Lead Generation Tools in the Automation Age

Generating revenue is the foundation of any successful business. How can you generate consistent revenue for your company? With customers who buy into your brand! With lead generation tools, your business can locate new contacts that can be converted into customers.

Using automation to streamline lead generation tasks opens up the door to attracting more leads using less human effort. This means your team can spend more time nurturing leads vs scouring for prospects.  

Here’s a brief overview of how automation tools can help your business’ lead generation strategy.

What is Lead Generation?

Lead generation is the process of attracting new prospects’ interest in your brand. Lead generation can happen during any events that occur during each step of the buyer’s journey.  Getting users to become familiar with your brand before initially selling your big points helps nurture a loyal customers. The goal is for leads to naturally want to buy into your brand, not be force-fed sales pitches.

Lead generation is an essential part of the marketing to the sales funnel. Understanding where your leads are during each stage is important to fostering a natural relationship so leads can naturally convert to customers. 

Lead generation operates at its best when your strategies cater to each lead’s experience and personalize the messaging to get the highest value. That’s where automation comes in.

Why Should Lead Generation be Automated?

First and foremost, automation tools save time. Your sales team can automate repetitive tasks and increase their time spent nurturing leads. This improves productivity by 20%!

Automation allows little to no involvement to generate leads from marketing or sales teams, which lets your sales team focus on high ROI tasks such as talking with potential customers instead of low conversion tasks like cold calling/emailing. 

Here are a few ways to generate more leads with lead generation automation tools:

Chatbot:

Over 50% of consumers prefer businesses to be available 24/7. Chatbots are a great modern lead generation tool that can be integrated into your website and can be used during or after business hours. A chatbot can help end-users with questions offering great customer service, but can also collect essential user information efficiently and convert leads through the tool without the need of a human to operate. Chatbots can also be integrated with your CRM so you can save the information collected.

Forms:

Forms can be used to collect user details 24/7, opening the door to connect with users wherever they are, at their convenience. Remember, we want leads to naturally convert to customers. You can utilize a CRM web form to collect contact information on your website or landing page, and then store the information gathered within your contact relationship management system for easy accessibility.

Email Marketing:

48% of marketers believe that email marketing is the most effective strategy for generating leads online. Email marketing automation allows your team to send targeted content through lead scoring, split testing, and more. 

Email marketing automation can also be integrated with your CRM to effectively store and automate email workflows. Workflows allow your team to send targeted information when specific actions are triggered on your site or with your emails.

Here’s an example of some workflow rules in HubSpot:

Pay-per-click (PPC):

PPC Automation helps your team stay on track with campaign goals and manage your PPC bids on long-term campaigns. Using automation to determine key paid media strategies saves your team time and effort.  Not only can automation help with strategy, but reporting and data collection.

Check out Swydo, a PPC automation tool that integrates and automates data reports for various analytics platforms. You can combine different data and schedule reports to be sent automatically. Talk about a time-saver! 

At the end of the day, not all leads exit the funnel. Sometimes people will exit midway through, but that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. Users who exit mid-journey can be targeted using automation tools and useful information to nurture leads that are already engaged with your brand. 

Lead Generation Tools

Now to the fun part: what lead generation automation tools are available? There are plenty of options out there, but here are some of the best automation tools for lead generation, depending on what area your team would like to focus on! 

Email marketing automation platforms

If you were to start ANYWHERE with lead generation automation, we would recommend you start with email marketing platforms. Automated emails generate 320% more revenue than non-automated emails! Using email automation for lead generation allows your team to develop campaigns that are easy to use, extremely targeted, and personalized. 

For example, check out ActiveCampaign! With a drag and drop email builder and a plethora of options for triggered content, auto-responses, and scheduling.

Email finders

Email finders are a great tool for discovering new leads within your target market. No matter what kind of leads you’re searching for, there are automation tools available to scrape web data for emails within company domains. Many times email finders operate through extensions or software. This is a great resource for targeted cold outreach and it offers minimal human effort as well!
Snov.io is a robust and affordable software that allows your team to collect information through domains, company profiles, and social channels. Not only do you get access to relevant leads, but Snov.io also collects this data and exports it for you seamlessly.

Hunter.io Chrome Extension is another option for email finder automation. You can email search by name and company website to find exactly who you are looking for. Hunter.io is a great option if your team needs something quick and simple for email lead generation.

Prospect Discovery

How can an automation tool still create a personalized outreach experience? Growbots has the system down pat. Strategically collect valuable information about new and current leads for outreach. Growbots gives your team access to over 100 million contacts in a wide variety of fields, allowing your team to focus on exactly who you’re targeting.

CRM automation tools

CRM automation tools offer a robust automation experience from beginning to end of the marketing and sales funnel. CRM platforms can organize, track and nurture leads all in one place making it an essential tool when it comes to lead generation efforts and strategies. Keeping all of this information in one place is helpful to keep your sales and marketing team aligned, as each team has access to the same real-time information about end-users, creating a cohesive relationship-building experience across all channels.

Sales enablement tools

Why do we need lead generation again? Oh yeah, to make sales! Using automation tools helps sales teams deliver quality customer service and achieve their sales goals. 
Check out HubSpot Sales for tools and templates for emails, call tracking and managing contacts all in one place.

Automated chatbot tools

Online chat options are an AWESOME way to connect with users. Yes, you can still make meaningful connections with leads through automated chatbots and live chat options. Check out Intercom! Intercom offers several different avenues of 24/7 online chat options, saving your customer service team time, and creating a personable and accessible experience for end-users. These bots can automatically connect with users, schedule appointments, and store data about users. That eliminates a lot of time for your team to focus on these high-quality leads.

Advertising tools

Google Ads is a great tool for understanding how your target audience searches for your brand and interacts with your content. The greatest part? Google Ads allows you to automate your PPC campaigns, ensuring that your goals will consistently be achieved. Google Ads Smart Bidding and Smart Creative solutions use machine learning that analyzes millions of signals in real-time to show the right message, to the right customer, in the moments that matter.

So instead of having to spend time manually optimizing your ads or bidding, you can get better results faster with the help of automated solutions.

eCommerce lead generation tools

Boost your eCommerce site with referrals using ReferralCandy! This automation tool increases word-of-mouth referrals, automatically. Give your current customers access to spreading the word about your brand quickly, without a human bugging them for a referral, and they get rewarded! 

Let’s connect!

No matter where your team is in your marketing and sales strategy, lead generation will always be involved. Automation can make that easier for your team, opening up more opportunities to connect with your audience and converting leads to customers. 

Are you looking for new ways to automate your lead generation strategies? Let’s talk! If you’re looking for an inclusive automation solution, let’s talk about how Pyxl can get your team started with HubSpot, a robust CRM with automated tools for every step of the way. Pyxl is a Diamond Solutions Partner, which means we are experts on getting your team set up on HubSpot, through the implementation process, and on your way to success with a dynamic marketing strategy.

Updated: Apr 18, 2022