So you get high quality leads… and what do you do then? Marketing qualified leads are precious and it is therefore important that they are followed up carefully. If it does not immediately result in a sale, it is still essential not to lose contact with the lead. We have noticed that this does not always go well. That raises the question: how can you properly follow up on marketing qualified leads?

The importance of good follow-up

It is important that you are careful with leads. This can be done, among other things, by optimizing the underlying systems. Processes must be properly coordinated and actions must be automated as much as possible instead of performed manually. If this is not properly arranged, you risk losing valuable leads and thus missing out on potential customers – for example, requests are not handled properly. We think this can be done differently.

Our advice? Marketing automation. This is a perfect tool to handle your leads effectively and carefully. Marketing automation (MA for short) is a software solution that automates recurring sales and marketing tasks within a company. This saves time and optimizes the lead follow-up process. As a one time investment, you set a number of rules, which will then automatically initiate actions. Things that were done manually before are now handled automatically. We call this bundle of rules ‘workflows’. We recommend marketing automation for any company to get the most out of your leads.

Manual versus automated actions

Let’s look at an example. Someone requests information on your company’s website. Without marketing automation, you will receive a request by email and this will be handled by an employee. The seller schedules a follow-up call and will contact the sender by phone. What can go wrong here is that the emails could be overlooked or perhaps the salesperson forgets to schedule a follow-up call. That would be a pity.

With marketing automation, the process could look like this:

  • As soon as a lead fills in data on a website form, the lead is automatically placed in the CRM of the software
  • The salesperson is automatically assigned to the lead
  • The requested information is automatically sent to the lead in a personalized email, with the assigned salesperson as sender
  • Two days after sending the information, a follow-up message is automatically sent to the lead on behalf of the salesperson, again with a personal message. In the text, for example, the salesman states that he hopes that the information was sufficient and that he seller will contact you (the lead) shortly for additional information
  • The follow-up call is automatically scheduled for the salesperson
  • The salesperson will receive a notification as a reminder at the time of the call

What else can you do with marketing automation?

The possibilities of marketing automation are endless and the workflows are completely dependent on your wishes and needs. We therefore recommend that you look at your current processes to discover where the leads are currently ‘stuck’ or ‘lost’.

For example, does the main struggle concern setting priorities, resulting in the leads that are already further in the process receiving too little attention? Then let your leads automatically qualify and give a lead status based on certain behavior. This allows you to focus more on leads that are already further down the sales funnel instead of dealing with leads that are not yet ready to do business. This way, the process is much more efficient and allows you to focus on the right leads. You can then link actions to this, such as assigning a salesperson to all leads with a certain status. The salesperson that it concerns will receive a message about this in his task list.

A game of action and reaction

To conclude: with marketing automation, leads are not forgotten or neglected. This allows you to get the most out of your marketing qualified leads, as leads receive the right information and the right attention at the right time. In turn, this allows you as a company to get the maximum return from each lead.

Would you like to know more about generating marketing qualified leads and the use of marketing automation? Are you curious about which processes we recommend for you to automate, for example? Then contact us!