Don’t Just Generate B2B Leads, Book Them

Automation has transformed the business world in recent years and leveled up potential for scaled operations, accuracy, efficiency, and overall strategy effectiveness. B2B lead generation is no exception, and it’s one area of business benefiting most from automated capabilities. 

The right automation tools significantly impact the rate at which you can convert new leads to actual opportunities and paying customers. Specifically, automated booking for B2B lead gen captures leads in real-time when they show interest, committing them to a meeting with your sales team before their attention is caught elsewhere.

In this article, we’ll cover exactly how to leverage automated booking to eliminate the gap between initial lead generation and actual communication, increase your sales conversion rate, and seamlessly move leads down the funnel.

Quick Takeaways

• The power of automated booking for B2B lead gen is in the alignment of high-intent moments and no-barrier scheduling.
• Automation in general results in time and cost savings greater than 11% for the majority of B2B companies.
• Automated scheduling software tools now seamlessly integrate with other systems and even use AI to take on processes like lead qualification.
• Other important benefits of automated booking include customer convenience, a more efficient sales process, and increased sales conversion rates.

What is automated booking for B2B lead generation?

We talk a lot about lead generation, and for good reason — it’s the foundation for your entire marketing and sales strategy. Without leads, you have no potential customers to engage and no potential sales to close.

But many B2B companies unintentionally keep their lead generation strategy somewhat siloed from what comes next: the actual sales process. This gap creates potential for leads to fall off, failing to take the next step, becoming impatient waiting for a sales rep to get in touch, or losing interest in favor of a competitor or other alternative solution.

In 2022, a staggering 93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine, meaning the majority of your online-generated leads are finding you through search engines and doing their brand research online.

Automated booking puts leads in the driver’s seat, allowing them to book their own meeting when they’re already exploring your solutions. This alignment of high-intent moments with no-barrier scheduling increases the likelihood that you won’t just generate new leads, you’ll actually book them at a high rate.

To execute automated booking for B2B lead generation, you need the right software tool and processes in place. Many sales prospecting platforms handle automated booking. The best tools integrate with your other systems (like your CRM) for seamless transition from lead generation to the rest of your sales process, tracking leads in a single, visible, centralized place.

Let’s look at 5 specific benefits of automated booking that demonstrate the ROI it can bring to your sales strategy.

Benefits of Automated Booking for B2B Lead Generation

Customer convenience

Customer engagement today is all about breaking down convenience barriers. The business world moves at a fast pace, and even small gaps in the process can send potential customers looking elsewhere.

To boot, traditional methods like cold calling are no longer gaining traction — leads are less likely than ever to even pick up the phone for a follow-up call let alone book a meeting via that method.

The easy, convenient, instantaneous nature of automated lead booking for B2B lead generation aligns with the expectations and behavior of today’s modern customer.

More efficient sales process

According to Salesforce research, business process automation leads to time and cost savings of 11% or greater for 74% and 59% (respectively) of businesses surveyed.

This boost in efficiency has several revenue-impacting benefits, including an accelerated sales cycle, more time for sales reps to spend on strategic selling activities, and more deals closed.

Greater strategic focus

The importance of the aforementioned time for strategic selling can’t be understated. It’s widely cited in the B2B world that sales reps only spend about a third of their time on actual selling. 

The rest is spent on administrative tasks — including scheduling meetings. 

Automated booking for B2B lead generation makes the process faster, more efficient, and more convenient for both parties involved — sales rep and potential customer. From a company perspective, it frees up significant time for your reps to spend actually engaging with customers and closing deals, rather than trying to get on their calendars.

Seamless integration

Online scheduling tools have been around for awhile now, but their features and functionalities have made great advances in recent years. Many use AI-technology to take on intelligent processes like lead scoring and qualification. Integration capabilities are more sophisticated, and most tools can seamlessly integrate with a range of other software tools.

The result is a single, centralized view of your leads from their first show of interest, to their initial meeting booked, and every activity that occurs during the sales process thereafter.

Increased sales conversions

If you’re in sales, you already know this: The less gaps that exist in your process, the higher your conversion rate will be. Marketing and sales teams work hard to get leads to take action through follow-up lead nurturing campaigns, phone calls, event invitations, and more.

But there’s no replacement for providing the option to take action in real time — at the very moment of interest. It gets leads committed in their own minds and sets them on track to move more quickly down the funnel toward final conversion.

Our outbound email software and lead generation services are custom-built for startups, consultancies, marketing agencies, and other B2B organizations. Schedule a quick call with us and find out how we can help you win more clients.