How to Automate Lead Generation and Drive Revenue

61% of marketers find that lead generation is the biggest challenge that they face. Knowing this, it’s easy to see why marketers are looking for new ways to generate leads, without taking their time away from other pressing tasks. That’s where automation comes in. While traditional forms of lead generation can be time-consuming, automating your lead generation can be more effective while saving your team hours every week. In this article, we go through how to automate your lead generation and drive revenue. Before we jump right in, let’s go through what automation even is. 

What is Automation?

Automation involves the use of technology to perform tasks without constant human intervention. When it comes to lead generation, automation can handle repetitive and time-consuming processes. This can help your sales and marketing teams focus on more important tasks. It’s easy to see why so many companies are looking for ways to automate lead generation processes. Now that you know what automation is, let’s go over how to automate your lead generation. 

How to Automate Lead Generation Processes

Automating your lead generation can save your team hours every week, and provide a better experience to your clients and potential clients. Here are my favorite ways to automate lead generation and drive revenue.

Know Your Target Audience

Understanding your target audience can make or break how successful your lead generation tactics are. Before implementing the following strategies, it’s crucial to understand who your audience is, what they need, and how they interact with your brand. Try to analyze your customer data and your competitors to understand demographics, preferences, and pain points. By knowing your target audience, you can tailor your automation campaigns to speak directly to their interests and needs. 

Lead Scoring and Qualification

Not all leads are created equal. That’s why lead scoring and qualification is an important part of automating your lead generation. Set criteria based on parameters like eBook downloads, pages visited, purchase history, and more. By automatically assigning tags to your clients based on these criteria, you can cater content to where they are in their buyer’s journey. As an example, if someone downloads an eBook, they can receive an array of content over the next few weeks that builds on the concepts they learned in the eBook. And, depending on how they interact with the follow up content, will determine if they are a hot lead or need some more guidance.

Identify Your Website Visitors

98% of your website visitors will leave without a trace. With the help of Visitor Queue, you can identify the companies that land on your website, how they got there, what pages they visited, and for how long. Plus, you can also see employee contact information like email addresses, phone numbers, and personal LinkedIn pages to help you reach out. By integrating Visitor Queue with your favorite CRM, you can send your leads straight to your CRM for seamless follow up. This can make your lead generation and follow up easier than ever before, allowing your sales team to focus on outbound initiatives. Start your 14-day free trial of Visitor Queue today.

Email Drip Campaigns

Ever forget to send a follow up email after a demo? Or do your website forms simply go to someone’s inbox? It’s easy for emails to slip your mind, we’ve all been there. Email drip campaigns leverage automation to send a series of pre-planned emails based on user behavior or specific triggers. From welcome emails that initiate the relationship to educational content that addresses specific pain points, and concludes with compelling calls-to-action, drip campaigns provide a personalized and systematic way to engage prospects. This ensures that both of your new customers and prospects who fill out a form on your website are not forgotten.

Cold Email Marketing 

Cold email marketing is an outreach method that helps you start conversations with potential prospects who have not had any prior contact with your company. First, you’ll need to generate a cold email list. There are a number of ways to collect emails, like buying a cold email list using Visitor Queue. Then, you’ll need to create a cold email campaign that is compelling, concise, and talks to the needs of your new contacts. When you collect high-quality email addresses, cold email marketing can help your company expand its reach, generate leads, and open the doors to new business opportunities.

Conduct Webinars with Automated Follow Ups

Conducting webinars is a great way to connect with your audience. And, when you pair webinars with strategic follow-up campaigns, you can drive an impressive number of qualified leads with a high likelihood of converting. In your webinar, showcase your expertise, provide insights, and answer questions from your webinar attendees. Once the webinar is done, you can add the attendees and no-shows to your CRM and send them automatic follow-ups. These follow-ups can provide additional resources like eBooks or blog articles that build on the concepts you talked about, the recording of the webinar, or exclusive offers. By combining webinars and automated follow-ups, you can capture lead data and foster ongoing connections.

Exit-Intent Popups

With exit-intent popups, you can capture leads that are about to leave your website by tracking their mouse movements. These popups can offer enticing promotions, downloadable resources, or a free trial in exchange for the visitor’s information. Automation tools can trigger this type of pop ups based on user behavior. Then, your CRM can automatically follow up if they do decide to convert on the form. 

LinkedIn Lead Generation

LinkedIn has been a vital part of lead generation for years. But, with so many potential leads, it can be difficult to narrow down the highest quality leads without spending a pretty penny. Automated LinkedIn lead gen tools like Skylead can automate sending out connection requests, messages, free and paid InMails, and more. In addition, you can automatically interact with their recent content. Including liking their most recent post and viewing their profile, in turn giving them a notification, keeping you top of mind. This can help with your social selling and lead generation efforts. 

Use an AI-Powered Chatbot

Adding an interactive chatbot to your website can help you engage with visitors in real time. Chatbots can collect visitor analytics and user contact information. But, the AI aspect of chatbots can do this automatically, without the need for human intervention. One of my favorite AI-powered chatbots is by Zoho, called Zobot. This particular chatbot integrates with top AI technology. This ensures the information it provides to your clients is accurate, professional, and on brand. Plus, compared to other AI-powered chatbots on the market, it’s easy to use with its codeless drag-and-drop builder. Once the chat is completed, you can set up an email automation to follow up with the user. Ensuring they got all of their questions answered.

Integrate with your CRM

Seamless integration with your CRM is a game-changer for automating your lead generation processes. Whether you use Hubspot, Salesforce, or a smaller CRM, integrations ensure that your contact information is centralized and accessible. If your current CRM does not offer a direct integration with the tools you are using, take a look at Zapier to custom-build integrations. By integrating all of your tools, you can simplify the communication between marketing and sales teams. This can foster collaboration and improve overall efficiency. 

Ask Your Team What They Want to Automate

An often overlooked step in the automation process is simply asking your team what they want to see done. Your team have a unique insight into what they spend the most time doing, workflow inefficiencies, and daily tasks that eat up all of their time. Sit down and talk with your team and then tell them what is possible. Have them think about how they’d like to implement automation into their job. This brainstorming can help ensure your automation aligns with the needs of your team. And, get them excited about what technology has to offer.

What’s Next?

According to Zapier, marketers can save an average of 25 hours per week using automation. Imagine how much time you could spend coming up with new marketing strategies if you could automate these tedious tasks. By implementing the lead generation and automation tips mentioned earlier, you can not only increase efficiency but also enhance the relevance of your interactions. If you have any questions about Visitor Queue, do not hesitate to contact our team.