How to Use Automation to Prevent Lost Leads

I love having AI review specific types of emails I get to see if they're worth my time. Today I helped my friend Alec Cheung - a fellow marketer in the CMO Coffee Talk community I'm a member of - set up one of these AI automations and it turned out awesome, so I wanted to tell you about it (with his permission of course). Here's the backstory: Going through website form submissions was eating up too much marketing team time. The submissions (which have a place for open-ended inputs that make them hard to screen via traditional methods) flow through Pardot and trigger emails that required human review to figure out if they were genuine leads or just spam. Tons turn out to be junk, creating unnecessary work for Alec's team. Others are genuine leads (or actual paying clients) that a human definitely needs to follow up with. Alec posted in our CMO Coffee Talk AI channel a few weeks ago asking for ideas on how to improve their process with AI. This is a super simple automation, so I offered to help if he'd let me share what we did. He was in! Our fix was AI-powered automation using Zapier. Here's the flow: 1️⃣. A visitor submits a form on Alec's company's website. 2️⃣. Pardot sends an email with the form contents to a designated address. 3️⃣. Zapier kicks off the automation. 4️⃣. GPT-4o reads, analyzes, and categorizes the submission. 5️⃣. Based on the categorization, the automation filters the next steps. 6️⃣. If a human needs to attend to the email, it emails them (along with the appropriate categorization, directly in the flag email's subject line). If it does not require a human, then nobody is notified about the form submission. The result is a far more streamlined workflow that will save a lot of monotonous manual effort. And it's CHEAP. It looks like this automation will cost Alec around $0.10-$0.20 per day in AI usage to run - yes, cents, not dollars. It's an incredibly affordable solution for such a big time (and headache)-saver. Alec was new to using Zapier for this kind of task, so we had 2 calls. First, we planned the planned process, and I gave him some homework, and then today we finished everything. (And he gave me the okay to share with you!) While the setup is pretty straightforward, it does require a base knowledge of Zapier, and how to write solid AI prompts (this isn't something for AI newbies to take on alone). For those in CMO Coffee Talk, I'll go much deeper into this automation during our 2/19 mid-week Zoom "What Every CMO Needs to Know About How AI is Evolving in 2025: Automated Workflows, Agents, and Reasoning Models." Also - if you're a marketer and want to explore AI automations, I do get into that in my Foundations of Generative AI for B2B Marketing course (🔗 in bio). --- UPDATE: A recording of the webinar for CMOs I mentioned above is now available! More details at: https://lnkd.in/gxe9EQ69

How tech companies are saving 10+ hours a week (with these 6 simple Salesforce automations): Companies waste hours every week on tasks that should be automated. They lose time in ways no one even notices: • Clicking through screens • Manually updating fields • Logging calls by hand Each task seems small. But together, they slow everything down. Here are 6 Salesforce automations that save tech companies 10+ hours every week: 1) Data entry and lead enrichment Manual data entry slows everyone down. New leads are auto-enriched with: • Company info • Contact details • Other relevant data No typing required. That means sales can sell, marketing gets clean data, and RevOps stops fixing spreadsheets. 2) Lead management and routing Without automation, leads sit in limbo. Sales and marketing waste time figuring out ownership. So we automated lead assignment, marketing handoffs, and customer success escalations. Now everyone knows exactly where a lead belongs. No confusion. No delays. 3) Automated follow-ups, demos, and approvals If teams rely on memory for follow-ups, deals get lost. We trigger automated task reminders when key actions happen. • A new lead comes in • A demo is booked • A proposal goes out Teams get notified automatically. No more missed follow-ups. No bottlenecks. 4) Proposal, contract, and quote generation Teams shouldn’t waste time building proposals, contracts, or quotes manually. We automate it. Pre-built templates pull in Salesforce data: • Proposals are ready in minutes • Contracts auto-route for approval • No chasing down managers Faster contracts = faster deals = faster revenue. 5) Automated email and activity tracking If it’s not logged, it didn’t happen. But teams forget to log emails, calls, and meetings. So we integrate Salesforce with Outreach, Gong, and Slack to log everything automatically. Now leadership gets full visibility into: • Emails sent • Calls made • Customer responses No manual tracking required. 6) Real-time reporting and forecasting Leaders can’t make smart decisions without real-time data. So we build dashboards that track: • Pipeline health • Deal stages • Team activity Better visibility = faster, smarter decisions. The Bottom Line: Manual processes, bad data, and disconnected tools are slowing you down. We help tech companies fix this—fast. If Salesforce feels like more work than it should be, let’s change that. DM me "Salesforce" and let’s talk.

Most leads aren’t ready to buy on day one. And pushing too early usually pushes them away. According to research, 73% of leads need more time. That means your goal isn’t to sell, it’s to build trust. Here’s how smart businesses do that without chasing: → Set up automated emails that send each month → Share useful tips, how-tos, and quick wins → Answer the common questions before they even ask → Let leads choose how often they hear from you → Add a quick-click link so they can reach out when ready This isn’t about flooding inboxes. It’s about staying present until they’re ready to take the next step. Automation helps you keep the conversation going, without dropping the ball. And when leads are finally ready to buy? You’re the first name they remember.