Share

The different types of software available these days means that sales and marketing teams can call upon a wealth of data that may previously have been unobtainable, or at least hard to access without a dedicated data analysis team. Today there is the freedom to reach and use data that can revolutionise strategies and improve efficiencies across both departments, enabling the business as a whole to benefit. Automation is the kind of process that can be daunting for many, especially when you’re new to it or you’re not particularly comfortable with the processes involved. In email marketing and sales roles you find yourself using platforms and systems that collect and organise data in such a way that you can create whole new segments of audience information which can be used to your benefit. So that’s what we’re going to look at today. Instead of steering away from the dreaded automations, our aim is to encourage you to give them a try and hopefully you’ll learn how to use automation to your benefit to generate new leads that might otherwise have gone cold or never entered your pipeline in the first place.

Revitalising lost leads

Once you have a mailing list of your own through a variety of different sign-up options ranging from web forms to social media contacts and existing customers, you can start to reach out to those who might have shown an interest before but never actually bought from you or subscribed, whatever the option may be.

Unless they’ve hit the unsubscribe button they will still be in your platform meaning that they’ve still given their consent for you to contact them and lost leads as they’re often known might just need a bit of work to win them around.

Just because they didn’t buy before doesn’t mean that they won’t, and a different approach might be just what’s needed. A dedicated email to these segments in your database explaining how you know it wasn’t the right time for them before, but now the situation may have changed and it might be a better time for them to invest now with more budget available or more resource to take on more projects.

The automation can be created that contacts purely those marked as lost leads after a certain period of time (such as those who have been in the system for more than two months without converting or unsubscribing), and you can then tailor the messaging based on their location (UK, USA, Australia, etc) or the sector they work in for example. 

Retargeting cooling leads

Another option you have through automation is to get in touch with people who are already in your pipeline, but who asked to be contacted again in a few weeks or months time. 

When you make initial contact with a prospect it’s very rare for them to convert on the first contact - it’s the holy grail that sales people strive for! So, the chances are that they’ll go into the pipeline ready to be contacted again at a later date when they’ve had chance to think things over and consider your proposition.

With automation you can create an email list of those assigned to a tag such as “contact later” or “contact again in [month]”, so you can reach out to them and reignite the conversation. The positive thing to remember here is that you’ve already made that first contact so the brand and proposition are not new to them anymore, and they might have questions that can lead to demonstrations or free trial registrations, perhaps even a conversion. 

An alternative is that this contact could lead to a further meeting being arranged, or the person might ask to be removed from your contact list as the product or service isn’t right for them. Either way, you can adapt your pipeline accordingly to focus on the warmest leads and those you have just warmed up again. 

Expired free trialists

We mentioned free trial sign-ups briefly before, but these are a great segment of contacts to get in touch with through automations.

When someone signs up to a free trial the chances of them becoming a paid customer are roughly 50/50 - they’ll either like what they see and spend their money on the full version, or they might decide that it isn’t for them after all. While they remain on the trial, however, you can target them with a range of emails through your automation platform that might include relevant blog posts explaining how to use the system (as they’re new to it and trying it out they will benefit from information and instruction on how to use it) and further emails outlining the full, paid versions available, return on investment details and more about the company.

Promotional campaigns to entice warm leads

Last, but by no means least, you have the leads that are warm but not quite ready to pay for your service. These are engaged, interested leads who just need something to sweeten the deal to get them over the line.

These particular leads are the ones that you might have had in your pipeline for some time, or who may have been assigned a tag that suggests they are going to invest but that the price might be too high at that moment. 

With permission from a sales manager, of course, you could run a promotion that offers a discount for certain packages which is sent to those in this segment within your automation platform to help get them over the line. 

‍

While every automation system is different in terms of what they offer the user, they ultimately offer roughly the same features when it comes to audience segmentation and the emails you can send out to specific groups. By creating relevant triggers in the platform you can create highly valuable lists of engaged contacts, ready to be targeted by relevant messages and not just your typical cold, top-of-funnel outreach campaigns.

Hopefully this guide has helped you to feel a bit more relaxed about using automations to generate new leads for your sales team to go after, but should you require any further help for your team then check out the Clarity Stack Sales Academy which is full of helpful guides and advice.