by Glen Springer | May 18, 2017
How Does Sales Outsourcing Use Marketing Automation to Generate Qualified Leads?
Marketing automation is at almost full adoption in most B2B technology companies. Larger companies will see as many as 20 new technologies in the marketing department. But many other small businesses are just getting started or do not yet understand how automated tools can make their sales and marketing operations modern and more efficient. Sales outsourcing and marketing automation combined is one way to quickly create modern and more effective sales and marketing operations.
In this blog post, we will touch on how a sales outsourcing company will use marketing technology to produce better results. We will touch on the following areas:
- Capturing Sales Leads
- Lead Scoring
- Email Automation
- Lead Intelligence
- Sales Lead Prioritization and Notification
Lead Capture
One feature of a marketing automation platform is an integrated form builder that allows you to capture leads. You can embed these forms and customize them anywhere on your website. This includes landing pages on your main website and even within HTML code in your emails.
Lead Scoring
There are two main ways to qualify leads:
- Using implicit behaviors and activities
- Explicit data and demographics
Using implicit information allows you to rank and score activities like opening emails, click through and also seeing what content the buyer is reading. It is very valuable especially if they are visiting pages that predict purchase intent. You can also use explicit data like company size, title and business vertical.
When these two are combined, it becomes very powerful in helping your sales reps to decide who they should prioritize to call first. This makes your sales process much more effective and also helps you save thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year not calling buyers that are not interested.
Email Automation
You can stay top of mind by sending email to buyers on a regular basis. This ensures you remain top of mind with the buyer not ready to buy. And when they are ready to buy, their lead score will increase. This saves you time and money and also makes sure a lead does not slip through the cracks.
Lead Notifications Alerts
The automation system can be set up to send daily email digests to help buyers prioritize who they should call. Lists can be set up to score:
- Most recent activities
- Highest scores
- Best fits
With these lists and summaries a Sales Development Rep can:
- Prioritize their day with the most active prospects
- Perform quick lookups of anonymous visitors in LinkedIn or Jigsaw to identify potential new prospects
- Click on links to trigger CRM profile lookups
- Send emails to active prospects with a few quick clicks
- Filter out unwanted activity
Lead Intelligence
Once you transition the lead you will have a record of all the activities of the buyer. This digital footprint is valuable to the sales rep as they start to develop the deal and set themselves up to both be helpful to buyer and to close the sale. Activities like original lead source, specific page views, webinar attendance, etc., can all be tracked. This allows the sales rep to profile and frame the content for conversations, voicemails and follow-up emails based on those specific prospect activities.
About Gabriel Sales Sales Outsourcing
Gabriel Sales helps companies build modern sales and marketing operations. We are committed to marketing automation as one of the critical tools for sales success. We have over 50 marketing automation deployments under our belt. And we have implemented over a half dozen different email marketing and lead scoring technologies so we can help you decide on the best fit at the right price to meet your sales goals and stage of sales maturity.
by Glen Springer | May 16, 2017
Staged Process to Get the Most from an Outsource Sales Outbound Campaign
One of the challenges facing most businesses trying to scale their sales and revenue is having too few leads in there automated nurturing campaigns. This is especially true for small businesses where cold calling and Google Adwords is extremely competitive or simply too expensive. This is why we often create leads with an outsource sales email campaign to help ramp our client’s sales funnels.
In most cases, email can be the fastest way to ramp a sales funnel. But simply buying a list and then blasting that list is no longer effective. Can-SPAM laws and Google blacklisting make this a high risk tactic.
Below are six steps you can take on your own or steps an outsource sales company will take to fill your top of funnel with a successful email lead generation campaign.
1) Define your goals
An outsourced sales company will help you define your goals. How many leads do you need? How many leads can you handle? They will also work with you to understand how quickly you need these leads and set the proper expectations of what you can expect a campaign to produce:
- In the short term – immediately after the campaign
- In the mid term – with nurturing
- In the long term – once outsourced sales reps start to follow up
2) Target Your Ideal Audience
After defining your goals, an outsourced sales company will be able to approach multiple third-party vendors to develop a campaign that hits the right audience at the right price. In most cases, this will include both decision makers and influencers because the best email marketing campaigns target the widest audience possible. This is because more and more decisions are now not make by a single decision maker but by decision making units that include:
- A business buyer
- A technical buyer
- An end-user
3) Build your campaign engagement plan
After you identify your target audience, an outsource sales company will help you prepare the copy and create the landing pages for the educational content offers you will be using as part of your campaign. The most effective campaigns are typically run in a series of three messages that will resonate with all the different types of buyers and influencers in your target audience.
4) Deploy your email campaign
An outsource sales partner will then deploy the campaign through the third-party vendor. This includes managing the tests and the best times to deploy. Typically the best campaigns includes testing messages on the first two parts with A/B split tests and then using the best performing offers and messages in the final campaign.
5) Measure KPIs
Identify the most relevant KPIs for each campaign and be sure to track results and performance. This also includes prioritizing what are the best leads to follow up with first if you do not have a nurturing campaign or if you are under immediate pressure to bubble up some early stage opportunities.
6) Move them into a nurturing campaign
In most cases, an eProspecting Email campaign is only the first step in a lead generation campaign. Once you have generated the lead, you will need to move them into your marketing automation campaign. An outsource sales company can help you with this as well.
About Gabriel Sales Outsource Sales Services
Gabriel Sales help companies generate a sustained flow of leads using multiple tactics as part of modern sales and marketing operations. To learn more about our approach we invite you to check out our page that discusses our integrated sales philosophy and our 20 years of history of helping companies scale sales with outsource sales services.
by Glen Springer | May 16, 2017
Staged Process to Get the Most from an Outsource Sales Outbound Campaign
One of the challenges facing most businesses trying to scale their sales and revenue is having too few leads in there automated nurturing campaigns. This is especially true for small businesses where cold calling and Google Adwords is extremely competitive or simply too expensive. This is why we often create leads with an outsource sales email campaign to help ramp our client’s sales funnels.
In most cases, email can be the fastest way to ramp a sales funnel. But simply buying a list and then blasting that list is no longer effective. Can-SPAM laws and Google blacklisting make this a high risk tactic.
Below are six steps you can take on your own or steps an outsource sales company will take to fill your top of funnel with a successful email lead generation campaign.
1) Define your goals
An outsource sales company will help you define your goals. How many leads do you need? How many leads can you handle? They will also work with you to understand how quickly you need these leads and set the proper expectations of what you can expect a campaign to produce:
- In the short term – immediately after the campaign
- In the mid term – with nurturing
- In the long term – once outsourced sales reps start to follow up
2) Target Your Ideal Audience
After defining your goals, an outsource sales company will be able to approach multiple third-party vendors to develop a campaign that hits the right audience at the right price. In most cases, this will include both decision makers and influencers because the best email marketing campaigns target the widest audience possible. This is because more and more decisions are now not make by a single decision maker but by decision making units that include:
- A business buyer
- A technical buyer
- An end-user
3) Build your campaign engagement plan
After you identify your target audience, an outsource sales company will help you prepare the copy and create the landing pages for the educational content offers you will be using as part of your campaign. The most effective campaigns are typically run in a series of three messages that will resonate with all the different types of buyers and influencers in your target audience.
4) Deploy your email campaign
An outsource sales partner will then deploy the campaign through the third-party vendor. This includes managing the tests and the best times to deploy. Typically the best campaigns includes testing messages on the first two parts with A/B split tests and then using the best performing offers and messages in the final campaign.
5) Measure KPIs
Identify the most relevant KPIs for each campaign and be sure to track results and performance. This also includes prioritizing what are the best leads to follow up with first if you do not have a nurturing campaign or if you are under immediate pressure to bubble up some early stage opportunities.
6) Move them into a nurturing campaign
In most cases, an eProspecting Email campaign is only the first step in a lead generation campaign. Once you have generated the lead, you will need to move them into your marketing automation campaign. An outsource sales company can help you with this as well.
About Gabriel Sales Outsource Sales Services
Gabriel Sales help companies generate a sustained flow of leads using multiple tactics as part of modern sales and marketing operations. To learn more about our approach we invite you to check out our page that discusses our integrated sales philosophy and our 20 years of history of helping companies scale sales with outsource sales services.
by Glen Springer | May 3, 2017
In this sales outsourcing social media case study you will learn how a multi-channel demand generation solution helped a social media technology company scale faster at a lower cost of sales.
The Challenge
Technology Company developed a real time analytics technology had already launched into a non-marketing focused vertical with success but limited growth potential. The product worked well but the market was not big enough. Initially company needed more capital for growth. Series B investors required new vertical and marque client traction to close round. Company had no internal competency in market research, analytics, solution sales or ad agency sales.
Selling To: Fortune 500 EVPs and SVPs of Sales and Marketing, CMOs, Agency CEO, CIOs and Directors
The Solution
- Outsourcing Lead Generation – Staff three lead generation reps for first 120 days to fill the pipe
- Sales Consulting and New Product Launch – Simultaneously worked with client executives and took existing technology and sales repackaged new verticals
- New Product Launch – Staffed inside rep and sold initial low end intro packages.
- Outsourcing Sales – Cut lead gen team in half and staffed a full time enterprise sales representative to move into elephant hunting mode
- Sales and Account Management Recruiting – Trained two senior sales representatives hired directly by company as Gabriel Sales blended team filled their pipes. Recruited a Market Research PhD to manage client servicing
- Sales Process Consulting – Functioned as temporary SVP of Sales and Marketing
First 180 days
- 18 pilot deals closed.
- One of the top 3 players in; CPG, Entertainment, Beverage, Office Products, B2B tech, Management Consulting and Retail closed.
- 2 of the top 4 Advertising Agencies running pilots. 5 other smaller agencies piloting.
- Series B round closed
Helped to recruit a President to oversee entire business development, client services and sales operations.
Transitioned Gabriel Sales team over as employees of the company
- 12 additional pilots
- 2 Agency relationship scaled leveraging solution across 5 or more Fortune 500 clients per agency as recommended solution
- 5 Fortune 500 clients renewed and scaled from pilot to annual deals – 3 to 200K plus, 1 to 300K plus, 1-500K plus.
- Helped to recruit a President to oversee entire business development, client services and sales operations.
- Transitioned Gabriel Sales team over as employees of the company
by Glen Springer | May 1, 2017
The top goal of modern sales and marketing operations for small business needs to be: build a repeatable sales process that can generate a steady stream of sales opportunities.
One of the critical tenants of modern sales and marketing operations needs to be specialization. For most small businesses, this means that closing and developing opportunities now need to be different functions. Outsourcing sales help your senior sales specialize on closing business by keeping their sales funnel full.
First lets discuss why your senior sales reps should not be focused on prospecting. Then we will discuss how sales outsourcing and marketing can help them to become more productive.
Why Senior Sales Reps Should Not Prospect
They are not effective – Experience sales reps hate to prospect. They love to close. They are also your most expensive resource. Does it make sense for them to cold call?
Sporadic focus – Prospecting is like the grind of training for any sport. There are tasks you need to do on a regular basis like running, stretching and strength training. If you don’t do them on a regular basis results will suffer. If a closer is working on getting a deal done the first thing to get tossed aside is prospecting. They end up with a great quarter and then have no new deals to work on. Closers need to focus on closing not training.
Unclear metrics – Sales reps are compensated by closing business. Not hitting top of funnel metrics. It is difficult to get sustained performance for something as minimal as daily new lead flow from a seasoned sales rep.
Closing is an Art – Closing is expensive because it’s an art. And like any art it takes creativity, attention to detail and complete focus. It takes a great deal of energy. It does both the rep and your business a disservice to deplete this energy.
Outsourcing Sales to Build a Steady Flow of Leads
Conversely here is why you should consider outsourcing sales to build a steady stream of sales qualified opportunities.
Not just calling anymore – The days of throwing bodies on the phone to call are over. Prospecting still requires calling but it also requires creating content and sharing that content with prospective buyers via email. Outsourcing sales will help you gain immediate access to the skills you need for effective prospecting.
Regular tasks on a regular basis – To be repeatable means you have to repeat tasks like emailing, cold calling, follow up calling and creating content on a regular basis. A sales outsourcing company will take over the daily grind required for success.
Tools and team for success – A sales outsourcing company will have the technologies’ and team required for success. This includes marketers, callers and sales automation technology experts.
Prospecting is a Science – Effective sales prospecting requires building a repeatable process. More importantly it requires constant measure and analysis to improve campaigns and results.
About Gabriel Sales Sales Outsourcing
Gabriel Sales helps companies build modern sales and marketing operations to help closers specialize in closing while we fill the top of the funnel utilizing a team of experts in driving leads with integrated sales and marketing campaigns. To learn more about how our team can help you, visit our page on modern sales and marketing operations and sales outsourcing.
