If you haven’t made the switch yet, it’s time to start automating everything you can automate. Even tasks like marketing can be handled by great software that will handle the bulk of the hard work for you. By placing the burden on the machines using marketing automation softwares, your employees are free to do the things that matter the most.

Have you ever wondered how so many companies have time to respond to all of their social media comments and customer support emails so quickly? It’s because they’ve automated other tasks – and you should follow in their footsteps.

1. iContact

What is now called iContact used to be OutMarket, and you may know it by that name. This is a service that works with a variety of marketing platforms, but specializes in email marketing. Email marketing can sometimes feel tedious, but iContact aims to cut all of the fat out of the process. You’ll be skipping a few steps and letting the software pick up the slack.

2. HubSpot

HubSpot has been automatic inbound marketing since before it was cool. They’ve been offering automation services for years, and they’ve mastered what they do. They’ll help you aggregate all of your social media channels, blogs, and websites into one easy-to-use interface. It’s never been simpler to automate. Since HubSpot is such a popular automation program, many social media networks have optimized themselves for use with their software. Everyone meets halfway, and you reap the benefits.

3. LeadSquared

LeadSquared is a dream for small businesses. If your enterprise is small and you don’t have a lot of people to do the grunt work, you’re going to love this tool. It specializes in monitoring all of your leads, no matter where they come from. By allowing LeadSquared to contrast your marketing with sales activities, you’re getting a better look at the bigger picture without having to put all of the pieces together yourself.

4. Pardot

Pardot is an ideal tool for anyone who needs to run a B2B marketing campaign. There’s no shortage of tools designed to optimize your run of the mill B2C campaign, but B2B tools are increasingly hard to come by. Pardot offers services for email marketing, lead generation and management, and statistics about your ROI. You can assure you’re making the most of out every campaign and you’re not wasting a dime in the process.

5. Mautic

Mautic offers a large number of automation services for social media marketing, email marketing, and general campaign management. One of the best things about Mautic is that many of their tools are free. If you’re a startup or a very small business, you probably don’t have a huge budget to toy around with. You’ll appreciate how simple Mautic makes to generate high quality results without having to break the bank. Not many automation tools will offer you the same luxury, and it’s one you should take advantage of when you’re looking to curb costs.

6. Marketo

One of the best things about Marketo is the unique features offered by this tools. One of the best ways to boost conversions during a marketing campaign is to design a winning landing page with an excellent call to action. Marketo actually offers its users templates for these stellar landing pages, taking all the guesswork out of the process. Marketo is also able to import and export data with any other management software you’re using, making it easy to compile all of your data into a continuous stream.

7. Act-On

Act-On is a fully integrated marketing tool that handles both inbound and outbound marketing. This tool incorporates features that will help you reinforce your brand as you strengthen your marketing presence in your core demographics. This is one of few programs that truly does everything – it can handle prospecting, forms, and even A/B testing with little intervention from the user. Can you imagine what else you could be doing with all of the free time you’ll find?

It’s hard to learn, grow, and succeed in the world of business when all the little details are holding you back. You have a lot to contend with, and you would be a fool to pass up the opportunity to automate the time consuming aspects of your workday. The perfect automation software exists for everyone, and many of these services provide free trials. Give a few of them a shot, and determine which one will work best for your business.

The following has been submitted by Heidi Finigan, an Internet Security Expert and Digital Marketing fan from VPN Compass. Heidi currently resides in the windy Chicago from where she shares her stories about remaining safe online and growing one’s business.