Businesses nowadays have the amazing option of creating data-driven marketing campaigns that deliver meaningful results.
However, as more data pours in every day from multiple platforms and sources, entrepreneurs everywhere start to understand the need for business process automation.
In fact, you can’t devise successful lead generation strategies without integrating at least some basic workflow automation systems. Plus, marketing automation is already a necessity as it helps restructure the workload and frees up the creative potential of your people.
How Does Automation Help Lead Generation?
According to a study performed by Automation Anywhere, manual repetitive business processes are among the most hated tasks by employees. These tasks are considered boring, time-consuming, and soul-sucking (no creativity required). Plus, 51% of the ones surveyed think repetitive tasks get in the way of their main job.
If we apply these findings to marketing and sales teams, where people must use their brains to find new and creative ways to attract leads and customers, it’s easy to understand the benefits.
Both these units have lots of processes that can be automated in order to free up the time of creatives. However, when it comes to generating leads, we’re also talking about increasing efficiency and productivity in order to generate more profits.
When done right, workflow automation helps streamline business operations, increase ROI and customer satisfaction. It’s also a great way to shift focus from menial tasks to nurturing leads and turning them into loyal, long-term customers.
Automation Tools that Drive Growth
Proper and efficient automated processes need the right tools working in the background. After all, business automation means integrating technology within your company’s unique inner flow.
This is why it takes some time to identify the right automation tool, especially when it comes to capturing leads and nurturing the existing ones.
Plus, lead generation can happen at different stages when you’re working on multiple channels (as it usually is the case today). Taking this under consideration, it’s easy to understand why every specialist will recommend several different tools.
For example, many businesses use outreach automation tools like Salesflow. This is a LinkedIn automation software that lets businesses take advantage of this network’s size and abundance of opportunities (700+ million professionals at your disposal).
However, you don’t have to limit your reach to just one tool. You can also implement automated workflows in the lead nurturing process by setting actions such as:
- Automated SMS messages, emails, chat messages, and so on
- Social media posting based on various trigger events
- Unlocking special snippets of content for certain leads
Quick tip: The types of automation tools that will work best for your business is highly dependent on the type of processes you want to speed up and improve.
Automate Workflows for Your Teams
Up until now we only talked about automation tools that help your marketing and sales team reach out to customers for lead generation. However, a company can also implement workload automation to make things easier for its people.
One great example is the lead scoring and qualification system. If this is automated, you can easily keep track of your leads throughout their journey to becoming long-term customers.
How does this work?
In short, an automated lead scoring system awards points to each lead based on their interaction with your marketing campaign (clicking on links, browsing product pages, social media engagement, and more).
When a lead reaches a certain level (points-wise), the system will automatically transfer it to a new database if the company uses customer segmentation. Also, if the lead is considered ready, the system may transfer it directly to the sales team without any intervention from either team.
Plus, using this system is easier to identify any lost leads and try capturing their attention via different strategies.
Quick tip: if the company uses CRM software that integrates with third-party apps, it becomes easier to manage the customer database and organize the entire inner structure. It’s also a great way to solidify the relationship between marketing and sales teams.
Does Automation Really Drive Growth?
Yes, but only when implemented correctly.
No automation tool works without first doing the proper settings or without integrating it within your business processes. This can be a bit uncomfortable at first because it means opening up your internal business structure to an AI-driven system that’s often controlled via cloud based software.
Plus, to truly reap the benefits of automation, you will have to connect the system with your data sources, which means relinquishing even more of your tight grip on things. That’s why when you start thinking about working with automated tools, you also have to take a look at your cybersecurity efforts.
You can’t have proper business automation without knowing your system is secure!
Automation Software Benefits for Businesses
Besides the benefits we already mentioned throughout the article (taking over redundant & time-consuming tasks, helping with lead generation and nurturing, bringing teams together), here are the other major benefits of automation:
- Increased overall productivity (not just for marketing and sales)
- Reduced bottlenecks and increased efficiency and effectiveness in business processes
- Better and faster conversions
- Customers will be more satisfied with your fast reaction time and increased attention dedicated to their needs
- Lower risk of errors that are usually attributed to overworked, tired employees
- Easier to pinpoint vulnerabilities or weaknesses
- Save on costs in the long-term
Overall, when used right, automation may be key to a more efficient and satisfying work environment for employees and a better experience for customers.
Wrap Up
Besides a lack of trust in various technologies, one of the reasons small businesses still don’t use automation is the initial investment.
Sadly, proper business automation requires some sort of financial investment, but this is one of those situations when you need to invest before you can reap the benefits.
Also, the benefits don’t come pouring in the first day your system is functional. It takes a bit of time before you truly start to understand just how much automation can change the way you do business (in a positive way). So be patient, focus on your needs, and the benefits will come!