The essential guide to
lead acceleration
Does this sound like you or your team?
If so, you’ve come to the right place! This guide will help your teams to capture, qualify, and engage with more website leads more quickly.
Let's get started with a few common questions.
What is lead acceleration?
Lead acceleration allows your revenue teams to capture, qualify, and engage with more website leads more quickly.
1. More speed
Lead acceleration eliminates the delay between a visitor arriving on your website and being able to engage with your team.
Traditional chatbots and webforms create delays that result in missed opportunities.
Advanced chatbots and forms can invite qualified leads to join a live chat conversation or an instant video/phone call with your team. They can also invite qualified leads to schedule a follow-up meeting at a later date.
2. More quality
Lead acceleration increases the quality of website leads by qualifying them with smart questions to discover if they’re a good fit for your business.
Traditional chatbots and webforms expect your team to manually decide which leads are worth engaging with further.
Smart chatbots and forms can instantly ask the right qualification questions and automatically assign leads to the right team members.
3. More leads
Lead acceleration increases the quantity of website leads by capturing their information 24/7 with conversational chatbots and forms
Traditional chatbots and webforms are dumb and uninviting, asking every visitor the same generic questions.
Conversational chatbots and forms can capture more website leads by creating a more personalized and engaging experience.
Benefits of lead acceleration
Did you know?
80% of marketers say automation generates more leads and conversions. 1
50% of sales time is wasted on poor prospects. 2
78% of customers buy from the company that responds first to their inquiry. 3
1 APSIS, 2 SalesHub, 3 LeadConnect
1. Maximize the return on your marketing campaigns by generating more qualified leads more quickly
Marketing teams invest significant amounts of time and money driving visitors to their website or landing pages. Lead acceleration can maximize the return on this investment with automated lead capture, qualification, and assignment.
2. Increase your sales revenue by converting
more website leads more quickly
Sales teams need to connect qualified leads with the right team members before delays cause missed opportunities. Lead acceleration can convert more website leads more quickly by offering instant engagement options such as live chat and video/ phone calls.
3. Grow your customers by engaging with
the right ones at the right time
Customer Success teams need to drive revenue by identifying upsell and cross-sell opportunities for their existing customers. Lead acceleration can help them to engage with the right ones at the right time using live chat, instant video/phone calls, or scheduled meetings.
What lead acceleration strategies can I use?
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to lead acceleration.
You should think about the buyer’s journey for your target customers and how you can make that as personal and friction-free as possible.
Once you’ve attracted a new visitor to your website, here are the top lead acceleration strategies you should consider.
1. Lead capture
What should I do?
- Capture information from website leads who are interested
in your products or services.
When should I do it?
- Ideal for situations where website leads are not quite ready to engage
with your team but you still want to capture their details. - Also ideal for situations where you want to review lead information
before reaching out to them by phone or email.
Why should I do it?
- Increase revenue by collecting lead information for your marketing activities or sales funnel.
- Delight website leads by giving them access to exclusive content and special offers.
- Save time by ensuring that your team gets all the information they need.
How should I do it?
- Use a conversational chatbot or form to engage website leads and to capture key information. You can then offer them exclusive content such as an ebook download or video guide.
2. Lead qualification
What should I do?
- Qualify website leads as a good fit for your products or services before inviting them to engage with your team.
When should I do it?
- Ideal for websites or landing pages where you want to qualify leads before they engage with your team.
- Website leads who don’t meet the qualification criteria can be offered a video, contacted by email, or directed to another page on your website.
Why should I do it?
- Increase revenue by quickly converting website visitors into qualified leads.
- Delight qualified leads by guiding them to the right team members or to other content on your website.
- Save time by ensuring that your team only engages with the right people.
How should I do it?
- Use a smart chatbot or form to engage with website leads and to ask relevant questions. You can then invite qualified leads to join a live chat or instant video/phone call with your team.
3. Lead engagement
When should I do it?
- Ideal for website leads that you’ve already qualified as being a good fit for your products or services
- Also ideal for landing pages where you want to encourage all website visitors to instantly engage with your team.
Why should I do it?
- Increase revenue by eliminating the delay between a visitor arriving on your website and being able to engage with your team.
- Delight qualified leads by inviting them to join a live chat conversation or an instant video/phone call with your team.
- Save time by eliminating the back-and-forth emails normally required to schedule a call or meeting.
How should I do it?
- Use an advanced chatbot or form that allows qualified leads to instantly engage with your team. You can even assign leads to different teams based on how they answered the qualification questions
How do I get started?
1. Align your team by mapping out the buyer’s journey for your target customers
You don’t need expensive consultants or complicated charts for this. Just get your sales, marketing, and customer success teams together with a blank whiteboard or a pile of sticky notes. It’s your team that understands the buyer’s journey best and it’s your team that needs to work together towards a shared goal.
Recommended reading: The Journey Mapping Playbook by Jerry Angrave
2. Strengthen your value proposition by simplifying your messaging
You need clear and compelling messaging that can accelerate target customers through their buyer’s journey. From landing pages to sales presentations and emails, your messaging has to focus on what buyers need to hear, not what you want to tell them.
Recommended reading: Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller
3. Streamline your inbound sales and marketing processes with smart technology
Once you’ve aligned your team on a shared goal, mapped out the buyer’s journey, and refined your messaging, it’s time to look at lead acceleration tools. For example, conversational chatbots and forms can help your team to capture, qualify, and engage with more website leads more quickly.
And that's it!
If you enjoyed this playbook, and would like to download a PDF copy, click here.
Plus, we have some great case studies if you're looking to learn from people who've used our solutions to capture, qualify, and engage with more website leads more quickly.
Thanks for making it to the end! Don’t forget to check out our lead acceleration solutions below.