AI lead generation can rescue your sales pipeline and social life

What's the point of AI lead generation? What does it do and how does it work? Learn the ropes in our guide.

You've got to take things slowly. This means steady, gentle persuasion. Hit them over the head with a hard sell and they're likely to swim over to the closest competitor.

This latter phase – the reeling and nurturing – is where great salespeople can shine. It takes charm, creativity and good listening skills to turn a warm lead into a hot sale – and when it works, it feels like Christmas wrapped in 20 birthdays. All your hard work has paid off.

The first phase – the emails and cold phone calls – is decidedly less rewarding. After your 25th email of the day, you feel like you're trying to churn butter out of pond water. It's endless. It's thankless. And when you pop to the pub after work, you realise it's turned you into a terrible bore.

Ideally, you could just make up random email addresses, stick them in a mailing list and hit "send". But you know this would do more harm than good. A lead-generation campaign without targeting is like a bow without arrows. Sure, you'll hear the twang – but good luck hitting anything.

Enter AI lead generation. It's a powerful new kind of marketing tool that's clever enough to handle phase one for you. Like any good computer, it can do things fast – but it can also target the kinds of consumers who are most likely to be interested in your product or service.

The benefits of this can't be overstated. AI lead generation effectively lets you skip to the good part – where your sales skills matter and your time is best spent. It means less churn, more high-quality leads and a happier social life. Bottoms up!

How does it work?

We can't speak for every AI lead-generation tool under the Sun. But ours is powered by a potent mix of AI smarts, human ingenuity and automation.

Each shines at a different step in the process. Let's take a look at these in detail.

Step one: AI-powered targeting

Choosing the right targets is essential in any lead-generation campaign. But how do you separate the nurturable wheat from the disinterested chaff?

Our solution uses two magic tricks to get the job done.

The first is AI mailing list generation. You tell the tool what to look for – a job title, industry or level of seniority, perhaps – and it goes trawling the web to find people who match this criteria. And that's it. Your prospecting is done. Go and make yourself a cup of tea.

The second is website visitor targeting. Our tool can tell when a person visits your site, and – thanks to some smart data crunching – it can match them to a name, job title and email address. Bingo – instant marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) for your sales funnel.

Step two: automated emails

Now you've got your list of prospects, you need to start warming them up.

This is where human ingenuity comes in. Our team of experienced copywriters cook up attention-grabbing, conversion-primed emails that speak directly to the audience you identified in step one.

But you hardly have to lift a finger. Like 90% of the process, the emails are automated according to rules that you (or we) define.

A website visitor campaign, for instance, could start with a quick email thanking the person for visiting your website and asking if they need any extra support.

If they reply, bingo – you've got a hot lead. If not, the system sends them another gentle email a week or so later. And a week after that. And so on.

But direct replies are only part of the picture. Behind the scenes, your recipient's actions are being tracked and a lead score is being applied.

Lead scoring is a powerful way to identify warm MQLs and save time for your sales team. If a prospect takes a positive action – such as opening an email or clicking a link – their lead score increases. High-scoring prospects stand out as being prime sales opportunities.

This means you're not just twiddling your thumbs and waiting for prospects to reply. Lead scoring is like a crystal ball that lets you read minds and sniff out leads who would otherwise be lost to time.

Spotted a prospect with a high lead score? Go on – swoop in and make the first move.

Step three: good old-fashioned charm

Taken together, the tactics we've described can generate up to 1,000 MQLs. Every. Single. Month.

That's a lot of leads to schmooze. But bear in mind that these are real MQLS: people who have clearly demonstrated that they're interested in your offering. Our tool has done the hard work for you – and now you're left with happy fish in a sales-friendly barrel.

All that's left for you to do is drop them an email or pick up the phone. With a little old-fashioned charm, they'll be knocking at your digital door in no time.

The bottom line

Lead generation can feel like turning up late to the Gold Rush. It requires long hours of hard graft – and there's no guarantee you'll dig up anything worth keeping.

But AI lead generation turns this sorry situation on its head. It uses smart targeting and automation to speed through the prospecting phase and turn up high-quality leads who have shown real interest.

For managers, this means getting the most out of your team's talents. They can spend their days doing what they're good at – selling – and leave the mundane, time-hungry tasks to a very clever little robot.

Beep. Boop. Success.

Want to pump up your pipeline and improve the quality of your leads? My Digital Hero's lead-generation AI promises up to 1,000 MQLs every month. Get in touch with our marketing superheroes and start planning for a brighter, more profitable future.