One of the keys to business growth is utilizing effective tools and tactics that enable your company to work efficiently. Why work harder, when you can work smarter? This is particularly true for digital marketing, where your website can be a lead generation machine if you establish the right content and workflows. When website users arrive at your website, whether it's through direct traffic, organic search, or any other method, they can find targeted content that speaks to their questions, pain points, and product or service needs. The more questions and concerns you can answer for your leads, the longer they'll interact with your website and the more opportunities you'll have to nurture qualified leads along their buying journey.
If you want to create a lead generating website, you need to implement marketing automation. Automation is the tool that capitalizes on your valuable inbound content to curate what information a lead receives after showing interest in a specific topic or product. Marketing automation acts like a website salesman, following up on a lead's interest and providing related content to speak to other pain points or questions. It is a combination of efficiency and providing a personalized experience for your website visitors.
A successful lead generating website allows you to nurture prospects through the inbound pipeline: attract, engage, delight. In order to understand how marketing automation works in each stage of the inbound marketing flywheel, it is useful to understand each stage and how each of them relate to lead generation.
Attract
The attraction stage of inbound marketing focuses on creating brand awareness. In this stage, a lead generating website might use tools such as search engine optimization, social media posts, or website blogging to provide valuable content and information to people who are interested in a particular product, service, or topic. The goal here is to attract users to your website and capture their attention.
Utilizing marketing automation at this stage allows you to capture lead information early and focus on the message you want to convey. Remember, the idea here is to provide valuable content. If you're asking for lead information but provide a lack-luster piece of content in exchange, you may be creating a negative experience for your leads and your brand. You want to provide users with the information they are seeking and establish your brand as a trusted resource in your industry.
How To Use Marketing Automation In The Attract Stage
Our favorite tool to implement marketing automation is Marketing Hub from HubSpot. HubSpot offers users the ability to build out campaigns from start to finish. You can use their marketing automation tools to schedule content to post or send after a specific trigger has occurred, from a form fill to a button clicked.
One of the big reasons we love HubSpot is for their reporting power. You can track every interaction and conversion associated with your marketing efforts. An uptick is session coming from organic search traffic? See it live in HubSpot. Curious about what content is getting the most engagement? HubSpot has data analysis and out-of-the-box reports. Wondering if people are clicking the links shared on social media? Yep, you guessed it…HubSpot tracks it all!
In the attract stage, your marketing automation should be focused on moving leads into the next stage of their buyer's journey. Avoid pushing for a purchasing decision in this stage of interacting with your leads. If a lead has only just discovered your website and services, they likely haven't done enough research yet to be ready to buy. Pushing sales-oriented language or calls-to-action on a lead at this stage is likely to have them bouncing away from your website to find their information elsewhere. Attract stage marketing automation can include follow-up emails and after a download. Ideal content may include informational ebooks, infographics, or an email newsletter.
Engage
The engagement stage of the inbound marketing method is where your website visitors are digging into their research. They may be aware that they have a problem or need to fill and are researching their options, comparing products or services, and trying to understand how a product or service can fit into their existing lifestyle or workflows.
In this stage, a lead generating website can use engagement tools like lead flows, chatbots, and email marketing to offer a personalized experience for website visitors and establish what topics or content they're interested in. Marketing automation like chatbots are a great way for a company to level up your customer support and targeted content offerings without needing additional in-office help to do so.
Marketing Automation Creates Agility In Your Lead Generating Website
How do lead flows, chatbots, and email marketing work together to generate leads on your website? Simple — they are all part of the marketing automation process. Walk through this scenario with us.
You developed your brand identity on social media and created a well-crafted message with a call-to-action that sends a visitor to a page on your website. When they arrive at your website landing page, they find the exact information they were looking for. They are interested in learning more about your business and are prompted by a chatbot to ask any questions they may have. The chatbot offers follow-up content related to their research.
While this lead may not be completely sold on your product or service just yet, they have found valuable information on your site and want to learn more about what your business has to offer. They notice a call-to-action, “Sign Up For Our Monthly Newsletter”. The visitor is interested in receiving more information via email from your business, signs up for your newsletter, and opens the door to communication with your company.
This lead flow is an opportunity to collect lead information such as name, email, phone number, and perhaps an opportunity to check off topics or content they're interested in. A website visitor gives their information willingly and goes on their way once exiting your website.
Your lead generating website doesn’t stop at collecting visitor information. You now have the opportunity to connect with your lead while their interest in your company is still warm. This part of the engagement stage uses marketing automation to inch converted leads closer to becoming paying customers.
Now picture this. The same customer who just provided their information exits your website and quickly receives an email notification in their inbox. Out of habit, they check their inbox and see a response from you thanking them for signing up for your monthly newsletter and offering them a new piece of interesting content.
With a chatbot and automated follow-up email after a newsletter sign-up, you've captured your lead contact information in your CRM and can begin a targeted lead nurturing process.
Delight
But wait, there's more! The final step of the inbound marketing journey aims to develop a genuine relationship with your customer. This may happen in the final stages of the buyer's journey, where you're converting a lead to a customer, and it can be an on-going effort to provide valuable content to customers for years to come. After all, the best advertising for your business will always come from one customer recommending you to another. It is human nature to trust those we know. If you take the time to delight your customers, they will be more likely to become an advocate of your business.
How Do You Delight Your Customers With Marketing Automation?
Marketing automation gives you the tools to treat your customers with the highest level of customer service. A great example of this in practice is one of our favorite automation tools in HubSpot — smart content. Smart content dynamically updates a web page with personalized copy depending on who is visiting your site. Using smart content can add personalization to your automation and lead generation in order to delight your customers.
Once you've captured a lead's information (either in the attract or engage stages), you can build upon your relationship with continuing automation. Whether you're using smart content, automated emails, chatbots, automated CRM updates or any other form of marketing automation, having your business software working for you can contribute to delighting your leads long past when they become customers.
Integrate lead generation practices in the delight stage with opportunities to prompt customers to leave reviews or send targeted email updates with new and relevant content to groups of leads. Your messaging should change once a lead converts to a customer. Focus on providing valuable user information about your products or services or industry-specific education to keep customers engaged with your brand.
Inbound Marketing Support
If you're looking to implement marketing automation and lead generation into your inbound marketing, we're experts on the subject. The details of creating a lead generation campaign with marketing automation support looks different for every business and industry. It starts with evaluating your website and content, digging into buyer personas, and determining what topics your leads are most interested in. Then it's time to determine your automation and lead generation methods and get started. We can help you determine what your lead generation process looks like, optimize your website, and level up your inbound marketing game. Talk to one of our inbound experts about your business needs today!👇
