Tired of misalignment between sales and marketing teams?
You’re not the only one!
There’s no magical way of solving this issue, but you can try lead automation. Also known as automated lead generation, it’s a powerful way of using tools and workflows to attract, qualify, and route leads without manual effort.
It also helps both teams to evaluate leads and sync their goals. Think of it as the yin and yang of attracting and nurturing leads ☯️
This guide will teach you everything about automated leads and how technology seamlessly passes them through the marketing funnel.
Scroll 👇 or use the menu to get started!
Sales lead automation involves streamlining different touchpoints where leads can enter your sales funnel to better determine their importance.
Think of automated lead generation as the broader strategy that leverages lead automation tools to consistently bring in high-quality prospects.
You can use lead intelligence tools to analyse leads’ characteristics and assign them to the right salespeople at the right time.
Automating the lead generation process ensures that businesses target the right leads and improve planning. Forget about not having enough or having too many contacts to reach out to!
Also, you won’t lose valuable leads deep in your CRM.
When you automate leads, your teams usually have better communication with prospective customers. Both sides are better informed about what is happening and what to expect next.
You can automate sales leads in the four main stages of the customer journey:
You can’t have a lead automation process without getting the lead in the first place.
For example:
A visitor to your website becomes a lead when they fill out a contact information form.
Once you’ve captured the lead, the next step is to qualify them 👇
So, a lead has come through.
The next step is to evaluate the lead’s intent.
This lead automation stage is crucial. Why?
Because it helps B2B sales teams to identify the best opportunities that’ll close.
There’s also a speed factor involved here.
The sooner you qualify leads, the better. Because the salesperson can focus on reaching out to leads where the intent is at its highest.
And if there’s too much waiting around, the lead’s score will drop pretty quickly!
With lead automation solutions, leads can be qualified and scored without human intervention based on e.g., the channel they came from, technographic or firmographic data, or other characteristics.
When the leads have been sorted through, don’t just give them to whoever might be free in the sales team.
It’s not a free-for-all process. Lead automation helps you to assign the right leads to the right salespeople.
For example:
If you have a UK lead come through, automation will assign them to someone in your UK sales team.
In another scenario, let’s say you have a lead from someone based in the mid-market or enterprise segment. If that’s the case, lead automation tools will assign the lead to someone in your mid-market or enterprise sales team.
Once you’ve captured and qualified your lead, they’ll need to be nurtured at every step of the customer journey.
It’s the final piece of the puzzle. And it can be really time-consuming if you don’t automate the process.
With a platform like Intercom, you can automate leads by building out email nurture or drip campaigns.
Use lead automation technology to quickly build relationships with your leads; this speeds up conversion.
When automated, lead nurturing is a real game-changer. Because it’s the best way to stay at the top of customers’ minds.
As we’ve said, you can use lead automation throughout different channels or touchpoints.
Let’s see what automating leads means in practice 👇
Chatbots have been a revelation for how sales and marketing teams can interact with their customers.
And with a lead automation platform like Intercom or Drift, you can interact with leads the moment they submit a query through the chatbot.
You can capture and understand the intent of your leads instantly.
It’s a real game-changer.
A landing page is a great tool in a B2B marketer’s toolbox.
But if the B2B lead generation process from the landing page is manual, you can wave goodbye to converting them further down the funnel.
That’s why it’s important to use a lead automation tool that connects landing pages with your customer relationship management system (CRM).
Important information about the leads becomes visible for the sales and marketing teams. And it avoids a lot of back and forth, trying to figure out answers to questions such as:
And much more.
An example of software that helps you automate leads through landing pages is Unbounce.
It’s not enough to just “sell” your products anymore.
Customers aren’t going to interact with you if you don’t know what you’re talking about.
So, never underestimate the power of content marketing. People who get value from the content will interact with you because your insights are memorable. That’s where your leads come from.
You can automate sharing content on your social profiles in peak audience times. This increases your visibility and engages more leads.
Don’t forget to set up automatic replies to your prospective customers!
Alternatively, you could have a gated piece of content, such as an eBook. Once someone has filled out their details, consider automating the transfer of these details into the CRM.
Once again, it’s going to be useful for your sales team. Because they can quickly follow up with these leads if the opportunity is hot.
We’ve briefly touched on this, but email nurturing is important.
Manually doing it will almost certainly be a time-consuming, painful, and quite frankly, pointless process.
Because it's far from systematic - you won’t be able to target your leads at the right time.
That’s why it’s important to use a platform that takes out the complicated stuff for you. And Cognism’s sales intelligence solution is great for this.
Lead automation at this stage is important because you don’t have to manually refresh email lists. The software can run the checks for you and get rid of any spammy accounts, for example.
Sales and SaaS marketing teams can ensure that the nurtured leads are always qualified. Again, this streamlines things so you can focus on the best opportunities.
It’s best not to complicate lead automation. Sales and marketing teams will be busy enough just working on aspects like email messaging and focusing on the leads.
Lead automation is fuss-free and has plenty of benefits for your organisation 👇
What’s behind the dynamic duo of a sales and marketing team?
It all comes down to productive lead generation. Without it, opportunities begin to slip away. Because your team is chasing leads with the wrong intent.
With lead automation, it’s the reverse. Sales teams can follow up with the best leads. In other words, the ones who are likely to convert.
And let’s not forget the wonders it does for the marketing team. The more information they get about the leads coming in, the more they can refine their messaging.
Each time a lead is generated, it’s another piece of the ideal customer profile (ICP) puzzle completed.
And this means that over time, targeted leads with the best opportunity for closing are the ones coming through. Again, it comes back to this:
Lead automation helps sales and marketing to target, qualify, and nurture the right leads, with the right content, at the right time.
There’s a huge amount of B2B technology out there that can help with lead automation.
Here are 10 of the best 👇
Cognism automates and accelerates lead generation by delivering compliant contact data, intent signals, and real-time insights directly to sales reps.
Intent-driven prospecting: Surfaces accounts and contacts actively researching your product or competitors using Bombora intent data and Cognism buying signals.
Real-time lead enrichment: Automatically updates lead profiles with the latest firmographic and contact information, ensuring outreach is always relevant.
CRM and outreach tools: Seamlessly integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, Outreach, and Salesloft to automate lead capture and routing.
Browser extension: Enables one-click lead generation directly from LinkedIn and company websites, enhancing outbound workflows.
Employing AI insights, Salesforce fine-tunes lead automation strategies, focusing on generating and nurturing leads.
⚠️ Click the link to read about Cognism’s Salesforce integration.
HubSpot is a one-stop solution offering a comprehensive suite of tools to manage every aspect of lead automation, from lead generation to nurturing.
⚠️ Click the link to read about Cognism’s HubSpot integration.
With Marketo, you can deliver personalised lead experiences using lead automation workflows.
Intercom provides chatbots that are effective for early lead engagement and data collection.
Mailchimp offers a robust email marketing platform, using automation to nurture leads effectively.
Zoho CRM’s comprehensive tools efficiently handle lead capture and nurturing from start to finish.
This platform streamlines the process of sending tailored emails to leads, making it easier for businesses to engage and convert them.
Being a B2B marketing automation powerhouse from Salesforce, Pardot provides tools that simplify the management and engagement of potential clients.
Unbounce helps businesses create and optimise landing pages to capture more leads - it tailors these pages for maximum impact.
Here are the key points to recap:
See Cognism’s automated lead generation in action - click 👇 to book a call with us.