Integrate Sales and Marketing - Create a Convergence for Better Lead Management
by FrontRange Solutions Inc. Our Server

Integrate Sales and Marketing – Create a Convergence for Better Lead Management

Integrate Sales and Marketing – Create a Convergence for Better Lead Management
 

Sales and Marketing departments have been at odds with each other almost since the introduction of marketing. They have continually debated such issues as the quality of leads provided by Marketing to the Sales team and the effectiveness of Sales to develop those leads into revenue.
 

Talk with anyone in a Sales organization and a real disconnect between them and Marketing becomes obvious. Common complaints include “If I had better leads, my close ratio would be significantly higher” or “These leads are not the right target audience.”
 

The attitude is not much different in the Marketing department. Marketing team members often feel that Sales is not doing its job and only wants “orders” rather than having to work the deal. Issues from Marketing departments include “If the Sales team followed up on all the leads we provide them, then they would exceed their sales quota.”
 

This is a traditional problem that needs a modern solution to maximize marketing dollars and drive additional revenue for the company.
 

Business Drivers
Typically, companies spend 10 – 30% of their revenue on marketing activities. In today’s business environment, executives are carefully scrutinizing every penny spent within their organization to increase profits and shareholder’s equity. Marketing budgets are no exceptions. Executives want to ensure money is spent wisely and that they are achieving an appropriate return on investment (ROI).
 

At the minimum, Marketing departments are now required to quantify the ROI for each campaign. However, once the Marketing department can track ROI, executives demand the Marketing department to increase the ROI to drive increased revenue for the organization.
 

That’s where Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions can help. Integrating Sales and Marketing efforts makes it possible to connect leads generated by Marketing to the resulting revenue generated by Sales.
 

What’s more, consumers have become increasingly leery of anyone trying to sell them anything. It is estimated that the average consumer sees over 1 million messages per year –almost two messages per minute. The firms that develop a strategy that offers true value to consumers in exchange for  additional information may successfully increase the trust with customers, thereby increasing opportunities to sell them products and services. CRM can help build that trust by tracking how a customer wants you to communicate with them, whether by phone, email or written correspondence, capturing historical information about each interaction and then making that information available across an organization – whether that is down the hall or around the globe.
 

Issues Facing Sales And Marketing Departments
Without a CRM solution, Marketing departments are flying blind. With firms spending so much of their revenue on Marketing, executives are demanding that marketing leadership justifies each dollar spent. Gone are the days of throwing dollars at marketing without having some measurable metrics, whether that is an ROI for the campaign or something as simple as a ‘quick ratio’ that shows how much impact the campaign has had on the pipeline.
 

Another consideration is the results from the leads sent to the Sales department. An estimated 70% of the leads sent to Sales are never pursued. The Sales department believes that either these are the wrong leads or that the buyer is not ready to make a purchase. At this point, you have spent a significant amount of time and money to find prospects that are similar to your best customers and developing a campaign to speak to them without follow-up, resulting in wasted marketing dollars. Only by getting the right lead to the right sales person at the right time, can such waste be eliminated.
 

A third issue facing many companies today is that information learned about a lead during the marketing process is not shared with Sales. It may take two, three or even more touches before a prospect is ready to engage with Sales. Each of these interactions can provide insight. Also, Sales may gather the same information that has already been captured during the marketing process, wasting time and eroding trust between the two groups. Sharing information about a lead across an organization can immediately differentiate a company from its competitors and close the trust gap between a salesperson and the prospect and between the Sales and Marketing teams.
 

Plan For Success
For best results, a lead management system must bring together the right people, processes, and information. In order to accomplish this, a system must:

􀂾 Provide access to information across the entire organization, including any pre-qualification resources such as a call center. With this information about each and every interaction, you can make a better impression on new prospects and improve your odds of winning their business.

􀂾 Identify hot prospects and route them immediately. Studies have shown that it is critical to get hot prospects in touch with the right person quickly so they can respond immediately. With a fast response, even if it is an automated response thanking them for their inquiry and telling that Sally Jones, the Account Executive for their territory, will be in touch with them within 24 hours, you form a favorable impression of your organization with the prospect, which can make the difference between winning and losing a sale.

􀂾 Actively engage the remaining leads and nurture them. Marketing’s role is not just to attract new leads; best practices call for Marketing to nurture prospects to move them forward in the sales cycle. Marketing should continue to learn more about these leads and refine their messaging so it brings value to them, so they are willing to share additional information. By building trust and interest over time, these prospects will move through the sales cycle until they are ready to have the Sales team re-engaged.

􀂾 Track leads to closure. It is important to track all leads throughout the entire process to know what is working and what’s not. By tracking leads and interactions with prospects, trends are identified and marketing processes are refined.

􀂾 Evaluate ROI of marketing campaigns. It is important that you develop closed loop reporting that ties the leads develop with each campaign to the resulting revenue. Typically, it will take multiple touches in order to move a lead through the sales cycle, so make sure that you determine how you are planning to allocate the revenue – to the first response because that is what got them to raise their hand, the last because that got them to engage with Sales, or spread the revenue across all touches equally. In addition to measuring ROI, which typically cannot be determined until well after the campaign is complete, consider using a ‘quick ratio’ which shows the impact of the campaign on your Sales pipeline. This can be determined early in the campaign while you still have time to make adjustments to your messaging, list and offer. With proactive adjustments you can improve the effectiveness of your campaigns.
 

Lead Management Best Practices
So how can technology help integrate your Sales and Marketing team to build a more efficient and effective lead management  process? Here are a few best practices for transforming your Sales and Marketing teams to create a convergence for better lead management.

1. Create a “Corporate Memory” that forms the basis for building business relationships. Sharing what you learn from each customer interaction not only builds a customer-centric focus, but also a true dialogue that demonstrates interest to customers when any member of your team can tell them “I remember you…” or “I see you were working with….” In today’s fast-paced environment, it‘s difficult to differentiate yourself based on products and services alone. How a company interacts with its customers and prospects allows firms to set themselves apart from competitors.

2. Access for your entire company. Technology can connect your entire organization any time and anywhere. Whether down the hall or around the globe, CRM technology can empower your office-based users, remote users or those highly mobile sales people who need real-time access to their contacts, calendars and activities via the Web or mobile devices. It is important to look for a solution that can adapt to your users rather than your users having to adapt to the technology.

3. Automate your processes. Automating best practices can ensure that your Sales and Marketing teams are doing the right things every time without having to think about it or “reinventing the wheel” every time. With automated processes, prospects are moved through the sales cycle faster by making sure no steps in the sales cycle is skipped and with less seepage.

4. Track all marketing activities. Seldom are you able to touch a customer once and make a sale. More often, it takes several touches to find a lead’s ”hot button issue” and to entice them to meet with your Sales team. Tracking all marketing activities and you’re your learn from each interaction enables you to determine what is important to the lead and helps you to refine both your messaging to that lead, but also to your marketing campaign.

5. Nurture leads. A typical sales person and will tell you that most leads from Marketing are not the “right” leads, and that is why they don’t work them. So, rather than sending out just any “response” that is generated, Marketing needs to send out only qualified leads. For the “responses” or less qualified leads, a campaign to nurture and move them forward in the sales cycle should be established. That’s where technology can  help. Through automated campaign management, you can create an ongoing ‘drip marketing’ campaign to keep prospects engaged.

6. Distribute leads quickly. Studies show that 70% of the leads are never acted upon, because they do not get to the right person within the organization in a timely fashion. It is critical to get those hot prospects into the hands of the right sales person as quickly as possible so they can strike quickly. Automated processes easily route leads to the sales person without human intervention. Removing these roadblocks gives the Sales team an added advantage.

7. Record critical information. Your Sales team has almost closed the deal, but first the customer wants to talk to a firm that is of similar size, in the same industry and with similar pain points. Technology enables your Sales team to tag each record with critical information such as willingness to act as a reference, their industry, pain points they are solving, etc., so at the time of the sale, the perfect reference is at your fingertips. You then can update the customer’s record to reflect their activity as a reference, whether they’re effective or not, and also to avoid burning them out by using them too frequently!

Get The Biggest Bang For Your Marketing Buck!
Today’s business environment is more competitive than ever. You simply can’t afford not to have your Sales and Marketing teams working together. Giving teams the right solution will help them do their jobs better, shorten the sales cycle, enhance first impressions, follow through on all “responses” and leads with the appropriate resource, and generally become more productive. These solutions also can help you to track and to calculate ROI for each campaign, but more importantly to understand what worked and what didn’t so you can proactively refine campaigns for better results.
 

For information about other white papers, please visit: http://www.frontrange.com/
Greg Anderson
Senior Director, GoldMine Product Marketing
As the Senior Director of Product Marketing, Greg Anderson has responsibility for market and product strategy for the GoldMine product family. With over 21 years of experience defining, developing and marketing solutions that help companies and their staff more effectively acquire and service their customers, Greg joined FrontRange in early 2003. Prior to FrontRange, Greg was previously the Vice President of Product with Comprehensive Software Systems. Before that, he was the Vice President of Systems for Bank of America Securities where he was responsible for developing a solution that automated over 500 brokers. Greg and the GoldMine team’s top priority are to continue to drive the development of marketing-leading CRM solutions focused on the small to middle market.