If you have been doing online sales for any length of time, you may know just how important generating qualified leads is to make your business profitable. Today, if you're not automating the process of following up with leads you're missing out on a lot of potential sales. With tools that can do much of the work seamlessly, you can guide qualified leads from when they give you their information, through the sales funnel to a buying decision and beyond.
Here are some ideas to help you gain a better understanding of how marketing automation and lead generation works and how each can help make to land more B2B sales for your business.
Here are some ideas to help you gain a better understanding of how marketing automation and lead generation works and how each can help make to land more B2B sales for your business.
Introduction to marketing automation
Your marketing team works hard to come up with creative campaigns that can help generate sales leads while your sales team takes those leads and converts them into sales.
Simply put, marketing automation takes advantage of technology through software or applications that help sales and marketing teams to work more efficiently. Back in the not too distant past, much of this was done manually, and everyone was stuck with tasks that were repetitive and tedious and not very efficient. Automating some of those repetitive and inefficient tasks is what automated marketing is perfect for.
Automated marketing apps can help your sales and marketing staff send out emails and materials for your campaigns. It also allows teams to send follow-up emails to leads to push them through the sales funnel. Automation can free up your team to make more efficient use of their time and efforts so they are more aligned with each other and the sales goals of your business.
Simply put, marketing automation takes advantage of technology through software or applications that help sales and marketing teams to work more efficiently. Back in the not too distant past, much of this was done manually, and everyone was stuck with tasks that were repetitive and tedious and not very efficient. Automating some of those repetitive and inefficient tasks is what automated marketing is perfect for.
Automated marketing apps can help your sales and marketing staff send out emails and materials for your campaigns. It also allows teams to send follow-up emails to leads to push them through the sales funnel. Automation can free up your team to make more efficient use of their time and efforts so they are more aligned with each other and the sales goals of your business.
How automation can help you manage marketing
You and your marketing team have probably already put together killer websites and campaigns that might bring in thousands of site visitors each month to find out more about your product or service. That's great! But how do you get them to buy? Marketing experts estimate that 98% of your website's visitors won't be ready to purchase immediately. Both your marketing and sales teams can do their part in generating sales by using marketing automation tools.
One excellent way to generate leads faster is to offer something for free to your website visitors. In return for their email address and name, you can provide them with something of value. Say, for example, you are offering a report on "30 Days to Build Your Social Media Presence & Gain 1,000 New Followers Each Week." It can be an enticing offer for anyone who is looking to accomplish that goal. Once you have their information, marketing automation will send out the report, and you now have a new lead and a potential buyer of your product or service.
Hyper-personalized and hyper-targeted email marketing campaigns are some of the top B2B lead generation tactics recommended by digital marketers.
These tools can help you to:
Generate Leads
Marketing automation offers you a seamless way to do repetitive tasks key to generating sales. Your teams probably already have an effective and polished response rate to send out to your leads. With automation, there is no need to re-write or cut and paste the body of those emails for each lead.One excellent way to generate leads faster is to offer something for free to your website visitors. In return for their email address and name, you can provide them with something of value. Say, for example, you are offering a report on "30 Days to Build Your Social Media Presence & Gain 1,000 New Followers Each Week." It can be an enticing offer for anyone who is looking to accomplish that goal. Once you have their information, marketing automation will send out the report, and you now have a new lead and a potential buyer of your product or service.
Tailor a Personalized Email Campaign
Now that you have the information a lead has provided, you can send out a welcome series of emails along with things like related articles, tips, blog posts, or useful templates likely to interest them. You can set your automated campaign to send something to your leads every few days. Those leads that click on links within the email will receive what you offer and allow your business to build a relationship with them. Those engagements with your product or service will lead them further into the sales funnel and toward a purchase.Hyper-personalized and hyper-targeted email marketing campaigns are some of the top B2B lead generation tactics recommended by digital marketers.
Send Out an Offer That Converts a Lead Into a Sale
Don't stop with lead generation. It's crucial to drive your prospects and leads to the purchase decision. When inspecting the information based on a well-planned email follow up strategy with the help of an easy to install email follow up tool, you may find that most sales for your company are generated after you send out a free webinar. You can use this information to give even more value-added content and discounts through your Customer Resource Management or CRM program and get them even closer to being a sale.Upsell & Cross-Sell Your Past Customers
Finalizing the sale doesn't have to be the end of the relationship you have with a customer. You can also use marketing automation to help them upgrade, purchase related products, and even renew what they've already bought. You can make what might have been a one-time customer for your product or service into someone who will be loyal to your brand for life.Identify Which Segments Have the Highest ROI
By automating your marketing efforts in email campaigns, you can quickly identify which of your leads has been engaged is interacting with your company. These leads are more prone to expressing their needs, which you can act upon. You can also determine which types of leads or buyer profiles are less likely to ever convert to a sale. This is the kind of valuable information that allows your sales team to focus on the right leads and then close more sales because they've been able to focus on their needs and interests.Unify lead generation using marketing automation
Marketing automation helps your company to nurture, warm, and ready leads to a purchasing decision. Automation also allows you to do some detail work or little things that a B2B customer expects you to do for them before they commit to a sale. When it comes time for your sales team to place a call to the customer, they will already know what content that the lead has looked at, what webinars or other offers that they've taken advantage of, and be able to pinpoint what content they are interested in.Create a Sales Winning Strategy on Landing Pages & Email Campaigns
When you take advantage of technologies that automate your marketing campaign, you can readily determine which landing pages get the highest level of responses and conversion rates. Many of these automated marketing tools can also help you determine what your competition is getting right on their landing pages and content that you might not be. Having this information will allow you to offer more on your website so visitors can find answers they are looking for and solve problems that take advantage of what your business has to offer.
When you have a landing page that is simple, direct and gets to the point, visitors are more likely to provide you with their contact information.
By sending out timed emails from the beginning, you can encourage leads to become more engaged, informed, and educated about your company. Based on offers, they take advantage of like reports, webinars, or free courses, and your sales team has the information necessary to bring them closer to a sale.
Using automated processes to send out a quick thank you email for signing up and a series of welcome emails will generate better results. According to some marketing experts, follow up emails that contain further offers are four times more likely to be opened. Follow up responses also have a click rate that is eight times higher, and drive revenue between five and six times more effectively than any other type of email campaign.
By sending out timed emails from the beginning, you can encourage leads to become more engaged, informed, and educated about your company. Based on offers, they take advantage of like reports, webinars, or free courses, and your sales team has the information necessary to bring them closer to a sale.
Using automated processes to send out a quick thank you email for signing up and a series of welcome emails will generate better results. According to some marketing experts, follow up emails that contain further offers are four times more likely to be opened. Follow up responses also have a click rate that is eight times higher, and drive revenue between five and six times more effectively than any other type of email campaign.
Shorten the Sales Funnel
Automated marketing tools can assist you in personalizing each email. When you personalize and acknowledge a lead for what they have done for you, you can further build trust with them and potentially increase customer loyalty. An email link can bring your leads back to your website so they can interact with others in community forums. They can also connect with other customers who can offer testimonials or other forms of social proof reaffirming the value of what your product or service offers. Such testimonials can not only help your sales team close the sale, but also recommend linked or related products to them.Count All the Benefits of Marketing Automation
Marketing automation is not a job for beginners and you might need a marketing automation specialist if you want to maximize it. Send out at regular intervals over a specific period, whether once daily or once a week. Each email you send should have a link to bring them back to your site for more information or provide an offer to them with a specific call to action.Marketing automation will provide your team of marketing experts with valuable information that can help them create the kinds of campaigns that have shown are most effective in increasing sales or conversion rates.
For your sales team, marketing automation provides a seamless way to learn what they need to know about each lead. This will substantially shorten the time that it takes to convert a lead into a prospect and increase the likelihood of a sale. Automation helps them in determining potential questions and objections and answer them through regularly scheduled emails and build a buyer persona that will seem more personal and intuitive.
Automation tools will help you to design just the right content to fit each buyer persona. Having just the right content or offers that generate a response can help you track customer behavior. Campaigns can be changed or tailored to fit your audience, save your sales team time, and increase conversion rates and offer a higher ROI for your business.
Growth Hackers is an innovative B2B marketing agency committed to helping businesses grow by using growth hacking strategies. If you need assistance in improving your lead generation efforts and increasing your sales through marketing automation, contact Growth Hackers now!
Michael Habiger
I am a content manager and marketing specialist at FollowUpFred with 6 years of professional experience.
