7 ways Artificial Intelligence can improve lead generation

Intro

Lead generation is a crucial part of B2B marketing but can also be very time-consuming. However, artificial intelligence (AI) can make it more manageable.

There are some concerns that AI will make human interaction obsolete. While AI can automate some tasks, it will never be able to replace the nuance and personalization that humans can provide in lead generation.

McCarthy coined the term "Artificial Intelligence" in the mid-1950s, which he would define as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines." With AI-powered tools, businesses can automate tasks such as identifying leads, qualifying them, creating customer profiles, personalizing messages, and nurturing leads.

This allows sales and marketing teams to focus on high-value activities and close deals faster. It's like having an extra set of hands helping to do the work, allowing you to focus on the tasks that add the most value.

Automated lead generation - what is it?

Automating lead generation involves establishing lead generation processes across your channels using tools that use AI and machine learning to generate leads across all channels.

91.5% of leading businesses invest in AI on an ongoing basis, and customer satisfaction is expected to grow by 25% by 2023 in organizations that use AI.

AI-enabled lead-generation tools can improve lead generation through the following methods:

• Data analysis from multiple sources in real-time
• Overcoming the information overload humans often experience
• Identifying patterns in data that humans may not have noticed
• Managing multiple tasks simultaneously

How does artificial intelligence affect marketing?

Based on data and algorithms, AI marketing makes automated decisions using machine learning.

Take a look at these quick facts:

• It uses data to understand customers' needs, which is HUGE in marketing.
• In marketing and sales, it's trendy - the third most adopted industry for AI.

Here are a few quick facts about artificial intelligence (thanks to Semrush). Consider these factors when deciding whether to use them in your marketing and sales strategies.

• Approximately $15.7 trillion will be generated by AI by 2030, or 26% growth.
• It is expected that up to 80% of retail executives will use AI-powered intelligent automation by 2027.
• About 80% of marketers in 2020 already had chatbots as part of their customer experience strategy.
• More than 50% of eCommerce players use automation tools across their sales, marketing, and customer service departments.
• About 48% of companies use data analysis, machine learning, or AI tools to address data quality issues.
• In a survey asking why businesses use chatbots, respondents stated the significant benefits are 24-hour service (64%), instant responses to inquiries (55%), and answers to simple questions (55%).
• Digital assistant usage worldwide is expected to double to 8.4 billion by 2024.

Businesses that implement AI see a significant return on investment. Research shows that enterprises that used AI-enabled lead-generation tools saw a 15% to 20% increase in sales productivity and 20% in order management throughput.

Additionally, 84% of business executives believe AI can give them an edge over their competitors.

Lead generation with AI: the biggest use cases

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In terms of effective lead generation, Artificial Intelligence can greatly simplify things in the following ways:

• Analysis of massive datasets from multiple sources;
• Identification of the target market and accurate lead classification;
• Improved content marketing;
• Analyzing data patterns and capitalizing on them efficiently.

While there are dozens of ways AI can boost your lead generation process, let's focus on the most significant use cases below. Here are 7 ways to improve your lead generation using AI:

1) Nurturing leads

Making your leads sales-ready is what lead nurturing is all about. Engaging the leads, keeping them interested, and supporting them throughout the process are key to achieving this.

Even though lead nurturing has excellent potential in the long run, manual work alone might be insufficient to successfully nurture your leads.

This is where artificial intelligence plays a key role because it automates several processes, provides high-quality information to your customers, and contributes to increasing customer trust. Here's how AI-based lead nurturing works:

• Personalized follow-up in a timely manner;
• Providing multichannel nurturing support through automation;
• Targets the right audience with highly targeted content;
• Alignment of marketing and sales efforts.

2) Lead Scoring: how does it work?

A lead score is a method of ranking your leads by assigning them values. The purpose of lead scoring is to prioritize your customers so that you will know which ones to contact first and in what manner, who is ready for sales, and who needs to be engaged further.

Almost every company will use its own lead scoring system, such as a demographic data model, where demographics are used only for customer prioritization.

Whatever lead scoring model you use, one thing remains constant: you'll have to analyze a lot of data.

Here's where AI comes into play. AI can be used by marketers to:

• Analyze historical data faster to save time;
• Reduce the possibility of human error;
• Recognize and understand customer behaviors and tendencies better.

Aside from that, AI can also help companies create targeted contact lists, so they contact customers who are likely interested in their products.

3) Generate more leads by utilizing existing assets

AI can analyze customer data such as purchase history and demographic information to create a list of potential customers who are likely to be interested in a company's products. This could potentially increase sales and generate leads for a company.

You will likely already have some AI-powered tools you can use for lead generation in your organization. For example, you can leverage AI-powered chatbots to capture leads through website visits and use natural language processing (NLP) to gain more insights from customer conversations.

Regarding lead generation in the marketing segment, chatbots are the most commonly used AI. Visitors to your website can navigate your products and services with the help of these virtual assistants.

Marketing tools cannot be ignored when discussing AI for lead generation. Think of AI for lead generation in the same way as the engine of a car - it's the core component that powers the entire operation, but it needs other features (such as marketing tools) to be most effective.

AI and ML functionality is available in most marketing tools these days, allowing marketers to make lead generation more effective and efficient.

These 16 marketing analytics tools can be used to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns and channels.

4) Creating an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

You can think of an ideal customer profile as to what kind of company would benefit most from using your product or service (not random individual customers).

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An ICP can also be supplemented with predictive analytics in conjunction with qualitative and quantitative analyses. For example, if you're a software company, your ICP may focus on tech companies with over 500 employees who are looking for collaboration software.

An ideal customer profile indicates who you should target and why and includes information such as:

• How many employees are there
• Annual revenue;
• Domain.
• Size of the customer base,
• The budget;
• Geography;

With AI-assisted content personalization, marketers can gain insights into customers' needs, competition, and pain points while creating the perfect ICP for their business by analyzing data.

In contrast, companies that ignore technology may find themselves fumbling around, essentially throwing blind darts at the board without any real direction.

5) Search engine optimization (SEO)

SEO remains one of the most effective lead-generation channels, and Artificial Intelligence can make it even more powerful. AI can help optimize SEO by understanding user intent more quickly, analyzing more data in less time, and automating tedious tasks like keyword research and link building.

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This enables businesses to target the right keywords and content more accurately, thus improving their lead-generation capabilities. As far as SEO is concerned, AI offers the following benefits:

• Workflows for SEO that are automated;
• Keyword research that is automated;
• Analyzing and creating content automatically;
• Using voice search for content discovery.
• Traffic and growth on the site increased;

Using AI, SEO professionals can save time and avoid monotonous keyword research or campaign optimization. By doing so, a software product becomes more visible, attracts more organic traffic, and ranks higher in searches.

6) Automate the buying process with chatbots

Customer journeys need to be as simple as possible, and effective communication is a key component of a streamlined purchasing process.

Chatbots powered by AI can automate customer communication.

Now that customers are more comfortable interacting with virtual assistants, businesses should consider incorporating chatbots into customer-facing interfaces to generate more leads.

For example, visit the Moosend website for an example of using an AI-powered chatbot to capture visitor email addresses.

AI-powered chatbots can generate leads in the following ways:

• Availability throughout the year
• The ability to implement omnichannel strategies
• Response time is immediate
• A multilingual approach
• Provide assistance with the purchase process
• Provides customers with hyper-personalized service
• The ability to implement omnichannel strategies
• Most importantly, it is a cost-effective method for interacting with customers

The technology behind AI-powered chatbots is quite advanced, and visitors can be persuaded to share their information by using preset questionnaires.

In addition to qualifying leads, bots can also nurture them according to their customer journey. For example, E-commerce businesses [can use AI-powered chatbots](http://AI-powered chatbots) to provide personalized recommendations and offers to their customers.

7) Automated email campaigns to attract more leads

Email marketing campaigns can be automated with AI-powered lead-generation tools.

You can create personalized emails based on your prospects' browsing histories by utilizing AI tools for lead generation. Moreover, AI algorithms can analyze email marketing metrics to identify which elements of a message are successful and which aren't.

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As a result, AI-powered tools can optimize and write better subject lines, body content, and delivery times for emails.

AI-assisted content personalization can help you restructure your email campaigns and even clean up your email list once they have sufficient lead data.

Email marketing with AI offers the following benefits:

• Reducing costs associated with email marketing
• Automatically optimize email subject lines and content
• Utilizes email to generate high revenue
• Restructure your email campaigns
• Reduce the time it takes to send emails
• Newsletters can be sent automatically

Generating leads with AI is the key:

As John Naisbitt, an American author, once said: "The most reliable way to forecast the future is to try to understand the present."

AI-enabled lead-generation tools can play a vital role in lead generation by automating mundane tasks, providing valuable insights, guiding sales reps on which prospects to prioritize, and providing recommendations on reaching the right customers with the right message.

AI can be your ultimate lead-generation sidekick, helping businesses reach the next level of success with ease!