Denis Sinelnikov is CEO of Media Components and Curis Digital, an award-winning, full-service digital marketing agency.
I was recently talking with a client (who I’ll call Bill for privacy reasons) about the next steps for his home care agency. He came to me with an already successful business. He has a solid team of dedicated, knowledgeable, and experienced professionals. His problem wasn’t success, it was that his company had hit a plateau and none of his previous efforts had been able to break through the plateau and reach the next level.
As I was discussing with Bill the various options available for lead capture and management, he said something I hear often but never expected to hear from him: “I don’t want a bot to talk to my leads. I want to do it myself.”
I got through that hurdle with Bill, but I wanted to speak to all the Bills out there. Bill isn’t the only one who mistakenly thinks that automating lead generation and management means automating every interaction with a lead. So let’s look at what using automation to optimize your sales funnel actually looks like.
Accelerate new leads to the right place in the funnel
Adding automation to your marketing strategy can go a long way in helping get new leads into where they belong: your sales funnel.
Automation works best when:
• Personalize interactions based on consumer activity: A good example is not having an AI chatbot pop up when a person visits your site, but rather popping it up when the person takes an action. Once activated, the chatbot can ask the user questions or provide a call to action based on the user’s actions. For example, the chatbot can provide a contact form link when a user clicks on a (contact us) page or direct them to specific services based on the link they select.
• Track user behavior and interactions to score leads: You can set up your automation software to take into account where a lead came from (search, an ad, a social media post, or visited your website directly), which links on your site they visited, how long they spent on each page, whether they interacted with an AI chatbot, the content of that interaction, etc. Each of these actions, individually and in combination, helps the software determine whether a lead is ready to become a customer and place them appropriately in your sales funnel.
• Segment and map leads appropriately: You can also set up automation software to track user demographics, interests, and behaviors. This way, when mapping a lead’s behavior, it sends that information to the individual with the expertise and experience that most closely matches that behavior or demographic. Each member of your sales team will likely have an area of expertise or an aspect of the business that they work closely with or have more expertise in. You can use automation to get leads in the hands of the right people.
Automation as a time saver
Ah, but your team members are already doing all of this work, you say? You’re right. Doing these tasks manually takes time and a lot of effort. The automation we’ve discussed above can eliminate some of the work for your sales team, but not all of it.
At my agency, we automate our website chat outreach but not our phone calls or emails. We automate lead ranking and assignment but not all lead outreach.
Automate parts of your outreach
The value of automation is in reaching the right people.
If a new lead is exhibiting behavior that indicates they’re ready to close, sending them an automated message urging them to learn more may only set them back. Instead, you can set up an automation to send that lead to your sales team, encouraging them to call the lead and reach out directly.
Meanwhile, leads whose behavior indicates they are simply searching for information or making a comparison can receive automated messages relevant to what they’re looking for. Did they spend a lot of time on a page with information about Medicare and Medicaid funding for home care? You can highlight your ability to take advantage of these programs by providing information and tips for taking advantage of these programs, including contact information for local services. Did they spend a lot of time on your services page? Or did they inquire about pricing? Follow-up messaging that highlights what makes you better than your competitors or offers that lure them further down the sales funnel are good choices.
Both of these low-quality leads are valuable leads that you don’t want to lose. But you don’t want to sacrifice time to have a human provide the information when you can easily automate the process and spend that time following up on high-quality leads instead. What’s more, this automation ensures that when your sales team follows up on low-quality leads, they have the information that will help them move closer to closing.
Using automation to optimize your marketing efforts and manage leads is not about replacing human contact. In each of the situations and solutions described above, you can augment the human touch in some way, freeing up your sales team to focus on chasing leads that are ready to close.
For people like my client Bill, who has run a hands-on, low-tech business for years, the idea of automation can seem scary. But I was able to convince Bill with the examples above. Have you?
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