As a form of MarTech (marketing technology), marketing automation has been around for at least two decades and many companies have already tried it on. However, as a complex piece of software, marketing automation can be tricky to use. As a result, some may think it can do nothing more than just sending out bulk emails while others tend to believe marketing automation is a magic wand that will turn their pumpkin into gold. Neither is true because this type of software certainly automates certain processes and facilitates data-driven decision-making but the role of resources and talent remains central.
Nowadays the functionality of marketing automation platforms (MAPs) is so broad that it includes email marketing, lead scoring and nurturing, campaign management, social media management, landing page creation, retention, and ROI measurement and analytics. Because marketing automation gives marketers insights into B2B leads behavior and enables personalization and tailored content, automated B2B lead generation can be very efficient and effective.
And that is just in time. Marketers and SDRs are overwhelmed with pressure to bring in more business leads, nurture them into closure faster, and improve all metrics and increase revenue all at the same time. Using the best CRM platform on the market and having a handful of well-performing lead generators is not enough to drive revenue and ROI. Your sales tech stack definitely should include a well-integrated MAP chosen based on your business’s needs, budget, sales process, strategies, and other factors. Learn what tasks and processes can get automated and how to improve lead generation for your business.
What Is Marketing Automation?
Automation facilitates repetitive tasks. However, marketing automation not only automates email sequences but also helps personalize and tailor messages to fit the needs and pain points of target audiences. And today personalization and customization is the bread and butter of B2B lead generation and appointment setting. Before we explore the lead generation features, let’s get an overview of automation software functions.
Email automation. Automated activities include most rote tasks pertinent to email marketing like delivering messages regularly (weekly, bi-weekly, etc.), setting up a drip campaign, initiating welcome or abandoned cart emails, using email templates, applying criteria to automatically enroll and un-enroll your contacts in a newsletter or campaign, following up on unread emails, customizing email design and copy (Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, Sendgrid). An automated workflow is activated by a lead’s action or a number of criteria.
Lead nurturing. Also known as a buyer journey, lead nurturing is similar to managing email campaigns but can include other channels too, such as social media, voicemail, SMS, etc. Automated solutions enable sending highly personalized content based on prospects’ actions and status changes. Closely following the buyer journey through the sales funnel, SDRs assist leads by sending relevant content or putting a cold lead on the back burner (MailChimp, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, Sendgrid, Autopilot, LeadSquared).
Lead scoring. Automatic assigning values to leads is integrated in most automation software solutions but can go as a stand-alone tool as well (Madkudu, 6Sense, Leadspace, Infer, Zapier, Autopilot). Given the circular rather than linear nature of the buyer journey, lead scoring tools will allow marketing and sales to assess leads’ intent rather than approach their journey mechanically based on open rates, CTRs, and other metrics.
Lead management. The function of lead management in MAPs enables marketing and sales to have an overview of all their B2B leads at different stages of the buying process. Some may lack information; others lack enthusiasm. A lead management function allows moving prospects around from group to group and segment workflows according to a company’s needs at the very moment (any email marketing and CRM platform).
Form builders. Being useful lead generators, onsite forms, and landing pages are now easy to create for marketers due to templates, drag-and-drop editors, and easy to fill in for prospects due to integrated pre-filling options (Unbounce, Instapage, Formstack, Typeform).
Scheduling. An option to schedule and time your posts, emails, ads and any piece of content is at the heart of marketing automation, saving time and effort. Newly generated leads are automatically added to your CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce).
Social media management. With so many communication channels at hand, marketing teams find it easier to use one well-architectured marketing platform to manage messages, content, and engagement. Thus, you can interact with your Facebook and LinkedIn audience from a MAP of your choice (Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprout, Postoplan, Recurpost).
Retargeting. Using the retargeting functionality, marketers arrange for prospects who had expressed interest in your product but got cold for some reason to get displayed your ad or get an automated follow-up email from you. Retargeting is just a gentle reminder to a lead that your product exists (Salesforce).
Optimization. Leading marketing automation tools provide users with recommendations, A/B testing, and optimization options. For instance, when you are scheduling the time and date of a drip sequence, a system can offer you some send time optimization suggestions.
Analytics. Being able to measure and quantify their campaigns, metrics, and pipeline, marketers and sales get a clear understanding of where their qualified leads get generated the most and where to direct their efforts. Detailed dashboards and reports help understand what works and what doesn’t and make an informed guess as to why (Pardot, Tableau, Clari, Tray.io).
How to improve your lead generators with MAPs?
A leading marketing automation tool enables marketers and SDRs to make their outreach and engagement personalized and humane. It is a gross mistake to think that once a company has a great CRM system and a handful of stand-alone tools, it is all set. CRM is like a huge database shared by sales and marketing. It is the backbone of your sales tech stack but it needs the brains and limbs to operate effectively. Whereas your sales force is clearly the brain, a well-integrated marketing automation tool is the arms and legs of your core teams.
Let’s imagine you have strong lead generators in place. Your website has onsite forms; your landing pages are SEO optimized; your social media marketing is targeted at your ideal customer profiles. What can you do to improve your lead generation efforts with automation?
Tracking leads’ behavior and actions
Integrated with your CRM platform, marketing automation software tracks all the visitors to your website gathers data from lead forms and landing pages and analyzes prospects and leads’ browsing behaviors.
Tracking features score prospects and leads and singles out aspects of visitors’ behaviors that make them qualified leads. For example, a tracking feature will show prospects’ email CTR, open rate, and visit count, equipping marketers and SDRs with data on where on the buyer journey a lead is.
Personalizing and customizing your content
Personalization and customization are the functions of MAPs that truly make the difference for lead generating and nurturing activities. Especially in startups and tech sectors, B2B leads are professionals who are well familiar with sales tactics. Many direct marketing and sales approaches work poorly or don’t work at all on them.
By personalizing your messages you can get through the white noise around them and show that you care. In cold emails, you can reach out to a prospect with a piece of relevant information. When sending out outbound emails, include only industry-specific content you find out about thanks to marketing automation insights. When creating landing pages, you can make multiple variants of landing pages matching your targeted ads.
Capturing leads through lead generation companies
The problem is not to find leads but to do it quickly and with little time and money. To avoid spending tons of financial and human resources on lead generation, generate B2B leads by Belkins’ efforts. A professional agency has not only the knack for lead generation but also all the necessary tools to do it efficiently. Crafting crisp copy for cold emails is essential but how much sense does it make if your emails are blacklisted? Lead generation agencies usually know little tricks on how to fix email spam problems and bump your domain reputation. Leading agencies, in turn, develop their own email checkers to help their clients solve the email deliverability issue forever.
Automate lead gen processes and get real results
Marketing automation cannot be dropped from the tech stack of SMEs and startups but its functionality should be better explored to perform well. MAPs eliminate low-value work, take on recurring tasks, and streamline many marketing and sales processes. Using automated solutions, marketers and reps are now able to make smart decisions about generating, scoring, and managing leads. The Belkins team is ready to help you be smart about automated outreach and lead generation. Let us know if you need any help.