6 Affordable Ways to Use AI for Lead Generation
- Andrew Kita
The dream of handing off jobs we don’t like to AI is often oversold. No one can dispute that the quality — and capacity — of artificial intelligence tools are ramping up at an insane speed. But sadly, most still aren’t at a point where we can just let them take over unwanted tasks. Yup, lead generation is still on you. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways you can generate leads with AI.
AI lead-gen tools may not be ready to run demand-gen campaigns solo, but they can still do some heavy lifting for you. Want to know more? Of course you do — keep reading for just a few examples of how marketers are using AI for lead generation.
1. Conducting Audience Research
You’ve built buyer personas and ICPs. You know who you want to reach. But you may be overlooking some of the best opportunities to get your message in front of their eyeballs. Purpose-built AI lead-generation tools (and even ChatGPT) can provide a wealth of information about your target audience and where to reach them.
of the highest-performing sales reps say conducting lead research before reaching out is a crucial part of their strategy
of sales reps say using AI to conduct research on leads will improve their performance
Pro Tip: Stay tuned for our Ultimate Lead-Gen Kit, which includes a customizable set of ChatGPT prompts that will tell you where your ideal buyers spend time online, what events they typically attend, and where they get information related to their business.
2. Automating Communication
Chatbots are nothing new. 90% of customers expect to encounter a chatbot when they visit a company’s website. But chatbots aren’t just a great way to improve the customer experience — they can also help generate leads.
of businesses with chatbots report generating more high-quality leads
of B2B marketers say lead-generation volumes increased as much as 20% when they deployed a chatbot
Pro Tip: Combine customer service with AI lead generation by including an offer to send a conversation transcript in your chatbot’s end-of-conversation script to build an email list of warm leads.
3. Repurposing Content
Even the most valuable content has a shelf life. Your killer blog posts get displaced by new content, and you can only ask people to download your ebook so many times. But AI can give new life to older, high-value pieces. Text-generation tools let you easily (and quickly) repurpose those blog posts into an ebook that will drive conversions — or split up an older ebook into a blog series that attracts traffic to your site.
This is, of course, in addition to using AI to generate original content and messaging, which is another way AI tools help generate leads. (Gartner predicts that AI will generate 30% of outgoing marketing messages from large organizations by 2025.)
Pro Tip: Current ChatGPT limitations mean it can’t produce lengthy assets (like ebooks) in a single attempt. TPM’s Ultimate Lead-Gen Kit (coming soon!) includes a sequence of prompts we developed to circumvent these limitations.
4. Analyzing Customer or Visitor Data
Your existing customers and website visitors can provide a wealth of information useful in refining your lead-gen strategy. So much that you probably don’t have the time or knowledge to sift through it all and identify patterns or trends. But AI does!
It’s no secret that companies like Amazon and Netflix use your data (what type of things you’re interested in, what you’ve purchased or watched, what you’ve saved for later) to serve up recommendations personalized for you. The same AI algorithms can do the same for you, identifying common buyer journeys or signs that a visitor is more or less likely to convert. (Nearly half of marketers use AI to uncover frequent customer journeys.)
5. AI Lead Scoring
We’re all in the same boat these days: bosses are trimming budgets while asking us to generate more leads to keep revenue growing. With limited resources, focusing on the leads most likely to convert is a vital strategy. Enter AI lead scoring. Those same algorithms that help identify patterns in your web traffic can also increase the quality of your lead scoring system, allowing you to focus on the right leads and, ultimately, increase conversion rates.
Using AI to help identify which leads to focus on has boosted conversions by up to
The same tools can also identify at-risk customers early to decrease churn by as much as
6. Personalizing Engagements
Using AI and automation to increase personalization may sound like a contradiction, but AI lead nurturing can be highly effective. Your prospects don’t care that you’re using tools to engage with them — they just want to hear the right message at the right time. Personalization at scale isn’t easy, especially with limited resources. Using AI tools to offer timely responses and targeted content is one of the most important ways to boost AI lead generation.
Nurturing leads with AI and automation can increase qualified leads by
Marketing automation platforms and tools boost conversion rates by more than
Beware of the AI Lead-Gen Challenges
If it’s so easy to use AI for lead generation, why isn’t everyone doing it? Leveraging AI is not without its challenges. Many organizations aren’t prepared for the (very real) security and governance issues AI adoption can raise. Bias in data used by AI can be incredibly damaging to both your reputation and your bottom line. And plenty of marketing teams simply don’t have the expertise to deploy and use AI in lead-generation strategies.
TPM has a dedicated team focusing on AI lead generation and marketing. We’re continually testing and evaluating AI tools and experimenting with their capabilities to identify which ones offer real value for today’s marketing teams. Let us help you leverage the power of AI in lead generation. Check out our AI Tech Stack or get in touch with your questions.
