Marketing Automation: A Sales Perspective

Marketing Automation from a Sales Perspective


With more-marketers shifting to a revenue-orientated model and the recent sea-change in marketers’ desires to show both business results and brand impact, uptake of marketing automation looks to continue its upward trend in 2013. Despite a high rate of adoption- (a Recent Forrester Report suggested 45% usage within the B2B Enterprise Market*) - companies are only now beginning to understand and leverage the full spectrum of the applications of marketing automation platforms, which can often be very complex.

As a marketer, the physical implementation of a marketing automation platform as the promised silver bullet for their marketing woes can often overshadow an important consideration during the set-up process – planning. More specifically, a plan which will allow the Sales department to reap the benefits of this platform and not use it as another tool for lead-generation or lead management. 

Follow these 5 simple steps to ensure you can get the most from your marketing automation platform from a sales perspective.

1. Align Sales and Marketing: The core purpose of marketing automation is to make sales and marketing one cohesive structure, and will not work if your organisation has been designed to keep sales and marketing as separate entities. Ensure you share cross departmental objectives and success metrics to increase transparency to ensure everyone understands the goals of a specific campaign - everyone’s happier once they know what defines a successful campaign!
2. Focus on Content: Creating enough content to satisfy various newsletters, drip campaigns and blogs throughout a long sales cycle can be a tough job, however it is absolutely worth it when you consider that content really is the coal fueling the marketing automation furnace. To make life a little easier why not consider re purposing your content from your existing assets e.g. one whitepaper can become the topic of a series of webinars or a series of blog posts pulled together could become a new whitepaper and gives your sales team another hook with which to entice prospects. It’s all about working Smart!
3. Plan your Attack: The benefit of a Marketing Automation platform is putting science and process behind the sales funnel therefore defining responsibilities for various stages of the sales cycle is extremely important. e.g. Who's responsible for designing the lead-scoring threshold?, Who's responsible for delegating leads to the Sales team?, Who's monitoring conversion success from these leads? There are important questions to answer and having a designated process firmed up prior to the implementation of a platform so that you can hit the ground running and get the most from your platform and sales team is key.
4. Look to Customize: Most marketing automation platforms will have a plethora of out-of-the-box functions, such as sales alerts and lead scoring which can dramatically improve a traditional sales process but are even more effective when you customise these even further. Having a deep understanding of your industry, specifically your clients purchasing needs will allow you to tailor these functions to your own brilliant needs. Creating customised rules to fit your audience will also allow your sales teams to better target your prospects and marketing to create more bespoke content.
5. Pick a front-runner. Buy-in from Sales is key to the success of marketing automation. By picking a high-performing sales rep and educating them about the benefits of the platform from a sales-perspective you can leverage their kudos to ensure the rest of your sales team understand how it can help reps save time, identify qualified leads and allow for a more targeted approach. Hopefully this will encourage a more rapid uptake of the technology but also more effective usage. 

You may not be able to wave a magic wand and change your sales and marketing processes overnight, but by following the tips above, marketing automation can help transform your marketing programs and re-frame the role of the marketer from a cost centre to a revenue-driving, sales-collaborating winner!

*http://www.forrester.com/The+State+Of+LeadToRevenue+Management/fulltext/-/E-RES71381

Growth of Online Advertising Highlights Importance of Internet to Business

According to the BBC, online advertising has broken through the £4bn barrier– growing by 12.8% in 2010.

The Internet now accounts for a quarter of all advertising spending in the UK, according to figures, highlighting the importance of the Internet for both consumers and business alike.

But for businesses in both the B2B and B2C sectors it is building increased understanding of customers that is becoming key – this is what will help not just plan advertising, but it will also drive lead generation and improve conversion rates. Your website is key to this customer insight – who is visiting your website, where they have come from, what they are interested in on your site, where they are in the buying cycle and more – to give you the knowledge you need to maximise sales and marketing performance.

For companies to achieve this, lead generation software through Profunnel can help you nurture for the future, allowing companies to really understand potential business, communicate more effectively with individuals, and manage relationships.

Click here for more information on our marketing automation technology.

Growth of Online Advertising Highlights Importance of Internet to Business

According to the BBC, online advertising has broken through the £4bn barrier– growing by 12.8% in 2010.

The Internet now accounts for a quarter of all advertising spending in the UK, according to figures, highlighting the importance of the Internet for both consumers and business alike.

But for businesses in both the B2B and B2C sectors it is building increased understanding of customers that is becoming key – this is what will help not just plan advertising, but it will also drive lead generation and improve conversion rates. Your website is key to this customer insight – who is visiting your website, where they have come from, what they are interested in on your site, where they are in the buying cycle and more – to give you the knowledge you need to maximise sales and marketing performance.

For companies to achieve this, lead generation software through Profunnel can help you nurture for the future, allowing companies to really understand potential business, communicate more effectively with individuals, and manage relationships.

For more information on the technology available click here.

Tailored Communication - The Future of Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing are both now realising that having detailed customer information allows them to decrease the time spent in the sales cycle and focus their resources more effectively for more positive results. To achieve this, a more productive process is needed both in terms of capturing and understanding customer insight, and then tailoring communication.

Lead generation technology enables both sales and marketing to engage potential customers by gaining valuable information about their prospect’s key interest and buying behaviour. As a result, communication can be carefully targeted and highly relevant, with a tailored approach ensuring that potential customers are not turned off by irrelevant messages. With the focus now directed on improving communication, this allows companies to stand out from competitors. Get it right and you’ll give your sales team opportunities that they can really work with and put an end to chasing cold leads.

For more information on the tailored approach to communication visit www.profunnel.co.uk.