Agencies: How to automate lead generation to scale growth
Have you felt like your agency growth has slowed down recently? Is your team struggling to find more leads and close more deals? If so, you’re not alone. Almost 60 percent of business leaders say lead generation is a challenge for their businesses (Forbes).
What do hundreds of agencies from around the world say about the challenges they face and how to solve them? Download the insights report “Challenges agencies face” to find out.
You already know the importance of keeping your pipeline full. The question is how you can do that in an efficient way that translates to growth for your agency.
Enter automation.
AI-driven solutions can help your agency sales team discover not just more leads but higher quality leads too. Here’s how to automate lead generation in sales and marketing workflows to scale growth.
Use marketing automation to create customer touchpoints
Most lead gen automation starts with marketing automation. If you know the answer to “what is marketing automation,” then you know this makes good sense. Your marketing team is getting the word out and creating customer touchpoints. They may be active on social media and running email campaigns to make your brand visible.
You can definitely automate some of these tasks.
Good candidates for marketing automation include:
- email drip campaigns
- social media marketing
Discover which leads are actually interested
Your CRM and marketing platform should give you insight into who your leads are and what they’re interested in. This, in turn, should give sales a better conversation starter. Which emails did they open and clickthrough? Which content assets did they download? A lead who downloaded a top-of-the-funnel “how to” marketing asset is not going to be ready to buy, whereas a lead who downloaded your product guide likely is.
This information is key to discovering better leads. Your sales and marketing team spends a lot of time finding new leads. Then they need to qualify them too. Sure, you got a bunch of clicks, but are all these visitors primed to buy? And what are they interested in buying?
With the data from lead automation tools, you can spend less time qualifying each lead. You know what they’re interested in, and you can follow up with them much sooner and armed with the right knowledge.
What’s more, some sales automations can offer real-time alerts that let you know when someone is interacting. Your team can kick off the conversation at the right time, especially with a CRM that provides contact data.
Automate prospecting with sales intelligence tools and send better emails
Using sales intelligence tools like Snapshot Report in your sales process can make prospecting faster, more efficient, and more data-focused. It can save your reps hours on research.
Such a tool can automatically conduct research on your leads’ online presence. For example, you can find out whether a lead is doing poorly at digital advertising, listings management, or SEO. With this information, you can then offer personalized product recommendations to make your sales emails more valuable. As a result, a lead is more likely to open them.
That makes you stand out from your competition. It also makes the lead more likely to engage in conversation. You might show them gaps in their business they didn't even know about. Given that, they’re going to feel that your agency is in the perfect position to provide solutions.
Best of all, some of these emails can be automated. For example, you can automate a follow-up email with product recommendations based on the lead's activity. You can also send a note that asks if the prospect is ready to schedule a demo for that one product they keep looking at.
Never guess about the best time to reach out
Using the right platform to automate lead generation can also take the guesswork out of following up.
The software collects data to help you determine who is at the optimal point in their buying process.
Ranking how “hot” a lead is by their activity gives your reps a better idea of when to reach out. There’s no more worry about scaring off cold leads by reaching out too soon. Likewise, you won’t miss the window of opportunity with those leads who are ready to buy.
Real-time notifications about a lead’s activity, as well as their “hotness” rank, helps the platform give your reps recommendations about when to respond. For some leads, that might be within 24 hours. For others, you may need to reach out even sooner.
Use a pipeline management solution to streamline conversion
Automating lead generation for agencies is one half of the equation. The other half is what you do with those leads once you’ve discovered them.
Some leads will convert quickly, while others need more nurturing. If your team has many leads to keep track of, then they’re at risk of losing the thread with some of the nurtured leads. A CRM can help. It lets you keep track of prospects who have signed up for your email campaigns or for a free download.
A streamlined pipeline management solution that connects to the CRM also helps. With it, you can track and measure the leads you’ve generated.
Once you’ve followed up, CRM software can help you keep track of how long it’s been since someone was in touch with a prospect. The platform also keeps track of what information your team has shared with a lead. Team members can then make sure they’re sharing new and relevant data.
Pipeline management tools also help you identify which businesses engage with your content. With insights into business profiles and activities, you can keep making better suggestions for your prospective clients.
Automating sales outreach and follow-up
There are some parts of the sales process that you want your team to handle with a personal touch. Other tasks are great candidates for email automation.
Your CRM and other tools can help you automate sales email on a few different fronts.
Your sales team might also benefit from the use of template emails. Tracking lets them see what they've already sent. It also gives them an idea of how long it’s been since they followed up.
Emails such as notifications about deals or recommended content can be generated based on each prospect’s activity. Post-meeting and post-sale follow-up emails can be automated as well.
In turn, leads receive information when they’re looking for it. Your agency also stays at the top of their minds, as they see contact from your sales reps on a regular basis.
Showcase everything you do with an interactive marketplace of products and services
A product catalogue can showcase all your products or services—without your team needing to say a word. Prospects can browse the interactive catalogue on their own to discover what most interests them.
While they’re doing that, your team receives data via the dashboard about lead activity. In turn, you have insider intel on what products are intriguing your leads. The catalogue makes it easy for local businesses to engage with your agency—and to discover what you can do for them.
How automating lead generation lets you scale
The steps above will help your sales team discover leads, qualify them, and connect with them at the right time, with the right information.
How does that put you in a position to scale agency growth? It means your reps spend less time researching and qualifying, and nurturing new leads. They can already see how hot a prospect is, and the platform helps them figure out the right time to connect.
Sales reps spend 17 percent of their time prospecting and researching leads (SaaSworthy). Then they have to spend time qualifying them. When you automate lead generation, your reps can spend more time having meaningful conversations with prospects—instead of trying to uncover new ones.
It also allows for a deeper understanding of what prospects need and want. That, in turn, positions you as the best agency to help them achieve their growth goals. Automated lead nurture and follow-up also means your brand stays top of mind, making it easier for you to take them from prospect to happy customer.
The right marketing and sales automations also give you more opportunities to sell to your existing clients.
Put your agency on track for growth
A move to automate lead generation is a smart one for almost any agency owner.
Your sales team will love the extra help and insights they get from automation. With lead generation automation, they'll spend less time in the discovery phase. That means they can talk to more leads—and provide you with more agency growth opportunities.
