AI-Powered Market Research for Startups: The Key to Effective Lead Generation Techniques

AI-Powered Market Research for Startups

Every drop makes up an ocean, they say. Well, qualified leads make up a business, and any company would want to be swimming in a pool of them, right? But how do you get these leads? Through a technique known as AI-powered market research for startups. It’s the first and most crucial step in acquiring a customer, and I’m here to explain it to you. So, brace yourself for very effective techniques coming your way!

What is Lead Generation?

Let me clarify some terms before we dive into the strategies you can use to grow your business. You can think of a lead as an individual who:

1. Has expressed interest in your products and services.
2. Gave you their contact information.
3. Attended a webinar you hosted.
4. Downloaded a free guide.
5. Signed up for your newsletter.

This person is now inside your sales funnel because they visited your company’s website and permitted you to contact them (usually via email, but occasionally by phone). As a result, lead generation is the process of populating your sales funnel with people interested in your company. A lead generation approach is anything that gets someone to give you permission to contact them or remarket to them.

Lead Generation Tactics

There are four components to lead generation tactics: traffic generation, lead capture, lead qualification, and lead nurturing. Got it? Great. Now, let me discuss the strategies you can adopt to fill your sales funnel with qualified leads.

Traffic Generation

There’s a lot of potential for conversion rate improvement (unless you’re one of the top advertisers). Conversion rates on the top 10% of landing pages are 3x to 5x higher than the average. What are their methods? Giving better offerings is one innovative approach. This is significantly more significant than standard optimizations such as adjusting button color, font type, spacing, and so on. Every software provider provides a free trial. Every plastic surgeon offers a free consultation. LinkedIn provides an excellent overview of what it’s like to use the platform by using bespoke graphics. They also target consumers at different stages of their decision-making process by using several CTAs.

Remarketing

Remarketing allows you to track site visitors and re-target them while browsing the web, checking their email, watching YouTube videos, searching Google, and even hanging out on Facebook. It assists in converting leads into customers, which is significant given that 97% of visitors will depart your landing page without converting. By repositioning your business in front of your audience, you increase the influence of all of your other startup marketing initiatives. In the United States, with the Google Display Network, gives you 92 percent reach across millions of websites, videos, and devices. Remarketing ad weariness is about half as high as typical ad tiredness, so it’s worth a try!

User Reviews

Consider your most recent purchase. You probably didn’t buy it immediately if it’s a first-time purchase. You most certainly did a lot of research before making your pick. Reviews increasingly influence purchase decisions. Seventy-three percent of B2B marketers evaluate purchases using various sources. They seek advice from their colleagues, industry experts, and even review sites. Users can leave reviews on sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and other people will use those reviews to analyze a product and see if it meets their requirements. A strong online presence on well-known review sites for your sector might help you generate leads. Be sure to seek feedback from your customers. Most people, especially those who have worked with you for a long time, will gladly write a review. When you can get influencer endorsements, this method works even better. Prospects may second-guess their selection if there are too many bad evaluations.

Trust Elements on Your Website

People are no longer hesitant to disclose their personal information through websites due to the rise in trust. Having trust elements on your website might help your visitors feel more comfortable sharing personal information with you. Here are a few things to integrate into your website to increase trust:

• SSL Certificates: Include SSL certificates if you ask people to provide sensitive information so that your audience knows their data is secure and safe.
• Privacy Policy: A privacy remark such as “We value your privacy and will not disclose your email address” indicates that you will not disclose their email addresses.
• Pop-Ups: Most people do not purchase a product or service on their first visit to a website. They search for the most excellent option at a fair price. However, getting the email address on the first visit isn’t bad. Pop-ups are pretty valuable for capturing email addresses. You can provide a checklist, eBook, or course that your potential clients are looking for in exchange for their email address. After that, you can pursue them until they become clients. Who doesn’t enjoy receiving gifts? Pop-ups provide an excellent incentive for users to give businesses their contact information. Here’s an example from Amazon. Every time you visit some websites, a pop-up with a game appears, offering you a discount code prize. You must provide your email address to receive the code, which will allow you to purchase your favorite watch at the best price. This not only provides qualified leads but also encourages customers to buy. Smart, right? We all know how annoying pop-ups are. According to research, 90-95 percent of people dislike pop-ups. The truth is that people respond to them as well. Many website owners have noticed a 40% increase in sales after implementing pop-ups. Pop-ups aren’t always terrible if you use them correctly. It’s not good to show the pop-up right after someone visits your website. Before they leave the page, you can use it with exit-intent pop-ups. If people aren’t interested, provide an obvious mechanism to close the pop-up.

Call to Action

Is your call to action button asking for the user’s name and email address? Here are some things to think about while creating your call to action button:

• Color: Your call to action should stand out against the background. No one will see your button as a button if it is the same color as the background.
• Text: The words in your call to action button must inform visitors of the consequences of clicking. For example, using “Submit” as a button text has no meaning. If you’re selling an eBook, the button language may say “Download eBook,” which is unambiguous and tells users what will happen if they click.
• Placement: The positioning of your call to action is equally crucial. Make sure your button is at a “Gaze Point” for the eyes.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is no longer effective. Have you ever heard of something like this? No way! The numbers don’t support it. Email marketing offers a significant return on investment. Take a look at this figure: According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), email marketing has a 4,300 percent return on investment. (Image: Email Marketing Statistics – 2021 Edition). Many companies believe that they can only use email marketing to communicate with their current customers. But email can be a fantastic way to develop and nurture new leads. Here are some best techniques for attracting new customers:

• Subject Lines: Your subject lines have a direct impact on your open rate. Many people don’t give this phase of the process any thought. You must have a fantastic subject line if you want your customers to open your emails.
• Valuable Offers: Make worthwhile offers (such as a free download or some form of educational content that solves the problems of your ideal prospects).
• Clear Call to Action: Ensure that it is simple and easy for them to get in touch with you. Limit your email to one specific action you want your prospect to perform, such as clicking a link, responding to an email, or confirming a phone-call time. Make it crystal clear what you want them to do.
• Social Sharing Buttons: Include social network buttons so that people may easily share your content.
• E-Newsletter: When prospects sign up for your e-newsletter, you can produce many new leads, provided the material is valuable. Your e-newsletter is also a terrific approach to nurturing the leads you already have. Many businesses also use e-newsletters to introduce new services and special deals. To grow your subscriber base, offer a valuable incentive on your website or in your email signature block. Remember that the better your content is, the more people will read it–and the less likely it is to be considered spam.

AI-Powered Lead Generation

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can assist in lead generation. AI allows you to rapidly and accurately identify your clients and prospects by analyzing large amounts of behavioral data. AI can examine successful investments and assist you in making the best option for your company. Let me take you through the field of AI-powered market research for startups to aid you in your lead generation efforts.

Extracting Lead Insights

Artificial Intelligence has been sluggish in gaining traction among sales and marketing teams. The nature of selling or limited access to the behavioral data that enables machine learning could be the explanation. However, things are swiftly changing now. Using its machine learning capabilities, AI has shown to be excellent at extracting lead insights from acquired data. AI can also spot fresh leads and indicate which ones are worth following. Ask any B2B marketer what their biggest pet peeve is regarding lead generation, and they will tell you how they are struggling to generate leads. Artificial Intelligence (AI) comes into play. Consider the AI-powered virtual assistant “Amelia” produced by IPsoft as an example. This AI system can understand human language to respond to consumer questions and handle up to 27,000 conversations simultaneously in several languages!

Leveraging Image Recognition

What If I told you… AI can identify valuable insights from photographs from platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram? AI algorithms are helping discover customer preferences, interests, passions, major life events, demographics, brand preferences, and more. Surprisingly, similar photos help detect trademarks, products, and demographic interests. AI can help you develop the correct data sets to make the most accurate conclusions and act on rather than struggling to generate leads. If you’re wondering how AI-powered platforms might help you establish a strong lead list, consider the following:

Total Available Market (TAM)

The Total Available Market (TAM) can provide you with more leads. You can get market insights about existing leads and potential customers. Rather than using archaic, standard prospecting tools, you can conduct lead generation research and find leads based on complex filter parameters. For example, you can look for information such as job titles, industries, revenue ranges, and more. That’s not all, though. AI tools can scan out-of-office replies, which can automatically recognize fresh leads and put them to lead lists for your convenience.

Predictive Lead Scoring

Did you know that HubSpot, the pioneers in inbound marketing, increased the total revenue on its website by a whopping 125 percent? How did it pull off such a remarkable feat? Predictive lead scoring and qualifying leads are two terms I have for you. AI technologies can assist you in lead scoring and predicting lead behavior. They also help you sift through massive amounts of customer data to discover the right client profile and gain valuable insights. As you might expect, this aids B2B marketers in identifying accounts and prospects in their TAM that are more likely to close and become loyal clients. You could have the most effective marketing campaign, but it’s all for naught if you don’t know which leads to prioritize. This is where an intelligent, AI-enabled CRM assistant can help in lead scoring. This will help you increase conversion rates by prioritizing the most likely-to-convert leads and opportunities. This is why you must develop a precise lead scoring system. Lead scoring is assessing prospects on a scale of 0 to 100 to determine their perceived value. It’s worth noting that most lead scoring systems use 100 as their threshold. With the help of AI, you can accomplish all of this and more. The 5-step lead scoring process is as follows:

1. AI examines the lead’s historical behavior, previous training data, and certain identity-related factors to prioritize and assess a new lead.
2. If its score falls below the qualification range, you should not chase a lead. If the lead qualifies, the next step is to identify what to do next.
3. You calculate the sales threshold as soon as the lead takes some action. Examples of this are clicking a link, downloading a file, visiting a website, and so on.
4. At this stage, salespeople take ‘targeted’ actions like meeting with leads or calling them to continue the conversation.
5. The algorithm’s output is regularly improved and refined using critical lead generation data collected throughout the process.

By taking the uncertainty out of the lead generation process and targeting the appropriate client at the right time, AI may help increase the lead-to-opportunity conversion rate and help you stop struggling to generate leads.

AI-Powered Conversational Marketing

When all is said and done, generating leads is one thing, but engaging and converting them is another. This is where AI-powered solutions may help you get high-quality leads by giving an honest, two-way email discussion until the lead becomes an opportunity. AI-powered platforms can also help with lead nurturing by automatically contacting, engaging, and following up with leads via email until they convert. In addition, AI-powered chatbots can save businesses up to 30% in customer service costs. Chatbots can be used in marketing to relieve the pressure on customer-facing staff by answering customer inquiries at all hours of the day. Bots can save up to 30% in customer service costs and answer up to 80% of client inquiries on their own. Conversational chatbots constantly improve their effectiveness by learning from each new conversation.

When properly implemented, chatbots are likely to generate a flood of leads. The use of chatbot technology is beneficial in many areas. How can we transform visitors into customers? How do AI chatbots improve business results? You can launch a lead-generating chatbot to engage customers by providing immediate support to sell and increase customer trust with brands. What role do lead bots play in improving customer relationships? Truthfully, customers have no interest in waiting. People find this frustrating because it doesn’t seem to engage. It may be that your company has resorted to using the old way – form filling – that leads to lead abandonment. Using chatbots could boost business growth. Bots can reduce frictions in collecting incoming leads hence enhancing lead generation efforts.

Conclusion

Vainu, a data analytics service, is an excellent example of an AI-powered platform that engages users in meaningful dialogues without requiring them to fill out a form. Why use chatbots instead of forms? Appointments are very common among B2B businesses and can be a challenge to manage. It makes them less worried about booking issues or hiring extra personnel to handle appointments for them. They can instead invest in chatbots and schedule appointments at an affordable rate. Typically AI bots allow the client to easily book an appointment on the website while the booking confirmation goes straight into the relevant teams. Wrong site search plays a meaningful with the bottom line of your website. The use of AI in search enhances the overall purchasing experience with the ability to help customers find items from your catalogue faster and easier. Vainu is one of the best customer data platforms that caters to a company’s specific needs. AI bots can help you reduce sales abandonment and increase sales by assisting users in exiting the site. Here are some excellent examples of chatbot prompts:

• “Not finding what you’re looking for? Let me help you find the right product.”
• “I see you’re leaving. Is there anything specific you were looking for?”
• “Leaving so soon? We have a limited-time offer just for you. Click here to re-engage and receive your coupon code.”

These prompts are an excellent way to engage customers in a conversation and potentially turn them into leads.

Vainu’s AI-powered chatbot is intelligent enough to encourage customers to stay on the page even if they are planning to leave. It engages customers in a meaningful dialogue, capturing their attention and interest. Customers can ask questions, get recommendations, and even place an order directly through the chatbot. These conversational features offer a personalized shopping experience and can help drive sales.

In conclusion, AI-powered market research for startups is an effective way to generate qualified leads. By leveraging AI technologies, businesses can streamline their lead generation efforts and gain valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences. From extracting lead insights to predictive lead scoring, AI can revolutionize the way businesses generate leads and improve their bottom line. So, if you’re struggling to generate leads, consider incorporating AI-powered strategies into your marketing efforts and watch your business grow.