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

Lead scoring does not have to be complicated!

PART 2

Lead scoring does not have to be complicated:

As previously discussed lead scoring should be the Holy Grail for sales people!  Lead scoring is when sales and marketing defining what a ‘sales ready’ lead is and the lead being handed to Sales on a plate with key information about that prospect’s behaviour. 

Scoring can range from 1-20 dependent on the actions of the lead, and should be enough to give your sales rep a good idea of what their leads have been doing. Once the lead builds up their score they pass through thresholds taking them from a cold lead, to a medium lead and eventually a hot lead – effectively the lead is moving from an MQL to an SQL. As an MQL, nurturing campaigns encourage the prospect along the sales cycle by offering tailored information in the hope of resonating with the individual.  A prospect enjoys being sold to when it is relevant to them! 

When the Lead hits the Hot Lead threshold this is when it’s time for your sales team to pick up the phone!  Research shows that 35-50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first and lead scoring can help you become a front runner.  Alerting your sales team when prospects reach a certain score will mean your organisation really can be in the right place, at the right time talking about the right product!

Here are some top tips to help with your Lead Scoring:

1 – Keep it Simple

People can get very carried away with lead scoring, but the scoring really needs to focus on the main calls to action that will help increase your sales team’s productivity.

2 – Understand your Leads

Who are you targeting?  Which decision makers do you want to chat to? For example if you are an IT company you would want your sales team talking to IT Directors as these people have the best profile for making IT purchases. You can then assign points based on the leads job title and this will give all the IT Directors a head start on the rest of your database.

3 – Automate your Marketing

Once leads are qualified and start to move up through your lead scoring you want your sales reps to know that their leads are active. When leads hit scoring thresholds, alerts can be sent to sales reps and the lead can be added to a specific nurture campaign or added to a specific data list. The email alerts will be sent straight to the sales rep who can then follow up immediately. Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at a 33% lower cost.

4 – Cold today but Hot tomorrow

Not all leads will be active immediately. 79% of marketing leads do not convert into sales. Lack of lead follow up is the common cause of this poor performance. Most leads will need to be nurtured as they will not be ‘ready to buy’ immediately. Their lead score may be low and their activity limited to a few opens and clicks in emails, but instead of ignoring or disqualifying these leads - they need to be monitored. Never jump the gun by dismissing low scoring leads. Follow up marketing will keep the lead interested until you can hit the right note with them, or when they are ready to engage with you - alerts will be sent to your sales reps.

Enjoy setting up your lead scoring but remember you need sales and marketing input and expect to make some changes so that it can become automated.  Invest time now and reap the rewards soon!  And remember why you are doing this - a good lead scoring strategy will increase conversion rates!

 

References –

www.salesforce.com

www.b2bmarketingzone.com

The Development of IT Has Changed the Face of Marketing

According to the Financial Times, the development of IT has changed and evolved the role of marketing and sales in business.

The article highlighted that the development of software such as CRM has become a key tool to improve efficiency in business, resulting directly in greater success.

However, the development of technology has moved on from simply employing CRM software – it now enables business to integrate a range of different approaches such as email marketing, social media and CRM systems. Only by bringing everything together and gaining insight into what works and when, can each channel be developed to reinforce the others, improving the success of the overall marketing and sales activity.

Technology such as Profunnel’s demand generation platform delivers incredible visibility over campaigns, together with the ability to enhance both tactical and strategic marketing activity. By integrating with the CRM system it means companies can create, control and manage campaigns across key media, while giving insight into why, when and how your customers are most likely to buy.

Click here for more information on the demand generation technology available.

Positive Signs for Stock Market

With the stock market showing positive signs coming into the New Year, how are companies to excel in the competitive yet still recovering economy?

Maintaining the customers you have is as essential as bringing in new business, and to achieve both you need to really understand those you are selling to and communicate more effectively with them.

For marketing and sales this means using customer knowledge to target the right people, at the right time, to win new business and keep existing clients. This is where demand generation technology comes in; delivering a valuable insight into what motivates your customers, when and how. Building a more in-depth understanding of each customer is key – from their response to e-letters, social media activity and more you can develop a digital fingerprint that enables you to tailor your communication and focus on hot prospects.

Why not find out more about how lead generation technology can help grow your business?

UK Economic Growth Positive for Business

This week’s news that the UK economy has grown at 0.8% between July and September, faster than expected by analysts, is a welcome boost for business of all size. Positive news such as this gives us all a feel good factor.

But no one can sit back and expect this announcement to mean new business will simply land in their laps. If a company is going to grow and flourish, you need to be targeting new opportunities and taking advantage of the boost this economic announcement offers.

For marketing and sales this means taking advantage of the customer knowledge they have -targeting the right people, at the right time, to win business. Building a more in-depth understanding of each customer is key – from their reactions to e-letters, social media activity, historical data and more. This is where lead generation technology comes into its own, delivering a more powerful insight into what motivates your customers and achieving far higher conversion rates.

With a more positive feeling about the economy, why not find out more about how marketing automation technology can help grow your business?

CRM and Social Media

With the rapid rise of social media, technology has been developed to help use this to a competitive advantage. Social media is now integral to nurturing customer relationships, and gaining a competitive edge to win sales.

The technology has developed to allow users to maximise the potential of social media and integrate with their CRM activity, providing a far greater insight and understanding into their customers’ activities, motivations and touchpoints. The results allow sales and marketing to deliver a more co-ordinated communication programme to generate sales, which in today’s competitive market can be crucial in winning business.

For example, many of our customers, through our system, now create social site-specific links (tracking URLs) back to homepages or landing pages with in-depth tracking and reporting capabilities. This means clients can now publish content on social networking sites through our system, while tracking and monitoring responses, which enables better understanding of potential business and drives enhanced future marketing from the best performing social media sources.

Natural Selection – Survival of the Fittest

Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection highlights the importance of survival of the fittest – this iconic theory can also be applied to the world of business.

Businesses that do not constantly evolve and adapt to changing external environments cannot excel and with a variety of competitors snapping at their heels survival is unlikely. The need for new and innovative sales and marketing techniques is vital for organisational success.

Organisations need to stay ahead of the competition, bringing in new business and building customer relationships for the long term. Gone are the days when cold calling was the only option for sales, the landscape has now changed and decision makers are looking for new sales and marketing techniques to drive forward new business.

So how do companies flourish in competitive times?

Why not download our latest white paper - Natural Selection – Survival of the Fittest

Cold calling becomes warm calling

A study by Which? has found that British consumers receive an average of six cold calls a month, with three-quarters of people wanting cold calling to be banned for good.

B2B sales is a little different but while we’re advocates of picking up the phone and being proactive, why call 200 people a week who have no interest in your company or services when you can call 200 who are interested in what you offer?

Targeted marketing programs and increased understanding of customer motivations and requirements hold the key. This is where marketing automation comes into its own, enabling an organisation to optimise every visitor to its website, establishing who the visitor is, when they return to the website, where their interests lie and, crucially, when they are ready to buy.

The result gives sales people the knowledge to target their calls far more effectively, builds a complete picture of the customer journey and develops the relationship – resulting in higher conversions and improved ROI. What company wouldn’t want that?

Summer's Over....

With the summer holidays coming to an end many businesses are ready to take decisions, make investments and implement new activity to support them through the coming months. Areas that seemed to be on hold can suddenly come to life as key decision makers return from the beach to the office.

It’s now that sales communication and knowledge is key – getting your message and credentials in front of the right people at the right time. Make sure your sales team plans their activity carefully – making use of the latest technology to understand what makes visitors to your website tick and alerts you to follow up those contacts who are coming up to a review.

As businesses swing back into the fast lane, it’s vital to be ready to take advantage of the opportunities, but you’ll only be able to do this if you know about them. Marketing automation technology can be the key to unlock this sales potential – for a demonstration of how it can help you click here.

Strong Turnout for Webinar as Businesses Look to Support Sales Activity

Last week saw the running of Profunnel’s latest Webinar, hosted by MD Matthew Hall and Kevin Miller – a leading US authority on lead generation for businesses.

Over 120 business people took part, attracted by the opportunity to discover more about the latest technology and the support it offers for their sales and marketing activity.

Kevin spoke about his experience and how Profunnel’s approach can help nurture customer relationships, enabling a more personal, targeted approach for sales. Co-ordinating with CRM systems, sales calls, on and offline marketing activity and more, Profunnel’s technology offers a far stronger and more integrated process that is proven to build revenue streams.

The response from participants was extremely positive, with a Q&A session allowing them to find out more about how Profunnel can help their sales teams, particularly in the current market.

More Webinars are planned for the future, but if you’d like to register to find out more click here.

The Next Generation

With A level results due this week, thousands of young people across the UK will be deciding on their next steps and future careers. For many, sales and marketing will be a popular choice - offering career progression and good earning potential.

Key to success in this field is the ability to co-ordinate sales and marketing activity, working with the latest on- and offline channels to maximise business potential. Increasingly influential is the marketing automation technology available, providing a far greater insight into customer behaviour, sales patterns and communication than ever before.

The next generation of sales professionals will benefit from the new approach of ‘nurturing’ customers – something that we are already seeing deliver results. The future will see customer contact, relationships and understanding develop even more, giving sales people a far greater influence in business operations and growth.

Free Profunnel Webinar on Latest Demand Generation Technology – 19th August at 1pm

We’ll be joining forces with US e-marketing specialist SalesFUSION next week to host a free webinar to discuss the cutting edge technology now available to sales and marketing teams in the UK.


Set to take place on 19th August at 1pm, the webinar will see Profunnel’s Managing Director Matthew Hall host the event alongside Kevin Miller, Executive Vice President Marketing & Sales of SalesFUSION, with the 45 minute discussion set to be followed by a live Q&A session to enable further analysis of the topics covered.


Areas that will be covered during the free webinar include insight into the latest advancements in web forensics (tagging & tracking individual activity); marketing automation; social media and pay-per-click tracking; email marketing; and CRM integration, allowing companies to identify, track and nurture website visitors, while delivering more effective online marketing and clearer ROI.


To find out more about how demand generation technology can help boost your sales, register for your webinar free place here.

Big Brother Watching?

It may seem a bit Orwellian, but the new era of web forensics can give you an incredible insight and understanding of your customers - and in the current market that knowledge may be just the edge you need to win business.

Web forensics is all about getting to grips with the ‘journey’ your customer makes through your website – how they are interacting and using the site to meet their requirements. It now goes way beyond the basics and instead allows you to tag individual visitors, tracking them through their activity and the sales process. This information is invaluable to sales people and marketeers, helping them understand individual motivations, target communication and increase conversion rates.

The key to success is to make sure your forensics solution gives the control and analysis your team needs to improve customer communication and sales – not just the basic analytics, but something much more powerful. You may feel like Big Brother watching visitors to your site, but the truth is that you will be able to deliver a better, more tailored service to each and every visitor.

The Email Conundrum

Email is quick and cost-effective to marketeers, but with many of us receiving hundreds – if not thousands - of emails every week, is it really able to get results?

While email technology now offers incredible control, targeting and creativity, some companies stick their heads in the sand and continue with their email ‘blastings’ to all and sundry. Then they complain that e-marketing is getting no results. No surprises there. In the current market you need to be more targeted, more creative and more co-ordinated - it’s about nurturing contacts rather than bombarding them.

Effective email marketing is focused on improving communication, allowing powerful segmentation and generating solid leads for your business. Communication can now be carefully targeted and highly relevant, with a tailored approach completely missed by the poor mass mailings still used by many. Get it right and you’ll give your sales team opportunities that they can really work with.

The leads are out there, and the business can be yours for the taking, but don’t let poor email marketing hold you back and turn potential clients off.

The Sales and Marketing Coalition

Be honest have you ever seen sales and marketing really working together? I am sure that you may have seen marketing sending marketing campaigns out only to blame sales for not following them up and then sales blaming marketing for sending poor leads.

Doesn't this sound like recent election debates where Cameron hits Brown with a "budget deficit" and Brown retorts with an "endangering the recovery." Meanwhile Clegg has a pop at both of them in the pre-coalition Punch and Judy show.

How funny now that we see the Consertives in bed with the Lib Dems. They are going to have to make it work if they want to make the difference we are all hoping.

So how do you bring sales and marketing together more closely? Could the advent of marketing automation software signal a similar shift in the politics of the sales and marketing departments?

Why not download our latest white paper - The Sales and Marketing Coalition