Are you fed up with misalignment between your sales and marketing teams?
You are not alone in this!
There is no magic solution to this problem, but you can try lead automation. It fundamentally alters the way leads are transferred from marketing to sales.
Lead automation aids in the generation of more leads and conversions. According to one study, 80 percent of marketers who use automation software generate more leads (up to 451% more) and convert 77 percent more leads than those who do not.
In addition, according to one study, 50% of business leaders intend to accelerate the automation of repetitive tasks within their organization.
This guide will discuss everything you need to know about automated leads and how seamlessly move them through the marketing funnel.
What exactly is lead automation?
Prospective customers typically progress through these stages as a result of the various campaigns that a company has in place.
Because of misalignment between teams and a lack of transparent processes, this is typically where the risk of disconnect occurs. The following questions can help you identify a lead generation process’s flaws:
- What is the source of the leads?
- Whose responsibility is it to pass on marketing leads to sales?
- Where can salespeople learn more about these leads?
- Are both teams communicating data and feedback to one another?
- What kind of information and materials have these leads been exposed to?
You can streamline your operations and improve efficiency by automating processes throughout the funnel.
Before you begin, it’s critical to understand the three main options for automating lead generation. They are as follows:
- Using native integrations available in existing tools
- Collaborating with developers to create custom API calls
- Using automation tools such as Integromat to connect apps without the use of code
Now, let’s look at some real-world, e.g. of, lead automation solutions that you can put in place right now to help you generate, nurture, and manage leads.
Key takeaways
- Lead automation enables sales and marketing teams to assess the value of each lead that comes into the company.
- It allows you to focus on the best opportunities and shorten the sales cycle. There are numerous lead automation solutions available for various lead generation channels.
- The lead automation process ensures that sales and marketing teams are always on the same wavelength.
Why is lead automation important?
Lead automation helps you save money, time, and effort.
Lead automation aids in the simplification of difficult marketing tasks such as lead qualification and leads scoring. According to Nucleus Research, marketing automation increases sales productivity by 14.5 percent while decreasing marketing overhead by 12.2 percent.
Another Invespro study found that 74 percent of respondents said the ability of technology to save them time was its most significant benefit.
Lead automation allows you to focus on the most qualified leads for your company. This shortens the sales cycle journey by focusing on leads ready to convert. Furthermore, you are not required to click “send” on all email nurturing messages. Simply put, you create a workflow that works every time. With it in place, you can concentrate on other aspects of marketing.
Increase in the number of qualified leads
Lead automation will assist your company in increasing the number of qualified leads. Qualified leads are prospects who match your ideal customer profile. They are those who have expressed an interest in your product or service by taking action.
According to research, 80 percent of marketers saw an increase in the number of leads after implementing marketing automation software.
Increase in the number of conversions
An increase in the number of qualified leads will increase conversions. According to one study, four out of every five users increased their leads using marketing automation software, and 77 percent increased their conversions.
Lead automation process
This section will look at the most common marketing activities (lead generation, lead qualification, lead distribution, and lead nurturing) and how they can be automated.
lead generation
Lead generation is the first step in the lead automation process. With the ultimate objective of turning them into customers, lead generation is the process of luring prospects to your business and piquing their interest through nurturing.
Lead generation begins when a visitor finds your marketing content, such as your website, blog articles, and social media posts. The visitor then clicks your call to action button, which takes them to a landing page where they can enter their information, such as their name and email address. Occasionally, an offer is made to entice visitors to provide their contact information.
Lead qualification
Following lead generation comes lead qualification. Marketo defines lead qualification as “determining which potential customers are most likely to make an actual purchase.”
The lead qualification allows you to eliminate leads that do not fit your ideal customer profile. Many leads may be interested in your products, but they do not necessarily fit your ideal customer profile. Lead qualification informs you of a lead’s position in your sales funnel. This will assist you in developing appropriate content, campaigns, and messages for them.
Lead distribution
The process of sending qualified leads to the sales team is known as lead distribution. We discussed how leads are sorted based on their readiness to purchase products or services in the lead qualification process above. After sorting through the leads, you must assign them to the appropriate sales team member who can handle the leads. This is because each sales representative has varying product knowledge and experience levels.
For example, you wouldn’t want to send a high-potential lead to a sales rep who has recently returned to work because they may lack product knowledge and experience.
Lead nurturing
Lead nurturing automation uses software to send relevant and personalized messages to leads and customers at various stages of the sales journey. Automation in the lead nurturing ensures that all prospects receive prompt responses and that the appropriate content is automatically sent to them. Unfortunately, half of the qualified leads are not ready to buy. They may be interested in learning more about how your product or service can help them, but they are not yet ready to purchase.
How to streamline your sales funnel with lead automation
You can automate leads at four significant stages of the customer journey.
Capture the lead
You can’t have a lead automation process unless you first get the lead.
For example, when visitors to your website fill out a contact information form, they become a lead.
After capturing the lead, the next step is to qualify the lead.
Qualify for and take the lead
So, a lead has come in. The next step is to assess the lead’s intent.
This stage of lead automation is critical because it assists B2B sales teams in identifying the best opportunities to close.
There is also a speed factor at work here—The sooner leads are qualified, the better because the salesperson can concentrate on reaching out to leads with the highest level of intent.
And if there is too much waiting, the lead score will quickly dwindle!
Using lead automation solutions, leads can be qualified and scored without the involvement of a human, for instance, based on their channel, technographic or other characteristics.
Give the lead to the appropriate salesperson.
Don’t just give the leads to the available sales team member after they have been sorted through.
It is not an open process. Lead automation assists you in assigning the appropriate leads to the appropriate salespeople.
For example, if you receive a lead from someone in the United Kingdom, automation will route the lead to a United
Kingdom sales team member.
In another case, you’ve received a lead from someone in the mid-market or enterprise segment. Lead automation tools will assign the lead to someone on the mid-market or enterprise sales team if this is the case.
What are the advantages of lead generation automation?
- When it comes to lead generation, it’s best not to overcomplicate things. Marketing and Sales teams will have
- their hands full, just working on aspects like email messaging and focusing on leads in the first place.
- Lead automation is simple and has numerous advantages for your company:
- Increased team effectiveness
What makes a dynamic sales and marketing team tick?
Everything boils down to effective lead generation. Without it, opportunities start to dwindle because leads with bad intentions are being pursued.
Lead automation is the opposite because sales teams can follow up on the most promising leads. Produces targeted leads
Not to mention the wonders it performs for the marketing team. The more information they have about the leads, the better their messaging will be.
Every lead generated contributes to the ideal customer profile (ICP) puzzle.
This means that the targeted leads with the best chance of closing will be the ones who come through over time. It all comes back to this:
Sales and marketing can use lead automation to target, qualify, and nurture the right lead with the right content at the right time.
Marketing automation workflows
Marketing automation is a pre-programmed function that responds to user actions on websites or interactions with email messages. For example, when a user registers on an automated website, an action is triggered that sends out specific emails to them.
Marketing automation workflows assist you in developing a working system for nurturing your leads appropriately. Workflows are required for a variety of marketing automation activities. For example, marketing automation and lead management are a perfect match. An automated lead workflow, for example, will assist you in creating a path for your leads to follow from the time they sign up until they are nurtured to convert.
Invoice creation is another thing that can be automated. However, you can take it a step further by creating a workflow that automatically generates the invoice, sends it, records payments, reminds defaulters of their income, and tags clients/customers with various statuses such as paid and late.
The Advantages of Marketing Automation Workflows
1. Marketing automation workflows help you save time and resources that would otherwise be spent on repetitive tasks.
2. It helps to keep your leads engaged and your brand fresh in their minds.
3. It aids in increasing conversion rates.
4. It provides data on what works and what does not.
What are some examples of lead automation?
As previously stated, lead automation occurs across multiple channels or touchpoints. Let’s look at what it means to automate leads in practice.
Put a chatbot on your websites.
Chatbots have revolutionized how sales and marketing teams interact with their customers.
And, with a lead automation platform like Drift or Intercom, you can interact with leads as soon as they submit a chatbot query.
You can instantly capture and understand the intent of your leads. It is a true game-changer.
Connect landing page forms to CRM
A landing page is an excellent tool in the toolbox of a B2B marketer.
However, if the B2B lead generation process from the landing page is manual, you can forget about converting them further down the funnel.
A lead automation tool that connects landing pages to your customer relationship management system is essential (also known as CRM).
Important lead information becomes visible to both the sales and marketing teams. It also saves a lot of back and forth trying to figure out answers to questions like:
- What details do I have on the lead?
- In the sales team, who is the lead assigned?
You can read:
Some of your content should be restricted.
It is no longer sufficient to “sell” your products.
Customers will not engage with you if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Never, ever undervalue the power of content marketing. People who find value in your content will interact with you because your insights into a subject are memorable. That is where your leads originate.
You can automate sharing content on your social profiles during peak audience times. It will increase your visibility and encourage more leads to contact you.
Don’t forget to program automated responses for your potential clients!
A gated piece of content, like an eBook, is an alternative. Consider automating data entry into the CRM after someone fills out their information.
If the opportunity is hot, your sales team will benefit from being able to follow up with these leads quickly.
Automate lead email campaigns
We’ve only touched on it briefly, but email nurturing is critical. And doing it manually will almost certainly be a time-consuming, painful, and, frankly, pointless process.
Because you won’t be able to target your leads at the appropriate time – it’s anything but systematic.
That is why it is critical to use a platform that handles the complicated stuff for you. This is where Cognism’s sales intelligence solution comes in handy.
Lead automation is essential at this stage because it eliminates the need to refresh email lists manually. Instead, the software can run the checks for you and, for example, remove any spammy accounts.
Marketing and sales teams can ensure that the nurtured leads are always qualified. But, again, it simplifies things so you can concentrate on the best opportunities.
Final thoughts; how to generate high-qualified leads by using automation?
The success of lead generation and lead nurturing is dependent on relevance.
Relevance can be created by personalizing content, prompting responses, or combining the two through automated email campaigns.
By eliminating low-value and repetitive tasks from your workday, incorporating automation into your lead generation efforts makes the process faster and more efficient.
Not only will automation be faster, but it will also produce better results.
