Automating lead generation: A Quick Guide

A biggie in hitting your sales target is having a lot of potential customers. You’ve probably heard the phrase “playing the numbers”, which is kind of true. The phrase itself ignores the focus on quality (getting good leads and following up). But it does show that for everyone 1 quote, there’s and XX% chance that they’ll say yes.

For example, if you want 50 new sales this month and your quotes have a 33% conversion rate, then realistically you need 150 leads per month to be confident that you’ll hit that target. This is why automating lead generation can seem like an appealing thing but can be hard to get sometimes without proper prep. I hope this guide to automating lead generation helps you hit your sales target

Outline

There are a few steps to this process, all of which build upon each other:

  1. Have a good reason why your audience is going to visit your site (and keep coming back)
  2. Have a way to get your website in front of your audience
  3. Make it easy for them to say ‘yes’ to what you’re asking for (eg a free trial, a meeting, a quote, etc)

Lead generation isn’t marketing.

But first, a quick aside. People commonly think lead generation is marketing and it’s not. But it does rely heavily on it.

“Lead generation bridges the gap between sales and marketing. It turns the hot mess of people who have heard about you or are vaguely thinking about you into a stream of interested, potential buyers who want to talk.”

Give them a reason to stop by (and bring their friends next time)

You need an appropriate form of marketing to support your lead generation. This is quite easy to find out! Based on your current sales, you’ve got a wealth of info already about what works and what doesn’t. Check out here to help you work out the best form of marketing for you“Which Source of Leads Generate the Best Results”?

 

Make sure the right people find you

So, first step done on the path to automating lead generation. You’ve made your website and amazing place to be with great content, free giveaways, etc. Now you need them to actually see your website. Without knowing your business, the best tip I could give is to focus on what’s worked before to put yourself in front of your customer. Where are they looking?

The obvious ones

  • Google – Has appearing in search terms e.g. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Pay Per Click (PPC) worked for you?
  • Social media – Has sharing your message throughout social media worked? Think about whether it’s worked bettter in specific groups or on your live feed and what people have responded to?

 Use content to support offline

Do you do a lot of offline stuff? Great! Use your website as an additional tool when out meeting people face to face. Done right, this works tremendously well. Examples could be:

  • Networking – Having a really useful blog or PDF which you tell people about at networking events
  • Flyers or letters – Ask the recipients of your mail campaigns to visit you online
  • Trade shows – Create a quick, engaging video, which you only tell people at a particular event about

The point, is you can use this stuff to support your personal style of selling! Here’s a good blog which can help you do this further.

 

Measure and capture this interest

Okay, stage 3! We’ve now got a bunch of interested potential customers visiting and re-visiting your website. What now? Here’s the final and most important stage of automating lead generation. Why is this the most important stage? Because this is where you get to harvest all of the good work you’ve done.

I’ll show you some great tools to help you find out who’s visiting your website and then capture that interest.

Who’s visiting your site?

We’re big fans of Hubspot. Personally, I love how they offer so many useful tools for free, so if our clients don’t have any stuff like this in place already, this is a good start.

automating lead generation

As part of Hubspot’s free package, they offer B2B Analytics so you can see how many and who is visiting your site. For B2B sales to big companies, this is especially useful because you can see which companies have responded to your marketing.

Start the conversation using live chat

What’s important is to capture their interest by starting a conversation with the visitors. tawk.to & Live Chat offer excellent software that you can install right now yourself to start that conversation and automate your lead generation.

 

Real humans are here 24/7 to start the conversation for you

Are you missing out on leads because you do 9-5 webchat? We will answer your visitor’s questions 24/7 and you only have to pay for the results that we get you.

Our Pay-Per-Lead Webchat helps you to grow your business by only paying for qualified leads. This is excellent for when you are scaling your marketing and sales campaigns, as you only pay for the results that we generate you.

  • Only pay for the leads we generate you
  • Monthly sales coaching to help you close the sale
  • We plant trees as we grow your business

A webchat lead converts 2x better than a contact form lead

Typically, a webchat lead converts 2x better than a contact form lead. But don’t take our word for it, let us prove it to you with a free trial!

Get in touch here to organise the free trial.