Marketing automation today is more of a necessity than a whim. Having marketing automation tools at hand helps companies manage marketing campaigns more efficiently, as many basic processes become automatically controlled.

Marketing automation is not just about making your company operate more efficiently in terms of self-promotion. According to Invespcro:

Indeed, investing in marketing automation software allows companies to generate more leads, which, in its turn, results in higher customer retention rates and improved lead nurturing process.

However, according to the same source of the statistics above, around 30% of the companies still consider themselves new to marketing automation despite the fact that it’s been around for a while. The trick to tackling marketing automation the right way is to know how it works and how to use it right.

So, if you’re among that 30% of companies, new to marketing automation, let’s explore 7 ways to use marketing automation to generate leads.

1. The Landing Page Saga

The landing page discussion has been forever present in the marketing community. It is also an important part of the marketing automation process, and here’s why:

Marketing automation tools like Unbounce or HubSpot allow you to create custom contact forms for every landing page or create campaign-specific contact forms to match the needs of your marketing campaign. Having a specific form designed for potential buyers will generate more leads as they will have direct access to the information they are interested in, i.e. product description or payment methods.

2. The Importance of Synchronization

Marketing automation is all about synchronizing various tools. With synchronization tools at hand you won’t have to control every process on every marketing platform you’re using for your campaign. Instead, all you have to control is the flow of the synchronization process itself.

For instance, if you’re using Hubspot and Outlook for an email marketing campaign, having Hubspot automatically track KPIs from emails received through Outlook can save you a lot of time and trouble.

But here’s the trick: to receive full information, including all the data in the background, you need to have additional tools for Hubspot and Outlook synchronization. As data changes constantly in both apps, built-in synchronization tools that these two already have might not be enough.

So, whenever you working with several marketing automation tools make sure they sync well to bring you the whole scope of data.

3. Dripping with Emails

We are all well-familiar with autoresponders – emails that we get when we subscribe to different websites. This methodology is called an email drip campaign, which is a series of automatic response messages that are sent on a schedule to deliver certain information and generate leads.

Email drip campaigns are a part of marketing automation, which is designed to nurture early-stage leads. However, there are a lot of issues to consider:

Of course, email drip campaigns require testing. Be prepared that the first emails you send will not generate a lot of leads. Once you figure it out, however, you’ll be able to get more potential buyers and more conversion.

4. A Chit-Chat with a Bot

A good old chatbot is now a necessity in the world of marketing. According to Chatbotslife:

Marketing automation presupposes introducing chatbots to all your marketing platforms, including your website and social media. Not only do they take a lot of work off your customer support’s shoulders, but they also help you easily track KPIs and redirect potential buyers to corresponding landing pages.

5. Audience Analysis with A/B Testing

Also known as split testing, A/B testing is essentially a marketing experiment which allows you to split your audience to help you test and see a number of variations of a campaign and determine, which one is perceived better.

A/B testing has a lot to do with personalization of marketing campaigns, which, in its turn, is necessary for generating leads.

For instance, different visitors may receive different versions of the same page, which allows you to calculate:

There are A/B testing tools that ensure automation of this process, like VWO or Omiconvert. All these tools are designed to make A/B testing effortless, because it is, after all, a time-consuming process based on a lot of data testing.

6. Visitor Engagement Bonanza

To benefit from marketing automation, you not only need to know how to generate leads but also how to nurture them. Conditioning and nurturing leads is probably the most beneficial feature of marketing automation. Here’s what it can do for you:

Marketing automation also helps re-engage passive customers by sharing timely information which is also high in value.

7. Sales Funnel Automation

The whole process of buying and selling gives marketers a headache because there are so many things to consider. Sales funnel also requires studying every stage of interactions with the leads. A typical lead goes through several stages:

Interacting with a lead on each stage of the development requires marketing automation. Today, marketing automation tools are intuitive enough to see, what your subscriber wants to receive and what information presents value to them. Automating sales funnel will not only simplify a huge chunk of work but will help you generate leads as well.

Bottom Line

See, how many benefits marketing automation has? From automated sales funnel to better personalization, customer engagement and generating leads, it is worth considering implementing the automation of marketing processes.

It is also worth mentioning that marketing automation is an ongoing process which is often tested by trial and error. But once you figure out what works for you, you’ll be able to generate more leads and increase sales.