by gabriel_sales | Aug 5, 2012
In the last six, months, we have seen a big jump in iPhone and iPad opens in our email blasting efforts. After following up by phone, we have noticed that many of my “opens” did not even see the email. We’ve since learned that iPhones open emails differently than other email applications.
For Mailchimp, per their site, they “use a tiny, one pixel graphic (or web beacon) that gets downloaded when a subscriber turns on images to track which emails have been opened and which haven’t. When someone uses their iPhone to open your email, it automatically opens images, downloading the tracking graphic. Most email applications turn images off by default and force users to click a button to display them, resulting in lower open rates. This can result in an inflated percentage of iPhone users showing up in your User Agents stats. We’ll see every user who uses their iPhone to open your email, but we only catch the subscribers that turn on images in other email applications.”
This completely aligns with what we have seen by follow-up calling. So take it easy on your reps if they are not converting the “opens.” I would not stop calling on them, as the probability that that “opens” actually opened is greater than those that do not show open, and typically we have found that those folks are still with the company. So, this is definitely better than straight cold calling.
Question: What is the ultimate solution?
Answer: Aligned Sales and Marketing Efforts
In a nutshell you cannot give up on any one tactic. You simply need to be more diligent. We do recommend making sure your videos and emails are designed for mobile and as another quick tip you can monitor Google Analytics and the time emails are opened with your email blaster to judge if mobiles are actually opened or not.
If you are interested in seeing if your efforts pay off, Gabriel Sales, outsourced sales company for B to B sales and marketing automation implementation specialists, we recommend indulging in a marketing automation tool. Pardot is our platform of choice. For more information on marketing automation see our blog on Marketing Automation for B2B Sales and Sales Small Business.
by gabriel_sales | May 3, 2012
Gabriel Sales helps companies move leads from marketing qualified to sales qualified deals faster. As a b2b sales marketing company here are a several things we suggest you avoid when following up on inbound leads.
- Handing leads to your rep without them being educated on the piece that generated the lead.
- Not leaving a voice mail.
- Leaving a voice mail that just talks about your company. Try something like “This is Mary from ACME, we help companies solve this problem, and I wanted to see if we could share another piece of content about.”
- Always leave your number at the beginning and end of the message.
- Don’t ignore non-business email addresses. Repeat…do not discount these. According to the latest TechTarget Media Consumption research, approximately 40% of corporate IT buyers indicate that they use their personal email account regularly for business.
A marketing automation is also a big help in increasing you ability to generate more business from your inbound leads. If you have not checked out what these platforms can do here is a quick overview from Pardot 5 Minute Overview of Marketing Automation .
If you curious if an outsourced sales and marketing company can get you on a faster track to sales results feel free to contact us for a quick consultative call.
by gabriel_sales | May 1, 2012
Outbound calling on Inbound leads is radically different from straight cold calling. It takes a personality that is more customer service focused (the rep truly needs to want to help) and that needs to take priority over setting the meeting on that first live contact. This is especially true with a lead that has been in a marketing automation nurturing campaign. Here are some B2B sales tips for outbound follow up on inbound leads.
Your sales rep needs know that the prospect is coming from an online source. This means they understand that the prospect is researching and has already more than likely downloaded multiple content pieces—some from you and some from your competition. The reason that person is researching online is that they don’t have a proclivity to speaking with sales reps or it could be too early. So understand that this is probably not how they would prefer to be contacted and they are probably (or would rather have) an email contact vs. direct contact like a phone call. So as a best practice as an outsourced sales and marketing company we find you should do both:
- Make your initial follow-up contact via an email. Share your name and a little reminder of the content piece they downloaded.Let them know the reason you are contacting them because you have helped other people solve a similar problem. Let them know and offer up some additional content in the email.
- When you get them on the phone make sure the rep knows what they have already researched and what piece of collateral they have already shared.
- If you are using a marketing automation platform make sure the rep has access to all the pieces of content they have already consumed.
- When you follow up stress the fact you have helped others solves similar problems.
- Finally always have script ready. Nothing is worse than being caught off guard.
If you want to see if we can help you get more out of your inbound efforts and are curious if an outsourced sales and marketing company can get you on a faster track to sales results feel free to contact us for a quick consultative call.
by gabriel_sales | Apr 26, 2012
Working Every Lead Critical in Business to Business Sales – Tip from Marketing Outsourced Company
As a business to business sales outsourced sales and marketing company we work at accelerating B2B sales for the Fortune 1000 and small businesses. The fundamental difference between the two types of companies is the volume of leads they can generate for their sales reps. As a small business we guarantee that you cannot compete against the big boys if you do not adopt the principal that you need to Work Every Lead. Adopting the philosophy that you need to “Work Every Lead” will guarantee that you maximize the sales pipeline from your leads and we can almost guarantee that the Fortune 1000 has a team that’s sole function is to qualify leads for their sales reps. This function is one major advantage a sales and marketing outsourced company can provide.
We also recommend that this team reports directly to the sales head or the small business owner. Often referred to as the demand generation team this group needs to be held responsible for sales qualified leads they put in the pipe. This group should leverage a marketing automation platform to keep both them and the sales reps accountable, to meet your companies hard revenue goals, and that all progress is communicated in a structured way.
Working every lead will ensure that your company is:
- Responsive: There are numerous studies that show that a quick response leads to higher conversion rates.
- Professional: A company that engages with a lead that does not turn into an opportunity can still gain from a prospect’s positive experience. These can lead to referrals, which are very powerful in today’s socially connected world.
- Learning: The sales demand generation team is now a great source of feedback to the demand generation teams on the effectiveness of programs.
- Efficient: This structure will ensure that your company gets the best ROI on your program dollars, when measured in pipe to spend, or a close to spend type metrics.
It’s up to the sales leader to be the champion of this process and to create the proper environment for this success. Ready to get started…feel free to contact us for a free benchmark and 30 minute needs analysis.
Related Blog Posts:
Top 10 Strategies for B to B Demand Generation
How to Align Your Sales and Marketing Process
by gabriel_sales | Apr 25, 2012
As a B2B outsourced sales company and B2B sales marketing company we have watched the typical sales cycle go through some radical gyrations over the past year. In some cases your buyers are now buying more quickly as they reach out just in time to make a decision after budget is approved, as they are quickly shortlisting and making a decision in less than 60 days. About 20% of your buyers (according to Sirius Decisions and what we have seen from our Marketing Automation Platform) are reaching out and essentially placing an order for smaller transactions. There are still buyers buying via relationships and you also have buyers that are taking a much longer time to research and explore their options prior to the making a decision and this extends the sales cycle. Bottom Line you have buyers that are now buying in a much less predictable and much more fractured way. This means you need to have a strong cold calling, strong inbound and strong content marketing program in place or you will lose between 10%-20% of the revenue you used to take for granted to a competitor that is selling to that particular buyer the way that buyer wants to buy. Below is a quick overview of the shortest path to meeting the needs of this now fractured market.
Marketing Automation Implementation
From our perspective as a B2B outsourced sales and B2B Sales Company the first step in being able to address these new challenges we all face is to strongly consider a Marketing Automation Software. A marketing automation solution brings significant advantages in terms of increasing the productivity of your sales demand generation across a wide variety of buying cycles. Marketer can now generate, score and nurture leads to a level that was not possible just a few years ago and in some cases for smaller businesses we are able to help implement solutions with some of our proprietary tools that allows you to eliminate marketing as a function and put these demand generation tools into the hands of your sales reps for decreased costs and increased productivity.
In fact the number one reason we have seen companies fail to convert these breakthrough technologies into success is because they are not letting sales professionals drive the implementation of the solution. The reason that many companies fail to exploit their demand generation success is that they fail to implement the key events of a sales persons proven sales process into their demand generation process.
Lead Scoring
Probably the biggest efficiency gain you can get from a marketing automation tool is its ability to score leads so your sales reps are focusing their phone time on the buyers most likely to buy. The lead scoring and nurturing features of these tools ensure that your company can manage the top of the funnel through to marketing qualified leads (MQL) with limited interaction with the sales reps. Marketing Automation Software allows you to observe and score the content your prospects are digesting online and in email follow ups. Once a lead has indicated (through the way they have navigated your content and digested information) that they are ready to buy your lead generation reps can prioritize that lead and take them through the final qualification steps with some human contact to move them to a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) and into the pipeline.
Dedicated Demand Gen Team
The key to achieving a process that puts more Sales Qualified Leads into your sales reps pipe is to create a dedicated team that takes the MQLs and converts them to SQLs. Many companies try to short cycle this by having the sales teams do this job. This does lead to pipeline and closed business this quarter but this has a cost to the long term value of your pipe. You will land the 20% that are buying quickly but what happens to the rest of your revenue? It goes away and the reason for this is simple; sales people will take the shortest route to solving their needs and will cherry pick the good leads and leave the others. Why spend thousands on demand generation programs, only to have your company waste the investment, due to lack of rigor?
If you would like to learn more about how a sales marketing company can help you align your inbound and outbound efforts for a fatter pipe and more closed revenue please feel free to CONTACT US for a free initial strategy conversation.
If you are having cultural issues between sales and marketing we suggest you check out B to B Demand Generation Requires Sales and Marketing Alignment. You can also checkout our Free White Paper on 10 Tips and What to Avoid to Sell Smarter and Faster.
