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What are you doing to evangelize the marketing automation strategy at your company?
Making sure your organization understands the strategy and changes that will occur with the use of marketing automation is key. How are you doing this today?
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When we first implemented marketing automation a few years ago, the hardest thing for the sales reps to adjust to, was the huge reduction in leads they during the first quarter after implementation. This was because we turned the fire hose off while we began to nurture and score leads, sending them the highest quality. But to get them to understand the value and not panic, we involved them heavily in the process and eased into the new process, rather than flipping the switch. Here are a few things to keep in mind when implementing automation:
1) Work closely with Sales to develop and optimize a scoring model. They can help determine what they think is truly sales-ready and they know when there are issues, i.e. The filters are too tight and nothing is making it to sales, or They are too loose and unqualified leads are making it through when they shouldn't.
2) Start with a low score threshold. If your sales team is used to the volume game, especially when they're a cold-calling organization. Remember, it takes a while for the first set of nurtured leads to meet the threshold. Once leads start making it in to Sales, then slowly start to tighten the filters by raising the score threshold. Once you have a critical mass of leads in the nurturing process, they will begin to flow into sales nicely.
3) Work with Sales to develop "Instant Conversion Events". These are actions that a prospect takes that instantly qualifies them to be sent to Sales. Some examples are: Visits the how to buy page, Submits an inquiry form, visits the pricing page, view's a product demo, visits the product page several times in short succession, etc...
4) Check in with Sales regularly. Some of the things they can keep you in check on are things like knowing when to reduce a score. For instance, if someone has visited your site a number of times, but only views your careers and management pages, they are likely not a prospect. Ultimately, If Sales feels like they have a say in the process, it will become your biggest evangelists.
I still check in with Sales on a regular basis. Now that we've had automation implemented for several years, the scoring part is pretty dialed in, but we discuss things like email content, frequency and calls to action on a regular basis.
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