Inbound Marketing Automation [How to Generate Leads in Your Sleep]

Imagine a world where you were generating leads, even while you were offline, away from your desk, and yes, even sleeping.

Believe it or not, it really is possible to generate leads without lifting so much as a finger.

Seriously. No more cold calls. No more knocking on doors. No more elevator pitches. When done properly, you can delegate most of that awkward, uncomfortable and usually frustrating outreach work to your website and your marketing strategy. The solution is marketing automation.

What is Marketing Automation?

Neil Patel says, 'Marketing automation is the process of using software and technology to optimize, automate and measure repetitive online marketing tasks.'

Basically, it's the process of using technology to automate marketing tasks that you would otherwise want to do yourself. The computer does it, so you don't have to.

Most often, we think of marketing automation in the form of email workflows — you have a prospect's contact information, and they're sent a series of emails based on the landing pages they've viewed and forms they've submitted on your website.

Hot Tip: While there are tons of other forms of marketing automation, we're going to stick with email workflows as our example for this blog, because they're easy to conceptualize, and because most companies, even SMBs, use some form of email marketing.

While you do have to set up those workflows and optimize them occasionally, once they're working it's a set and forget tactic that allows you to generate and nurture leads whenever your leads are cruising your site.

It's important to note that In the past, there's been some really terrible marketing automation.

One look at the inbox of your junk email is the perfect example of marketing automation gone wrong. Hundreds of emails shouting at you about sales, last-minute deals, and "just for you" promotions that you really just don't care about. It's a nightmare.

While this is an example of marketing automation, it's not good marketing automation. Tactics like this favor a quantity over quality approach that doesn't deliver the "qualified leads in your sleep" results you're looking for.

This is where inbound marketing automation comes in.

What is Inbound Marketing Automation?

Inbound marketing automation is any type of marketing automation tool that is applied with the inbound marketing methodology in mind.

It's important to remember that inbound is a methodology. It's a practice and a way of marketing that is actually helpful to your potential clients. The inbound methodology is not a tool.

Marketing automation, however, is a tool you can use to make the inbound marketing methodology come to life.

For example: Inbound methodology tells us that we need to deliver highly relevant, personalized content that answers the questions our leads are asking, even before they ask them. That's what you're supposed to do, what inbound methodology dictates.

Inbound marketing automation is the tool that makes that action happen.

Inbound marketing automation allows you to deliver personalized emails to individual leads with content they are likely to be interested in, based on all of their previous interactions with your website and your marketing/sales team.

This ensures the delivery of content with context, fulfilling the inbound consumer's need for relevant content that answers their questions and solves their challenges. Best of all, it does it while you're at home still brushing your teeth.

Check out this HubSpot demo for a really clear explanation of what inbound marketing automation is, and why it is so effective for today's consumers.

The Inbound Approach to Marketing Automation

Why Use Inbound Marketing Automation?

Did we mention generating leads in your sleep? Hello, longer lunches and going home on time.

But in all seriousness, marketing automation is a key tool for inbound marketing because the inbound methodology is so customer-focused. Here are a few key ways inbound marketing automation makes your life easier.

Inbound Leads Aren't Always Ready To Buy

Inbound marketing does a great job of drawing in qualified leads who are a perfect fit for your product or service. But, they're not always ready to buy.

The inbound methodology puts a heavy focus on developing content that's suited to leads in all stages of the buyer's journey, which means you're going to get a lot of leads in the awareness and consideration phases who will likely need/want your product, but who aren't ready to buy yet.

Instead of having your sales team hound them with calls and emails, inbound marketing automation offers a simple, effective tool to keep those leads moving through the buyer's journey.

Your automated workflows can send them relevant, interesting content that speaks to their stage of the buyer's journey, as well as their particular industry or position, keeping them from dropping out of your sales funnel and moving them closer to a sale.

Inbound Leads Have Diverse Interests and Needs

If you're one marketing or salesperson, you probably don't have time to analyze the unique interests of every lead that comes in on your own. This is where technology comes in handy.

With a quality CRM, you can set up workflows and content delivery systems that automatically send the right content to the right leads, at the right time.

You still have to lay a little bit of the groundwork, by telling your CRM which leads fit into which personas, and where they are in the buyer's journey, but after that, the system can manage that lead on its own.

That saves you thousands of emails, and it provides the leads with a better experience. They're getting information and content that's relevant to their experience and their challenges, and you don't have to work as hard to make it happen.

Inbound Leads are Content Hungry

We've talked a lot about the modern consumer. The short version is that today's consumers are content hungry. They want to watch videos, read reviews, analyze comparison blogs, and truly learn about every product and service they think about buying.

As a sales or marketing person, you don't have the time to have all of those conversations, and more importantly, your leads don't want to talk to you yet. The modern consumer wants to do their own research before they'll even consider giving a company a call or letting them know they're interested.

Inbound marketing automation solves this dilemma.

You can still deliver great content about your product or service to those qualified leads, without scaring them away or making them feel like you're being too pushy by using marketing automation.

With inbound marketing automation, your leads are getting the content they need to complete their research, and you don't have to lift a finger. Even better, by simply handing over the content that your leads want without a whole lot of trouble, you're earning their trust.

And when you have a lead's trust, and they're ready to buy, they're going to buy from you.

How You Can Implement Inbound Marketing Automation

Inbound marketing automation has some pretty attractive benefits. But how do you get it, and how do you set it up so you can roll into work at 10 with Starbucks in hand?

The best way to implement inbound marketing automation is to get a CRM. If you don't have one, check out our blog about what to look for in a CRM, and choose your favorite.

We like HubSpot because it's really easy to use, it's less expensive (read: they have a version of the software that is totally free) than many more traditional platforms, like Salesforce, and it's got all of the tools we like, plus they regularly add new tools when they see a need.

It's possible to do a bit of marketing automation with an email service, like MailChimp, for example, but if you're looking for legitimate results, you should really go with a CRM.

If you're not sure about the process yet, we really recommend the free version of HubSpot. It's a great way to learn how to implement a little marketing automation, and it's always free — so you don't have to worry about spending a lot of money learning a tactic you're not sure you'll use.

Once you have your CRM, you can get started with inbound marketing automation.

We'll explain how to to that in-depth in another blog, but if you're looking for a how-to right now, check out this page from Neil Patel, this guide from Moz, go back and click on that video we linked above, or just give us a call. We're always happy to walk you through it.

And if you know you want to use inbound marketing automation, but you don't want to fiddle with it yourself, we'd love to help.

We use inbound marketing automation every day for ourselves and for our clients, so we've gotten pretty good. Whether you're looking for a little content, a completely new campaign, or even help getting set up in HubSpot, we've got the resources to help you. Get in touch.