How to Use Lead Automation to Optimize Your Sales

What is lead automation?

At its core, lead automation is a powerful marketing and sales strategy that leverages automated processes and technology to streamline the process of nurturing and converting leads into paying customers.

Simply put, lead automation is the practice of using tools to automate most tasks within the process of nurturing and converting leads. This includes:

• Lead generation
• Data entry
• Lead nurturing
• Lead scoring
• etc.

Remember the sales funnel? It’s the 6-stage assembly line that starts with raising awareness for your product or service. Each task in the funnel is an opportunity to move the lead closer to becoming a customer.

Lead automation helps streamline each step of the funnel, from lead generation to customer acquisition. And if it weren’t for automation, sales representatives would have to do all of those tasks manually.

By automating these time-consuming tasks, salespeople can focus on more important ones, such as closing deals.

When done right, lead automation can shorten sales cycles, increase close rates, and improve your sales team’s productivity.

Why use lead automation?

If you’re not using Lead Automation in your business, you’re missing out on some serious benefits.

Lead automation helps you generate leads from a variety of sources, including your website, social media, and even offline sources. Once generated, lead automation allows you to nurture and qualify those leads so that you can pass them on to sales when they’re ready to buy. 

But that’s not it! Lead automation can also help you:

• Reduce costs by eliminating manual processes: Automating lead management helps reduce operational costs (think of all the man-hours spent on data entry, the money spent on business lunches, etc.).
• Increase sales by reducing the time it takes to close a deal: Pretty self-explanatory, the less time you spend on one sale, the more sales you’ll have in the long run. Lead automation can shorten sales cycles and increase close rates.
• Improve data quality and accuracy: Automating lead generation processes and CRM data entry reduces the chances of human error. What’s more is that it helps centralize your data, making it easier to track and manage
• Improve customer satisfaction by providing a better experience: Lead automation can help improve the customer experience by ensuring that each lead is properly nurtured.
• Personalize engagement with prospects: Lead automation tools enable you to create personalized and targeted campaigns that resonate with your audience, leading to higher engagement rates and better results.

• Scale lead management and lead generation processes: As your business grows, so do your lead generation and management processes. Lead automation can help you scale these processes quickly, without having to invest in additional resources.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Lead automation can do wonders for your business, provided that it’s used correctly, and that you use a comprehensive tool such as LaGrowthMachine!

More on that in the next parts! 😉 Let’s first check how you get started with lead automation in the first place.

How to use lead automation to boost your sales?

Lead generation is not a one-time event. It’s an ongoing process that requires planning and execution. The goal is to continuously fill your sales funnel with high-quality leads so that your sales team can close more deals.

This is done through a mix of marketing & sales initiatives, such as content marketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring, and so on. All of which can be automated

When done correctly, lead automation can be a powerful tool that can help you generate more leads, close more deals, and improve your sales team’s productivity.

We’ve arranged the different strategies you can use based on what actions your leads take.

When your lead visits your website:

Use pop-ups or forms to get their contact information

Offering a lead magnet in exchange for contact information is a great way to get started with lead automation.

Make sure that the lead generation form is short and to the point. You don’t want to ask for too much information as this will only serve to discourage leads from completing the form.

No one likes to spend more than 5 minutes answering random questions. 🤔

The best lead generation forms are those that only ask for the bare minimum -just like the forms you find on LinkedIn.. Once you have that, you can then proceed to nurture them with more targeted content.

Better yet, if you’re using LaGrowthMachine, all you need is to upload your lead’s Full Name and LinkedIn profile URL and we’ll enrich their data with the relevant information you need – such as job title, company name, personal email address, etc.

Score your leads thanks to website tracking

You can see how much time a lead spends on your site, what pages they visit, and what actions they take. This information can then be used to score your leads and determine their level of interest.

Lead scoring is a great way to prioritize leads so that you can focus your efforts on those that are most likely to convert.

Create a chatbot to answer your leads’ questions

Chatbots can help you qualify leads and even close deals. They’re available 24/7 and can answer common questions about your product or service.

What’s more is that they can help you gather information about your leads, such as their contact information or what features they’re looking for in your product specifically.

This information can then be passed on to the sales team who can reach out and provide more personalized assistance.

When your lead comes from social media:

Engage with them on their platform

Social media is all about engagement. By following your leads on social media, you can create a connection with them and build rapport.

Create automations that help you keep track of your leads’ social media activity so that you can quickly respond to their posts or comments. This is important because people do business with those that they know, like, and trust.

Furthermore, it provides you with an opportunity to show your personality. Get people to trust you by positioning yourself as a brand that they can relate to.

So, make sure to respond to comments and messages promptly. Also, don’t hesitate to share relevant and valuable content that your target audience will find useful.

However, and this is really important, you need to be where your leads are, not the other way around! By that I mean you should be spending time on the same platforms that your target audience frequents.

That way, you can not only easily do what I’ve outlined above but also find new leads!

Retarget them with ads

Speaking of social media platforms, they also allow you to target your ads with excruciating detail so that they’re only seen by those who are most likely to be interested in your product or service.

This is a great way to stay top of mind and ensure that your leads see your ad when they’re most receptive to it. Lead generation isn’t just about getting someone’s attention, but about keeping it.

To do this, make sure you do your research to create ads that are relevant to your target market and that offer something of value. It could be a free trial, a discount, or whatever you think would be the most enticing.

When your lead downloads a piece of content:

Send them a thank you email

A thank you email is a great way to start building a relationship with your lead. In the email, be sure to include a link to the content they downloaded, as well as additional resources that might be of interest.

Add them to a drip campaign

A drip campaign is a series of messages that are sent out over time. This is a great way to continue nurturing your lead and keeping them engaged with your brand.

This is where LaGrowthMachine shines! You can easily set up multichannel drip campaigns that utilize email, LinkedIn, and Twitter to reach out to your leads wherever they are!

Set up condition branches that serve up different sequences depending on the lead’s journey, response, and overall stage of awareness. All in one place!

That’s right, with our Inbox feature, all your conversations are grouped by leads, in a single interface.

Sort your messages by the campaign you’re currently working on or each lead’s status, and easily locate leads to follow up with. Everything is at your fingertips for time efficiency!

If your lead attends a webinar:

Follow up with a thank you email

Just like with downloadable content, it’s important to follow up with a lead after they’ve attended a webinar.

Schedule a demo or offer a free trial of your product/service

If your lead has attended a webinar, they’re probably interested in learning more about your offering. Scheduling a demo is a great way to continue the conversation and see if there’s a fit.

At the same time, it’s a great opportunity to get them to use a free trial of your product or service so that they can see the value for themselves. You’re taking away any risk on their part and making it easy for them to say yes!

The 5 best lead automation tools:

We’ve seen the endless possibilities of lead automation, and we’re confident that you will too.

If you’re not sure where to start, we got you!

There are many lead automation solutions on the market, some of them complete, some of them more dedicated to certain tasks.

Here are some of the most reputable software and solutions, ranked according to their effectiveness in their specific competencies.

Lead generation:

LaGrowthMachine: LaGrowthMachine is one of the most effective lead generation software on the market. It offers a wide range of features such as webhooks, live chat, LinkedIn automation, and more.

Leadberry: Leadberry is a great solution if you’re looking for an all-in-one lead generation tool. It offers a suite of features including email drip campaigns, lead generation forms, web scraping, and more.

SalesLoft: SalesLoft is a comprehensive sales acceleration platform that offers a wide variety of features including lead enrichment, sales intelligence, email tracking, and more.

Lead scoring:

LeadForensics: LeadForensics is a great solution for those looking for a lead scoring tool. It offers features such as webhooks, live chat, LinkedIn automation, and more.

CallRail: CallRail is also a great choice for those who need to work on their lead scoring strategies. It offers features such as call tracking, lead generation forms, lead management, and more.

Lead nurturing:

HubSpot Sales: HubSpot Sales is a great option for those looking for an all-in-one sales solution. It offers a suite of features including lead management, email integration, CRM integration, and more.

Pardot: Pardot is a good solution for those looking for a comprehensive lead nurturing tool. It offers features such as lead scoring, email drip campaigns, and more.

Marketo: Marketo is a great choice for those who need a robust lead nurturing tool. It offers features such as drip campaigns, lead generation forms, webhooks, and more.

LaGrowthMachine: The best lead automation solution

If only there was an affordable piece of software that guaranteed effective results… Oh, but wait!

LaGrowthMachine ticks all the boxes you would expect from a good lead automation tool.

With our platform, you can:

• Automate your multichannel workflows: work simultaneously on LinkedIn, Twitter or email to contact and enrich your leads.
• Automatically enrich your leads: simply click a button to enrich your contact lists in an unlimited way.
• Ensure an advanced follow-up of your leads: simply manage your duplicates, your blacklists, etc.
• Take advantage of an excellent Lead Management System: edit your leads and modify your audiences in real time.
• Filter your leads according to their activity.
• Analyze your performance, from the effectiveness of your entry points to the detailed performance of your campaigns.

Lead automation is the way!

The bottom line is that lead automation can help you optimize your sales process by making it more efficient. By automating close to any task, you can free up time to focus on other areas of your business. There are endless possibilities when it comes to automation.

The best way to find out what works for you is to experiment and see what gets the best results. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, so don’t be afraid to mix things up and try new things.

The most important thing is to focus on your goals and make sure that your lead automation strategy is helping you achieve them, with the right tool(s) of course.