What does it mean to automate lead generation?

Automa­tion can free up an excep­tion­al amount of time and effort for busi­ness­es, allow­ing them to focus on oth­er ‘hands on’ tasks. Nowa­days, it’s com­mon for com­pa­nies to auto­mate their social media sched­ules and set up auto­mat­ic aban­doned cart reminders.

Automa­tion is a fun­da­men­tal part of evolv­ing busi­ness prac­tices and mak­ing things more efficient.

Lead gen­er­a­tion is no dif­fer­ent. Now busi­ness­es can use expert tech­nolo­gies and soft­ware to stream­line and opti­mise their lead gen­er­a­tion, it’s a no-brain­er. From the ear­ly stages of iden­ti­fy­ing and qual­i­fy­ing leads to nur­tur­ing and acquir­ing pay­ing cus­tomers, automa­tion can offer solu­tions across the board.

Though busi­ness­es will have to get famil­iar with how to lever­age cer­tain tools, tech­niques, and plat­forms, the rewards reaped by automat­ing repet­i­tive tasks can­not be under­es­ti­mat­ed. Plus, automat­ing lead gen­er­a­tion can gen­er­ate a con­sis­tent flow of qual­i­fied leads with­out the has­sle of con­sis­tent human input.

But what are the actu­al ben­e­fits of automat­ing lead generation?

Why automate lead generation

There are loads of rea­sons why busi­ness­es should auto­mate their lead gen­er­a­tion process­es. If you’re not con­vinced, have a read about why it’s so popular:

Cost

Since automa­tion removes the need for man­u­al work, the cost of lead gen­er­a­tion sig­nif­i­cant­ly drops once it’s been auto­mat­ed. Very often automa­tion tools offer advanced fea­tures (e.g., data analy­sis) which reduces the need for addi­tion­al expenses.

Marketing

A com­mon­ly auto­mat­ed busi­ness prac­tice is mar­ket­ing as it is quick­ly enhanced by automa­tion tools and tech­niques. Often automa­tion tools allow for per­son­al­i­sa­tion, a val­ued com­po­nent of mod­ern mar­ket­ing. Plus, these tools can learn about your cus­tomer base and pro­vide cru­cial insights for opti­mis­ing future campaigns.

Data

By reduc­ing man­u­al data entry errors, automat­ing lead gen­er­a­tion can ensure busi­ness­es have accu­rate datasets. Plus, automa­tion tools often have built-in data man­age­ment abil­i­ties and secu­ri­ty fea­tures, which can help you track, report, pro­tect, man­age, and analyse your cus­tomer data.

Customer experience

Automa­tion allows busi­ness­es to respond to cus­tomer queries more prompt­ly and be in-tune with their posi­tion in the sales fun­nel, mak­ing their expe­ri­ence more intu­itive and responsive.

Scaling

Automa­tion becomes essen­tial when busi­ness­es scale to a cer­tain size, because the num­ber of leads becomes impos­si­ble to man­age with­out dig­i­tal assis­tance. With automa­tions in place, busi­ness­es can expand more smoothly.

Nurturing

We all know that lead gen­er­a­tion and nur­tur­ing help to build a hap­py cus­tomer base. But with automa­tion, these process­es can pro­vide a high­er qual­i­ty and more time­ly service.

Staff efficiency

Let’s be hon­est. Repet­i­tive tasks can be bor­ing and reduce morale among staff. Automat­ing these tasks can boost staff sat­is­fac­tion, thus increas­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and effi­cien­cy in a range of busi­ness departments.

What parts of lead generation can be automated?

Most of the lead gen­er­a­tion process­es can be auto­mat­ed. If you decide to get involved with automa­tion, here’s what you can do to trans­form your lead gen­er­a­tion activities:

Lead capture

Right at the begin­ning of your lead gen­er­a­tion is the col­lect­ing (or cap­tur­ing) of leads. Automa­tion enables this through var­i­ous chan­nels such as web­site forms, land­ing pages, social media, or email subscriptions.

As long as you’ve pre­pared com­pelling and tar­get­ed con­tent to attract poten­tial cus­tomers, an automa­tion tool will per­form well in cap­tur­ing their con­tact infor­ma­tion 24/7.

Lead qualification

Next, you’ll want your leads to be eval­u­at­ed, qual­i­fied, and scored.

Once you pro­vide a set of cri­te­ria, automa­tion tools will be able to car­ry out this eval­u­a­tion process with­out your intervention.

What­ev­er your lead scor­ing mod­el is, make sure you input all of the val­ues and actions that are sig­nif­i­cant to your busi­ness (such as web­site inter­ac­tions, email engage­ments, or social media inter­ac­tions) into your automa­tion tool.

Nurturing campaigns

When it comes to nur­tur­ing your leads, automa­tion can help a great deal.

By util­is­ing cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment (CRM) soft­ware and mar­ket­ing automa­tion plat­forms, busi­ness­es can deliv­er rel­e­vant con­tent, edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als, and offers to leads at dif­fer­ent stages of the sales fun­nel. This helps build rela­tion­ships, estab­lish trust, and increase the chances of con­vert­ing leads into customers.

Lead tracking and analytics

By track­ing and analysing met­rics such as open rates, click-through rates, web­site vis­its, and con­ver­sion rates, automa­tion tools can pro­vide valu­able insights into lead behav­iour and engage­ment. Thus, busi­ness­es can gain a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the effec­tive­ness of their lead gen­er­a­tion efforts.

Though busi­ness­es can track cus­tomer engage­ment with­out automa­tion, automa­tion tools often have sev­er­al built-in fea­tures that pro­vide total e‑commerce inte­gra­tion, allow­ing busi­ness-own­ers to view every­thing in one place.

Integration with sales processes

Automa­tion can be used to seam­less­ly inte­grate lead gen­er­a­tion with sales process­es. When a lead reach­es a cer­tain lev­el of qual­i­fi­ca­tion, it can be auto­mat­i­cal­ly passed on to the sales team for fur­ther fol­low-up and conversion.

Inte­gra­tion between mar­ket­ing automa­tion plat­forms and cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment (CRM) sys­tems ensures a smooth hand­off and helps align mar­ket­ing and sales efforts.

What aspects of lead generation cannot be automated?

While lead gen­er­a­tion can be com­pre­hen­sive­ly auto­mat­ed, there are still cer­tain aspects that require human involvement:

• Devel­op­ing the strat­e­gy and plan­ning for cam­paigns, deter­min­ing mes­sag­ing, defin­ing tar­get audi­ence pro­files, and set­ting goals.
• Cre­at­ing con­tent whether it’s writ­ten, designed, or filmed.
• Inter­pret­ing the insights and ana­lyt­ics gained from automa­tion and using them to iden­ti­fy trends and opti­mise campaigns.
• Send­ing per­son­alised respons­es and address­ing spe­cif­ic queries often require real human empathy.
• Rela­tion­ship build­ing in cer­tain indus­tries must be con­duct­ed in ‘real’ life, such as at net­work­ing events.
• Sales pro­fes­sion­als are often need­ed to close deals because they involve build­ing trust, nego­ti­at­ing terms, and han­dling objections.
• Human judge­ment is required to adapt lead gen­er­a­tion strate­gies when changes occur in the market.
• Real peo­ple are essen­tial for lis­ten­ing to cus­tomer feed­back, address­ing con­cerns, and engag­ing in mean­ing­ful communication.

Although busi­ness­es can­not cur­rent­ly auto­mate every sin­gle aspect of their lead gen­er­a­tion strate­gies, we think that’s a good thing. There are cer­tain com­po­nents of lead gen­er­a­tion that fun­da­men­tal­ly rely on human con­nec­tion and that would suf­fer if they were replaced by auto­mat­ed processes.

With that in mind, busi­ness­es should auto­mate the tasks they can afford to and ‘human­ise’ the tasks that need it. That way, they can strike a bal­ance and nur­ture rela­tion­ships with leads prop­er­ly, ensur­ing opti­mised results.

How to automate your lead generation processes

So, let’s dis­cuss how you can go about automat­ing lead generation:

Research

1. Define your goals and objectives

Clear­ly artic­u­late what you want to achieve through lead gen­er­a­tion automa­tion, whether it’s increas­ing lead quan­ti­ty, improv­ing lead qual­i­ty, or boost­ing con­ver­sion rates.

2. Research your tar­get audience

Gain a deep under­stand­ing of your tar­get audi­ence’s needs, pain points, and pref­er­ences to tai­lor your lead gen­er­a­tion strate­gies effectively.

3. Edu­cate your­self on lead gen­er­a­tion automation

Invest time in learn­ing about lead gen­er­a­tion automa­tion con­cepts, strate­gies, and avail­able tools. Explore resources like arti­cles, tuto­ri­als, webi­na­rs, or online cours­es to famil­iarise your­self with the topic.

Think about your business’s needs

4. Iden­ti­fy suit­able automa­tion tools

Research and select lead gen­er­a­tion automa­tion tools that align with your busi­ness’s needs. Con­sid­er fac­tors like fea­tures, ease of use, inte­gra­tions, scal­a­bil­i­ty, and pricing.

(We’ll explore dif­fer­ent automa­tion tools lat­er in this article.)

5. Map out your lead gen­er­a­tion workflow

Define your lead gen­er­a­tion work­flow, includ­ing lead qual­i­fi­ca­tion, cap­tur­ing, nur­tur­ing, and sales hand­off. It may help to cre­ate a visu­al flow­chart that out­lines the steps and actions involved at each stage.

6. Seek pro­fes­sion­al assis­tance if needed

If you feel over­whelmed or lack the exper­tise to imple­ment lead gen­er­a­tion automa­tion on your own, con­sid­er hir­ing a con­sul­tant or agency spe­cial­is­ing in mar­ket­ing automa­tion to guide you through the process.

Get stuck in!

7. Choose and imple­ment your select­ed tool

Sign up for your cho­sen automa­tion tool and fol­low their set­up instruc­tions. Seek help from tuto­ri­als, doc­u­men­ta­tion, or cus­tomer sup­port to nav­i­gate the ini­tial implementation.

8. Start with a pilot project

Begin by automat­ing one or two spe­cif­ic lead gen­er­a­tion process­es, such as email cam­paigns, lead cap­ture forms, or social media adver­tis­ing. Start­ing small allows you to gain con­fi­dence and refine your approach.

9. Imple­ment lead cap­ture forms

Embed lead cap­ture forms on your web­site, land­ing pages, or social media chan­nels to col­lect vis­i­tor infor­ma­tion. Keep the forms con­cise, engag­ing, and aligned with your branding.

10. Set up auto­mat­ed email sequences

Utilise your cho­sen automa­tion tool to cre­ate email sequences that nur­ture leads over time. Per­son­alise the con­tent based on lead behav­iour, inter­ests, and engage­ment levels.

11. Inte­grate your CRM systems

Con­nect your automa­tion tool with a cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment (CRM) sys­tem to ensure seam­less lead man­age­ment, track­ing, and fol­low-up by your sales team.

12. Edu­cate your team

If you have a team involved in the lead gen­er­a­tion process, pro­vide them with train­ing and resources to under­stand the new auto­mat­ed work­flows. Ensure every­one is aligned and on board with the automa­tion strategy.

After a little while…

13. Track and analyse results

Reg­u­lar­ly mon­i­tor key met­rics such as con­ver­sion rates, email open rates, click-through rates, and lead qual­i­ty. Use ana­lyt­ics tools to gain insights and make data-dri­ven decisions.

14. Opti­mise and refine

Con­tin­u­ous­ly iter­ate and improve your lead gen­er­a­tion automa­tion process­es based on insights from data analy­sis. Test dif­fer­ent approach­es, opti­mise CTAs, and exper­i­ment with con­tent vari­a­tions to enhance results.

15. Stay updat­ed and adapt

Stay informed about emerg­ing trends, tech­nolo­gies, and best prac­tices in lead gen­er­a­tion automa­tion. Adapt your strate­gies accord­ing­ly to remain com­pet­i­tive and meet evolv­ing cus­tomer expectations.

16. Explore advanced automa­tion features

Once you’re famil­iar, you can explore more advanced fea­tures offered by automa­tion tools. This may include advanced seg­men­ta­tion, dynam­ic con­tent per­son­al­i­sa­tion, mul­ti-chan­nel automa­tion, or behav­iour-trig­gered campaigns.

Every busi­ness is unique, so make sure you adapt these steps to your spe­cif­ic needs, goals, and cir­cum­stances. Next, let’s dis­cuss some dif­fer­ent automa­tion tools on the mar­ket today.

6 tools for automating lead generation

There are numer­ous tools avail­able to auto­mate lead gen­er­a­tion and sup­port your efforts. Here are some pop­u­lar ones:

HubSpot

Hub­Spot is a high­ly pop­u­lar CRM plat­form that offers a wide range of inte­gra­tions for busi­ness­es want­i­ng to con­nect their mar­ket­ing, sales, con­tent, and cus­tomer ser­vice departments.

As well as automa­tion, it offers a com­pre­hen­sive suite of inbound mar­ket­ing and sales tools, includ­ing lead cap­ture forms, email mar­ket­ing, CRM inte­gra­tion, lead scor­ing, and analytics.

Hub­spot’s wide offer­ing is a big attrac­tion for many busi­ness­es and is great for those that want to scale. Its free plan is pret­ty capa­ble, although does­n’t come with exten­sive cus­tomer sup­port. And it gets expen­sive pret­ty quickly.

Pardot

Par­dot by Sales­force pro­vides mar­ket­ing automa­tion soft­ware that helps stream­line lead gen­er­a­tion, lead nur­tur­ing, and lead scor­ing. It includes email mar­ket­ing, land­ing page cre­ation, lead track­ing, and CRM integration.

Though it has an impres­sive range of fea­tures, Par­dot is anoth­er expen­sive option that’s unlike­ly to appeal to small businesses.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a pop­u­lar email mar­ket­ing plat­form that offers automa­tion fea­tures for lead nur­tur­ing cam­paigns, audi­ence seg­men­ta­tion, and lead cap­ture forms. It’s well-liked for its ease of use and its small­er plans are very affordable.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Mailchim­p’s sub­scriber and send­ing allowance has been reduced and it includes unsub­scribed users in your con­tact list.

ActiveCampaign

Active­Cam­paign is an all-in-one mar­ket­ing automa­tion plat­form that offers lead scor­ing, email mar­ket­ing, CRM inte­gra­tion, and advanced automa­tion fea­tures. Its email builder isn’t as good as MailChim­p’s but its wide range of fea­tures is impressive.

Active­Cam­paign’s pric­ing plan is much more than MailChim­p’s or Opt­in­Mon­ster’s, mak­ing it an unlike­ly choice for small­er busi­ness­es. Plus, its plans for email mar­ket­ing are sep­a­rate from CRM and sales, com­pelling com­pa­nies to spend more to get access to all its features.

ConvertKit

Con­vertK­it is a user-friend­ly email mar­ket­ing tool with automa­tion fea­tures to cap­ture and nur­ture leads through per­son­alised email sequences. Although its cus­tomi­sa­tion options are lim­it­ed for cre­at­ing email tem­plates, its automa­tion fea­tures are extensive.

Plus, it’s been praised for its great cus­tomer sup­port sys­tems and is at an ide­al pri­ce­point for small­er companies.

Zapier

Zapi­er is an inte­gra­tion plat­form that allows you to con­nect var­i­ous tools and auto­mate work­flows. It can be used to stream­line lead gen­er­a­tion process­es by inte­grat­ing dif­fer­ent apps and automat­ing data transfers.

Zapi­er is known for its ver­sa­til­i­ty and cheap­er plans.

Best practices for automating lead generation

If you’re new to automat­ing lead gen­er­a­tion, make sure you remem­ber these best practices:

1. Define your tar­get audi­ence clear­ly to tai­lor your lead gen­er­a­tion efforts effectively.

2. Cre­ate valu­able con­tent that address­es your audi­ence’s pain points and offers solutions.

3. Opti­mise your web­site so that it’s user-friend­ly, opti­mised for search engines, and includes clear calls-to-action.

4. Imple­ment lead cap­ture forms and strate­gi­cal­ly place them on rel­e­vant web­site pages.

5. Offer lead mag­nets like e‑books, tem­plates, or exclu­sive con­tent to encour­age lead generation.

6. Devel­op a lead scor­ing sys­tem to pri­ori­tise and seg­ment leads based on their engage­ment and behaviours.

7. Lever­age mar­ket­ing automa­tion plat­forms to stream­line lead nur­tur­ing cam­paigns and auto­mate per­son­alised communication.

8. Inte­grate your CRM sys­tem with your mar­ket­ing automa­tion plat­form to ensure seam­less data synchronisation.

9. Reg­u­lar­ly mon­i­tor and analyse key met­rics such as con­ver­sion rates, email engage­ment, and lead qual­i­ty. Use data-dri­ven insights to refine your lead gen­er­a­tion strate­gies and improve over­all effectiveness.

10. Use A/B test­ing and exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent ele­ments of your lead gen­er­a­tion cam­paigns to iden­ti­fy the most effec­tive approaches.

11. Lever­age social media plat­forms to gen­er­ate leads, engage with your audi­ence, and pro­mote your content.

12. Inte­grate live chat func­tion­al­i­ty on your web­site to engage with vis­i­tors and cap­ture leads in real-time.

13. Per­son­alise your email and mar­ket­ing automa­tion sequences to deliv­er cus­tomised con­tent based on lead behav­iour and preferences.

If you’d like help with lead gen­er­a­tion, our team at pur­ple­plan­et would love to help. Click the but­ton below to reach out or learn more about our services.

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