Generating Sales with Marketing Automation Vs Salespeople
14 Nov 2017
Generating sales with Marketing Automation can be more cost-effective and optimise the productivity of your sales team. Discover how Marketing Automation compares to investing in more salespeople.
You want help generating sales, so you employ a salesperson and put them out into the field to get on with the job. The problem is, this involves cost and a time delay, as they warm up leads, nurture and eventually close.
Stand back and think about it for a minute. The way people buy has changed. Internet searches have made sure of that. 70% of the buying process is now completed before any contact with you or your sales rep. By 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationships, without even talking to a human!
How can you deal with this?
Employ more salespeople, when buyers aren’t ready to talk to you yet?
Look at where your sales team fits in and what your marketing team is capable of achieving. Aligning marketing and sales can significantly help you with generating sales.
People are the lifeblood of your business – we know that. That’s the case with us too. And we also understand that you will be naturally sceptical about changing the way you have traditionally sold.
If you have a valuable, high performing sales team, that’s great news but you could help them become more productive. To do this, sometimes you also need to think about the future and assess what other marketing and sales options there are.
Generating Sales with Marketing Automation: Consider new technologies
You can’t hide your head in the sand and ignore what’s happening digitally and specifically with the automation of the workplace.
The fact is the way buyers behave when they are looking for products and services has changed. Fuelled by internet searches and internet-enabled technology, marketing and sales managers are no longer making the decisions about when, what, and at what price, people buy.
At least, to a good extent, they’re not because buyers can research and find information to make an informed purchase.
90% of buyers say when they’re ready to find you they will! Buyers are now deciding what they want, when they want it. This creates new opportunities in the field of digital marketing for B2B companies like yours.
To connect with buyers and build relationships before your sales team even needs to pick up a phone or attend a sales pitch/presentation or lunch.
Sell the way your prospects want to buy to aid in generating sales
Your prospects are now preferring to take the lead by doing their own online research before they make contact with you. And it’s up to businesses to find ways of influencing their decisions.
The point is aggressive telesales, field salespeople and trade shows are being used less and/or differently. Marketing Automation is changing the future of marketing and selling.
Accelerate your sales cycle by giving sales the intelligence they need to close
So a MAP (Marketing Automation Platform) is not just a shrewd investment in new technology. It empowers you to give your sales team the support, encouragement and insight about prospects that they need to close a sale.
Building meaningful relationships, and manage through a central CRM
SharpSpring can automatically notify your sales team to make contact with a lead. This can include when a prospect that has requested a demo, a lead with a high score, a lead that has come back to life (after going back onto your website) etc.
All these actions and intelligence put your sales team in a better position to sell. By having more informed conversations about a prospect’s interests, etc. This builds trust and faith in what you do.
Over time, as buyer personas evolve through your CRM, your sales team will be able to use segmentation tools. These are lists defined by buyers interests and advanced lead scoring to better respond to customer requirements.
By providing dynamic content that strikes a chord with customers, is aligned to their interests, and provides a more personalised experience, conversion rates will improve and marketing ROI will become transparent.
Ready to generate more sales with Marketing Automation?
Perfect is a SharpSpring Platinum Partner and experienced growth marketing agency specialising in sales lead generation, through Marketing Automation. If you find our blog interesting then please take 2 minutes to make contact, so you can start benefiting from our experience and ideas.