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How can marketing automation help individual sales reps?
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3 Answers
MA helps sales to continue the engagement with suspects who are NOT sales ready. I see this issue over and over again with companies that have 30 day trials. They have the inbound to initial outbound follow up down pat for those 30 days, but if those trials do not convert they are on to the next batch of fresh new trials. All those qualified leads fall into no wheresville unless the company has developed a well thought lead nurturing program to work with what amounts to 50 to 60% of the captured leads. And for that you really need MA to automate the follow up and to capture the behavrioal responses that provide the intelligence as to their continued sales worthiness. Companies using conventional email marketing tools linked to Salesforce.com are not able to do the ongoing analysis needed to tweak nurturing campaigns or to develop new offers to try and bring those leads that did not convert back for another look.
Frankly, if companies are not willing to commit to lead management and nurturing on some level, I am not sure what the benefit MA is to sales.
Have to agree with Henry - especially the last sentence.
MA is just a tool that, when implemented, will greatly support and enhance a company's sales efforts if - and only if - the sales mission is not limited to "shock and awe" follow up on new leads, dropping the ones that don't close in 30 days, then move on to the next batch of inquiries.
Sales doesn't have to express gratitude and affection for marketing for this to work. They must however, operate on the core principal that it's a good thing to follow up with leads that are not sales-ready within 30 days.
To answer your specific question, Lauren, as to how it can help individual sales reps it's part of a bigger question. In theory, if something is good for sales department, it is good for individual reps. Sadly, there are too many organizations where there are conflicting rewards in the sales department, but that has nothing to do with marketing - it's another discussion for another day
Have to agree with Henry - especially the last sentence.
MA is just a tool that, when implemented, will greatly support and enhance a company's sales efforts if - and only if - the sales mission is not limited to "shock and awe" follow up on new leads, dropping the ones that don't close in 30 days, then move on to the next batch of inquiries.
Sales doesn't have to express gratitude and affection for marketing for this to work. They must however, operate on the core principal that it's a good thing to follow up with leads that are not sales-ready within 30 days.
To answer your specific question, Lauren, as to how it can help individual sales reps it's part of a bigger question. In theory, if something is good for sales department, it is good for individual reps. Sadly, there are too many organizations where there are conflicting rewards in the sales department, but that has nothing to do with marketing - it's another discussion for another day
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