How Workflow Automation Improves SaaS Demand Generation, Lead Generation, and SaaS MQLs for SaaS Startups. | StartUP MQL
“A business that doesn’t implement a strategy of automation in the client acquisition process is doomed to have slow growth, even puts itself at risk of declining.”
- Author: Bob Mangat
Workflow automation is a process of using rule-based logic to launch tasks on their own without any human intervention. Once you establish the rules and logic, automated workflows can send emails, set up reminders, trigger drip campaigns, schedule tasks, schedule meetings on the calendar, and much more; they also spare your team from having too many tedious responsibilities by reducing many of their day-to-day manual processes! In addition to workflow automation moving processes forward, it also plays a critical role in enhancing the demand generation and lead generation flow, driving all of your marketing qualified leads (MQLs) to sales reps in a timely manner, accurately updating the CRM, and precisely putting each qualified lead into the right stage in the sales pipeline.
Workflow automation can be a great tool for any business, whether you're looking to save time and money or just want to eliminate and reduce errors! Is now the time to automate your sales and marketing efforts by leveraging self-operating processes that run manual tasks? Workflow automation will also boost productivity for an improved work environment with increased efficiency at every level.
How does workflow automation work?
Workflow automation is an increasingly popular way to automate processes and make them more efficient. It relies on Series of “if/then” statements that can trigger other tasks when certain conditions are met, such as a lead taking action or an employee completing one step in their day-to-day responsibilities.
Workflows are an efficient way to move SaaS marketing qualified leads (SaaS MQLs) through your sales process. When you set up workflow rules, they are able to follow the appropriate next step in response based on what happens with them during their interactions (i.e., lead connects). By automating this process and relying heavily upon if/then statements it can decrease waiting time for prospects as well get higher quality data by eliminating human errors, like being slow at responding to a prospect! A successful SaaS demand generation and lead generation strategy revolves around how quickly you respond back to a prospect interested in your SaaS products.
Example workflow for converting a form submission into a deal opportunity.
A form has been submitted by a website lead.
This action immediately and automatically adds the lead into an email or drip campaign. A new deal is created and sets the status in the CRM to “New.”
The drip campaign starts and engages the lead with the first email, requesting the lead to schedule a meeting or introduction call.
Upon receiving the first email in the drip campaign, the lead clicks through to the meeting calendar to create an appointment.
The lead will receive a confirmation email, confirming the date and time.
A new task is created in the CRM and is assigned to a specified sales rep.
The workflow automation commences once the sales rep has personally communicated with the lead.
Example workflow from start to end:
Most departments in your startup will benefit from workflow automation, especially the sales and marketing team. Workflow automation enables your teams to work smarter, not harder, even more so if your marketing team is handing off SaaS leads to your sales team.
Lets dive into a few widely used workflow automation examples.
Workflow Automation Examples
Enrolling a lead to a drip campaign when they downloaded or requested a resource from your website.
Adding leads to different stages of the pipeline based on certain actions taken.
Creating a ticket into the CRM when a lead reaches out through email or social media.
Removing duplicates in the CRM once they have been identified or when two properties are merged at the same time.
Deleting prospects from the CRM if they’ve been inactive over a set period of time.
Creating follow up tasks for sales reps so opportunities do not fall to the wayside.
Workflow automation can be used in many different areas. Marketing and sales teams have mostly benefited from workflow automation, however, it can be applied in all areas of a business, like HR, finance, customer service, and operations.
Marketing Workflow Automation
With marketing automation software, you can automate many of the tasks that you do regularly as part of your marketing efforts. This can include automating the process of sending emails and scheduling social media posts. Automation can also help you to nurture leads by automatically sending them specific email offers based on their interests.
Example workflows with marketing automation:
Enrolling a lead to a drip campaign when they download or request a resource from your website.
Sending “welcome emails” once a lead has signed up for a trial or a customer has purchased your product.
Sending trial users “get started documentation.”
Publishing social media content to multiple platforms at once.
Creating and distributing marketing tasks and follow ups to team members.
Sales Workflow Automation
Sales workflow automation helps sales reps focus on selling, and not spending their time on tedious tasks like lead and prospect management. Automated workflows will take care of tasks like automatically putting SaaS Marketing Qualified Leads (SaaS MQLs) into a pipeline based on their actions, enrolling prospects in drip campaigns, and updating the deal stage as the deal progresses.
Example workflows with sales automation:
Leads can automatically be placed into different stages of the pipeline when they take a rule based action.
Removing leads out of the pipeline if they become stagnant and unresponsive to emails.
Assign a sales rep a lead and automatically send an introduction email once a lead has downloaded gated content.
Update the deal stage based on a leads action, like scheduling a demo or purchasing a subscription.
Creating and assigning tasks to sales reps and BDRs based on rule based actions.
Customer Service Workflow Automation
Automating customer service work can be incredibly helpful. There are several tasks that can be automated to provide support to the customer service team, like emailing surveys, managing tickets, creating tasks, and even answering common questions.
Example workflows by automating customer service tasks:
Creating and distributing tickets.
Email get started and helpful documentation when onboarding a new customer or trial user.
Assign tasks and follow up emails to members of the team once a ticket has been completed.
Archive completed tickets and tasks.
Operation Workflow Automation
Operations is important for every organization. You can make it easier for people by automating tedious operation tasks. This will help reduce the amount of time spent on manual data entry.
Example workflows by automating tasks in operations:
Tasks can be created in third-party tools like Zoom, Asana, Google, Slack, and HubSpot.
Compile quarterly reports automatically.
Create priorities around different business processes.
Administer permissions for new team members.
Automatically delete duplicate records.
Human Resources Workflow Automation
Rather than entering all of your new employee’s personal information into payroll, expense, and insurance systems manually, HR automation programs can do it for you quickly, easily, and accurately.
Example workflows by automating Human Resources tasks:
Collect feedback from existing and new employees.
Automatically send W2s.
Search through candidates resumes faster by filtering certain keywords in their job history.
Streamline communications and emails to candidates and employees.
Delete candidates from the CRM based on filling a position or being inactive over a period of time.
Finance Workflow Automation
Finance automation software can help you to quickly and easily create forms, workflows, and track processes. This will help to make it easier for the finance team to track and approve travel requests, approve budgets and reimbursements.
Example tasks you can automate in finance:
Approve budgets based on a predetermined set of logic rules.
Manage travel expenses using parameters.
ACH and wire requests can have their own set of assigned priorities.
Administer contract and vendor approvals.
Govern the entire expense approval process from beginning to end.
