Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technology application that automates business processes by using business logic and structured inputs. RPA for B2B business ranges from creating an automated email response to positioning thousands of bots that are programmed to automate jobs that run overnight to run the technical processes.
All of this might sound overwhelming to those who don’t understand the technology and might sound to be a utopian dream for those who already know about RPA.
In either case, you know for a fact that no matter how RPA is used in a business – it has the potential to automate various business processes, reduce costs and increase efficiencies.
Let’s understand more about it.
Also Read: RPA for B2B Business – A Detailed Guide on Robotic Process Automation
RPA for B2B Business
How RPA can be used in business? Let’s consider this question for a moment.
RPA technology is a pioneering process for any business-to-business (B2B) company because RPA bots can eliminate or reduce the need for human labor in rule-based tasks and allow employees to focus on more value-added tasks.
Also, RPA for B2B is a game changer as it can achieve high levels of return on investment (ROI) at an estimated 9 to 12 months payback period. Time and costs are saved. In addition, it brings many various cooperation opportunities among your employees who have now significantly freed up bandwidth.
For a small B2B business that aims to operate lean – RPA is a boon.
Although the industries that use RPA the most include banking and financial services, healthcare, retail, telecom, public sector, insurance, and manufacturing, RPA in small businesses is considered the best candidate for the next wave of digital transformation with RPA adoption.
In fact, RPA and small businesses are complementary to each other. The possibilities and advantages are endless.
Building a Lead Generation Bot using RPA
The majority of marketers say that generating leads and traffic is their main challenge. As more marketing channels arrive, it only gets harder to reach new customers and run successful lead-generation campaigns. The best bet is to create your own lead generation bot. Search online and you will find the steps on how to create one.
Building a B2B lead generation bot can be made, for example, by using the UiPath RPA and Google Maps where you will find a set of activities to interact with Google Maps API in real-time. The set of activities includes fetching data on locations, directions, distance, duration, photo time zone, geo coordinates, and many more.
Implementation of RPA using UiPath can help automate repetitive and rule-based processes. Moreover, UiPath is considered to be the most efficient tool for RPA as it holds the scope to take it to edge innovation. The ease and simplicity of development provided by UiPath make it a strong competitor to other providers. Some key edges include long-functioning workflows, processed document understanding, feasibility and efficiency, and customer satisfaction.
Lead Generation Techniques
For you as a business owner, marketing head or process owner, the goal is to generate interest in the product or service and build a sales channel. Outbound lead generation is dependent on the ongoing collaboration of your sales and marketing teams.
These teams identify target accounts and potential buyers and send out communications to possible leads. Outbound lead generation communication methods may be in the form of direct email, cold calling, direct mail, and social selling.
A lead that eventually comes in from the marketing efforts is called a marketing qualified lead (MQL) that has shown interest in your product through your website or via social engagement. Further, a sales-qualified lead (SQL) is one that has been picked up by one of your sales representatives and has been pursued.
The initial distribution of the marketing message and support content to a small group of prospects is usually done by inside sales representatives.
The inside sales reps work in the office environment selling products by phone, email, or online or following leads or cold calling. They track who opens emails, clicks on links, and views content, and prioritize follow-up based on the level of engagement of the prospect.
Later, inside sales representatives meet with the marketing team to discuss what worked, the types of content that are most appealing, and what did not. Not all prospects are ready to take the next step so you can still use more passive inbound lead generation tactics.
Now, this is an engaged process and clearly requires a concerted effort from all teams. The time investment is also significant. But what if we tell you that this entire lead generation process can be automated using robotic process automation?
Let us show you the various places where RPA as a lead generation bot can automate your lead generation process.
1. Landing Pages
As the name implies, a landing page is a designed web page to which links within your performance marketing campaigns direct the traffic to so that the users/traffic can “land” after they click the link.
The aim of the landing page is to capture information from contacts in exchange for something of value such as business-to-business insights in the form of a white paper. Since a landing page is designed for a specific target audience, it gives you the opportunity to convert visitors into paying customers.
Now, with the use of RPA, not only can the leads be stored correctly at the right places in your databases, but relevant action can be activated, for example, follow-up emails or SMS, etc.
2. Social Selling
Social selling in B2B companies uses social media to generate leads for their purchase funnel. It emphasizes the relationship between merchants and their customers. Social media is also used to convey authority and credibility and appear on the radar of decision-makers.
Definitely, various aspects of this social media marketing are best executed when automated. This is where RPA comes in and makes it easy for a small B2B business to manage its social media and manage the leads that come in from there.
3. Webinars
Nothing generates more interest and engagement than a webinar that educates your target audience about a problem they are experiencing. It is important to choose relevant and useful information to attract a big number of audience.
Attendees and registrants are very valuable leads. While you utilize your inside sales team to contact each attendee to provide more high-value information – this process can be automated using RPA. This will lead to better lead nurturing and hence more conversions from the same number of leads.
4. Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
ABM, also known as key account marketing, is an approach based on account awareness where your time and resources are focused on a specific group of accounts. Lead generation generates leads and ABM qualifies and targets those leads before marketing to them.
Marketers have always focused on getting the right message to the right person at the right time. ABM accompanied by an automated process like RPA enables all three of these events to occur on a regular basis and deliver qualified leads.
It aids in the automated nurturing of customers and the development of trust. It boosts conversion rates and revenue. ABM companies are known to have high sales-win rates and high customer retention rates. It also improves relationships and customer lifetime value.
5. Marketing Automation
Marketing automation software replaces manual and repetitive tasks and saves time. It allows marketers to allocate more resources to strategy, content, and creative problem-solving. A marketing automation example includes ending out surveys to gain feedback on products, services, and updates. Marketing automation helps to identify potential customers while automating the process of nurturing those leads to sales readiness.
Conclusion – RPA for B2B Business
As lead generation is vital to the growth of a business, by automating many of the processes, your team has the time to focus on overall strategy leading to more prospects and more customers. It is time to fast-track RPA creation in B2B to keep your leads interested and active. RPA integrates the full lifecycle of your business processes.
Obviously, you will be curious to learn about how each of these lead-generation processes can be automated. To know more, feel free to connect with us at Vraimatic here.
