<p><img src="https://static1.businessinsider.com/image/601c61eb19cbd800188afd1c-2121/GettyImages-606353201.jpg" border="0" alt="mailchimp download" data-mce-source="Getty Images"></p><p></p><bi-shortcode id="summary-shortcode" data-type="summary-shortcode" class="mceNonEditable" contenteditable="false">Summary List Placement</bi-shortcode><p>Small business owners have a lot to do and not much time to do it. It takes a great deal of work to put together a quality marketing operation, but thankfully, modern technology allows for much of that work to be automated.</p><p>To help the hard-working heroes of small business save time and energy, we put together a quick list of some common marketing tasks that become way less time consuming with the right tools.</p><h2><strong>1. Design </strong></h2><p>You knew you needed to define your brand's aesthetics, so you hired a designer (or maybe rolled up your sleeves and did it yourself). You have a logo, you have a color scheme you like and a set of fonts that you're happy with, so you should be all set. But wait, noyou still have to endlessly adapt, resize, and retool your assets to the specific needs of countless emails, banners, social posts, web pages, and who knows what else.</p><p>You have three choices: spend tons of time doing it yourself, spend tons of money hiring a designer, or spend a few seconds having <a href="https://mailchimp.com/features/creative-assistant/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Mailchimp's Creative Assistant</a> do all of that for you. You just have to enter a URL and the AI-powered tool will collect fonts, colors, images, and logos from your website. Using that input, it creates a brand kit that adapts your company's aesthetic for use acrossemails, landing pages, social channels, and morewith just a few clicks.</p><h2><strong>2. Document templates</strong></h2><p>For some, this will be old news; for others, it will be a revelation: There are free, readily-available templates for nearly any type of document, from RFP trackers to editorial calendars to PowerPoint presentations and practically anything else you can imagine. You don't have to waste time conceiving or refining the ideal format; it's likely already out there, so just find what you need and get started. Microsoft offers plenty of its own templates, like this <a href="https://templates.office.com/en-us/Social-media-content-calendar-TM34312278'wt.mc_id=growth-center_SMB_marketing-ideas_editorial-calendar" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">social media content calendar</a>, but there are many other options from designers around the world to match any purposeall a Google search away.</p><h2><strong>3. Customer journeys </strong></h2><p>Devising the right customer journey(s) to move audiences through your marketing funnel is plenty of work; setting up an actionable infrastructure to actually get it done is even more work. Fortunately, Mailchimp's <a href="https://mailchimp.com/features/automations/customer-journey-builder/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Customer Journey Builder</a> makes it easy to automate tailored actions and messaging in countless situations. Using a straightforward, intuitive interfaceno prior programming experience neededit allows you to build a choose-your-own-adventure marketing experience in response to any action your customer might take (or not take). You have the option to either create a fully bespoke customer journey or simply select one of Mailchimp's pre-built paths. It's an effective marketing toolcompared to a fully 'manual' operation, Mailchimp customers have seen on average a 93% increase in open rates and 174% increase in click-through rates with automated emails, compared to bulk emailsand an insightful educational experience in learning the best practices for e-commerce communication.</p><h2><strong>4. Email communication</strong></h2><p>Sending emails as an individual SBO and sending marketing emails as a brand are two entirely different beasts, but they have one fundamental thing in common: you end up repeating the same handful of phrases a lot. Rather than tediously typing out the same email 10 times a day, you can use stored phrases. Both <a href="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-reuseable-text-blocks-for-email-messages-8fb6c723-c960-4c8c-9790-3e43ddc4b186" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Outlook</a> and <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/gmail-templates-canned-responses" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Gmail</a> have simple features that allow you to save pre-written text blocks and insert them into emails as needed.</p><h2><strong>5. Data strategy</strong></h2><p>SBOs are routinely bombarded with articles and ads imploring them to do more with data. The tools, platforms, and marketplaces where they do business generate a lifetime's worth of numbers every day. Getting the data is no longer the hard part; the real challenge is knowing what to do with it. That's where Mailchimp's <a href="https://mailchimp.com/features/smart-recommendations/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Smart Recommendations</a> comes in. Mailchimp's proprietary intelligence is integrated into the platform, providing data-driven recommendations. You don't have to learn SQL or plug millions of data points into Excel, just thoughtfully follow Mailchimp's prompts to optimize your content, audiences, subject lines (and more) as you go along.</p><p>With automation eliminating the need to spend time on the technical nitty-gritty of running a business, you can focus on what you will accomplish next. Access to smart marketing resources from Mailchimp can help entrepreneurs grow.</p><p><strong><a href="https://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/clk/485190352;291374059;m" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored nofollow sponsored">Learn more about how Mailchimp can help your business.</a></strong></p><p><em>This post was created by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sponsor-posts" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">Insider Studios</a> with Mailchimp.</em></p><div><ins class="dcmads" style="display:inline-block;width:1px;height:1px" data-dcm-placement="N1224323.140046THEBUSINESSINSIDE/B25197585.291374059" data-dcm-rendering-mode="script" data-dcm-https-only data-dcm-resettable-device-id="" data-dcm-app-id=""><script src="https://www.googletagservices.com/dcm/dcmads.js"></script></ins><script type="application/javascript" src="https://pixel.adsafeprotected.com/rjss/st/558819/51671365/skeleton.js"></script><noscript><img src="https://pixel.adsafeprotected.com/rfw/st/558819/51671364/skeleton.gif'gdpr=%24%7BGDPR%7D&gdpr_consent=%24%7BGDPR_CONSENT_278%7D&gdpr_pd=%24%7BGDPR_PD%7D" border="0" width="1" height="1" alt=""></noscript></div><p></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sc/how-technology-can-help-businesses-save-time-and-money-2021-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story »</a></p>
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