What’s your New Year’s Resolution? (How to automate Lead Generation)

We hear and read about it everywhere: 2020 will be the Year of Innovation. No matter what your plans are for this year, your new year’s resolution should be to be part of it; Automate it.

Just to be sure, with the ‘it’ in ‘automate it’, I refer to your sales and marketing (acquisition) processes and not to Information Technology.

Here are 5 questions to ask yourself before starting to Automate it:

1. How do I define and find my target?
2. How can you automate your sales and marketing and still have a personalized approach?
3. How many leads do I need to make a deal?
4. What is automation marketing exactly? 
5. Am I aware of the processes which I need to control? 

In my previous article, I explained how to be in control of your branding and I closed with targetting. Today I will start at this point. If you missed my previous article, please read it first. It is crucial that your branding is taken care of before you start with sales. https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/how-use-christmas-business-michiel-verstraten-msc/

Here are 5 steps to take if you want to Automate it in 2020:

• Your target. There are only 4 variables that you have to put in place to be able to set and find your target: 1. Who is the decision-maker? (C-level, directors level, managers level?) 2. In which sector or with which companies do you want to do business? 3. Where are your clients located or where are you willing to do business? 4. What keywords are very likely or required to be on your clients’ profile? (Agile, sustainability?)       
• Automate your lead generation. When your intention is to do business via LinkedIn you should realise that you need to carry out, as we call it, ‘the network or pull strategy’. People on LinkedIn like to connect with a person, not with a product. Therefore, keep it short and simple and don’t start with pushing your proposition. Also, don’t promise anything on an automated basis. Before you know it you will have 50 coffee-meetings with off-target leads. 
• Automate your lead follow-up. This is where the actual automation starts. Follow-up automation doesn’t mean that the whole process is done by a robot but it means that the circle is complete, your process is sealed. Make sure that there are no open ends and that there is a clear process for each scenario. In our experience, an optimization like this will increase your success rate (the average of 35 clients) from 0,6% to 5%.  
• Marketing Automation. Everybody is talking about it, but what exactly do we mean when we say 'marketing automation'? Do I need Artificial Intelligence and Robots? To summarize, as explained before about follow-up automation, marketing automation is also about having a sealed process. All elements should be set in place and have a concrete goal. All your actions are at the service of each other. So, Marketing Automation is not a Robot, it’s a set of processes, for which you can use different Robots/Tools. 
• Integrate the sales process and the recruitment process. For freelancers and companies that are active in the service sector, this is one of the most important and rarely practised process integrations. If you are selling a service, your product is (obviously) a service. This doesn’t only has an impact on your branding but also on your acquisition. When your leads turn into meetings you will find yourself or your colleagues in a recruitment/selection process. This means that your CRM solution should include integration for your lead generation and your recruitment process. Most service providers are using sales software and most consultancy companies are using recruitment software. Most freelancers are using excel, I think. ?? If you want to be fully in control of your branding/sales activities and get the best results, I recommend you to build your own integrated CRM solution. 

Happy New Year! ????

https://prezi.com/view/RZN1g7Ee5R3wC2cFlccU/