few have it joined up.
What comes next
The next phase is going deeper into Systems. We’ve shown in this issue how you can set a few basic ones up. But how far can you take this? What are some other marketing systems you can put in place?
Systems are about making what you've built work harder over time, with less manual input. That’s what we’ll tackle next.
One Practical Move
Open Mailchimp, or your mailing list management software (many have free tiers), and set up one automation this week. A welcome email for new subscribers is going out within an hour of someone joining your list.
Don't build the whole sequence yet. Get one email live and see what it feels like to have something running without you.
One Tool- Google Analytics
Mailchimp at mailchimp.com. The automation builder doesn't require technical knowledge, just your words and a couple of hours.
Keep howling!
Fungai
Your Owwtreach Guy
Grow with Owwtreach
www.owwtreach.com