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Tech 101

Small Work Tasks You Can Automate Quickly

Jun 18, 2021

Here’s a short and sweet overview about how task automation tools can take over the routine and mundane tasks you regularly deal with.

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Olivia Montgomery, PMPAssociate Principal Analyst
Small Work Tasks You Can Automate Quickly

If marketing and sales aren’t your favorite part of running your business, did you know you can automate many of the daily tasks involved so you’re freed up to focus on the parts you do love? 

When you automate work tasks, you'll see increased productivity and reduced human error.

We recommend picking the marketing and sales work tasks that are low risk and high volume, or in other words, a recurring task that doesn't require much human scrutiny. These include repetitive tasks such as social media posts and even data entry tasks such as client data management.

To get you started, we’ve identified four small tasks that many businesses like yours choose to automate first. And we’ll close with additional resources to help you take on more advanced automation options.

Work tasks commonly automated

Scheduled social media posts

Software can help you schedule when to post marketing content to social media platforms so you don’t have to keep an alarm on your smartphone to remember to do it at key times. For example, you can use a task scheduler to set a retail sale announcement to publish just before opening hours.

Lead augmentation

Some software offers sales lead augmentation that can help to complete incomplete leads and customer information, such as a missing email or mailing address. Some software can provide automated completion of the data as it’s entered. 

Lead deduplication

It’s likely that you’ll enter a sales lead more than once over a period of time, but deduplication can detect this. It can review your customer information and identify overlaps for you to remove. 

Lead scoring and qualification

You can establish the criteria for a low- or high-quality sales lead, and software will apply the logic to all new or existing leads in the system. This helps to focus your marketing efforts on high-value leads.

Here’s the info in a nice graphic you can share with your friends.

Small tasks to automate first

Where to go next

Check what’s available to you now: It’s likely your current software includes some basic automation capabilities. You can search within your current system for features you’re not using, or call your account rep to get help making the most of your tool.

Evaluate new workflow automation software: From marketing automation to customer relationship management (CRM) to workflow management software, find a new tool that offers the automation features you want. Create a shortlist with our help here.

Do more research on automation tools: Read our article, “Scheduling Automation Saves Time and Money: Why It's a No-Brainer for Your Business” for a deeper understanding of how automating work tasks is a smart move.

Dive deep into marketing-specific automation: Check out a recent article, “What Marketing Tasks Should I Automate?” to learn more about the software features that can help automate even more of your marketing.

Learn the potential mistakes of automating tasks: Read our recent article, “5 Process Automation Challenges and Mistakes (And How You Can Avoid Them).” I think the title speaks for itself.

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About the author

Olivia Montgomery, PMP

Associate Principal Analyst
Olivia Montgomery is an associate principal analyst at GetApp, covering program and project management with a focus on digital transformation. Olivia pulls from her experience as an IT PMO leader to deliver data-driven insights. Her work has been published in Forbes, Bloomberg, CIO Dive, PMI’s Pulse of the Profession, and TechRepublic. She’s presented her research on emotional intelligence and decision-making at global conferences and professional networks.
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