by Glen Springer | Feb 3, 2014
I work the front end of our sales process, taking Inbound calls from interested companies looking for help with their sales. Inevitably, we see the same scenarios play out and the same issues come up over and over again. One issue that has come up a lot recently is what we call the “self-diagnosis dilemma.”
An executive or SVP of sales reaches out with the core problems of:
- They need a bigger pipe
- They need more leads
- They need faster revenue traction
Often, what we see happen is when companies are looking for kind of outside help, they have some preconceived notions in their mind about what tactics will work. They will say something like, “I don’t need any content; I just need callers,” or “I just need you to set appointments.”
While it is great that people are trying to take some action to improve their sales efforts, self-diagnosing in this way does not always produce the best results.
For example, let’s say you have a runny nose and a cough and diagnosis yourself with a common cold, which you would normally treat with some over-the-counter medicine. However, when you go to your doctor, he tells you that you most definitely have whooping cough and need antibiotics—the over-the-counter stuff won’t cut it.
So, while symptoms may look the same on the surface—whether it be a runny nose or low conversion ratios—a qualified domain expert with years of experience servicing multiple customers successfully on a daily basis probably has a better understanding of what solution is most appropriate.
Experts are experts because they can see big picture ideas that others miss, and they are able to discover new solutions to difficult problems. And while it was somewhat easy to become a marketing expert 10 years ago, the sales and marketing landscape has changed dramatically with the proliferation of digital and is now much more complex on both a social and technological level.
So, if your company’s sales are struggling going at it alone, it would probably benefit you to be open to an expert’s advice before haphazardly concocting your own home-remedy.
If you would like to know more about the value of outsourcing B2B sales, read Scale Your Business for Sales with Sales Outsourcing. Feel free to contact us with any questions.
by Glen Springer | Jan 31, 2014
We all know that submitting a contact form, requesting a demo or consultation/review is a clear interaction and digital buying signals. However, we believe these to be verbal or explicit. The following, however, are more subtle and implicit buying signals that can be tracked (at the individual level) using marketing automation software:
1. Repeat visits to your pricing page is the one of the clearest website interactions that indicates a buying decision.
Learning the price/cost involved is an obvious steppingstone in the sales process, one that has value to qualifying a prospect. Finding out the price up front, you are using it as a pre-qualifier. If someone checks your price and never returns, they’ve disqualified themselves – saving your sales team time. If a prospect checks your pricing page and then views more pages (and/or is a repeat visitor) they positively qualified themselves for next steps.
2. Navigating through a visitor flow that simulates your 3-5 call sales process.
This means content like your pitch video, about us page, features and benefits pages, webcasts, contact page, testimonials and services pages. All of these pages support buying decisions and were once part of the introductory sales pitch. Now that buyers are self-educating, you can map their online interactions to your traditional sales process and starting checking off buying signals they need to see and understand before moving forward.
3. Returning to your website through natural search.
If it’s a branded search, this shows they remember you enough to naturally look for you again. Checking the pages they view during this return visit can provide even more insight into their buying stage. If an identified prospect returns to your site through non-branded natural search (and the keyword is unavailable as much of it is today), it still shows a buying signal as they are in an active state of research (multiple visits). Again, deep dive into the specific pages from this return visit to better understand where they are.
4. Viewing your company’s executives social media profiles (especially LinkedIn).
At this point, prospects are usually asking “is this person qualified, and do I want to work with them?” This is different than viewing or following your company profile, where that may only be someone wanting to continue to be educated on the space (or they are your competitor and are mining your content).
5. An email has been opened and clicked numerous (6 or more times) indicating that an item has been shared and viewed internally.
Related to this, watch for multiple hits to same piece of content over multiple days by the same prospect. Since buying decisions require multiple opinions now, these positive buying signals show that the parties that need to be involved in the sale are becoming involved.
6. Downloading case studies, especially ones where the case study is in a comparable vertical.
Viewing these case studies not only provides social proof, but also indicates the prospect wanting a deeper analysis and understanding to see that what you provide (products/services) can work for them, too.
7. Re-watching videos or specific sections of videos.
Analyzing video heat maps show when videos or sections of videos have been re-watched. To best understand this buying signal, you’ll often need to look a little deeper at the section they are re-watching to be sure that the part that was reviewed is your value prop/business case/sales pitch/specific product feature and not industry education/general info.
If you are in sales or marketing, you know by now that the buying process has changed. Prospects are self-educating online and engaging in sales once they’ve “bought” what you offer. Using marketing automation software, you can more accurately assess a prospect’s stage in the buying process through non-verbal, digital interactions with your content (“content” being a very broad categorization of emails, webpages, social profiles, etc.).
For more on how a marketing automation platform can help sales, click here. Feel free to contact us with any questions.
by Glen Springer | Jan 31, 2014
We all know that submitting a contact form, requesting a demo or consultation/review is a clear interaction and digital buying sign. However, we believe these to be verbal or explicit. The following, however, are more subtle and implicit buying signals that can be tracked (at the individual level) using marketing automation software:
1. Repeat visits to your pricing page is the one of the clearest website interactions that indicates a buying decision.
Learning the price/cost involved is an obvious steppingstone in the sales process, one that has value to qualifying a prospect. Finding out the price up front, you are using it as a pre-qualifier. If someone checks your price and never returns, they’ve disqualified themselves – saving your sales team time. If a prospect checks your pricing page and then views more pages (and/or is a repeat visitor) they positively qualified themselves for next steps.
2. Navigating through a visitor flow that simulates your 3-5 call sales process.
This means content like your pitch video, about us page, features and benefits pages, webcasts, contact page, testimonials and services pages. All of these pages support buying decisions and were once part of the introductory sales pitch. Now that buyers are self-educating, you can map their online interactions to your traditional sales process and starting checking off elements they need to see and understand before moving forward.
3. Returning to your website through natural search.
If it’s a branded search, this shows they remember you enough to naturally look for you again. Checking the pages they view during this return visit can provide even more insight into their buying stage. If an identified prospect returns to your site through non-branded natural search (and the keyword is unavailable as much of it is today), it still shows a buying signal as they are in an active state of research (multiple visits). Again, deep dive into the specific pages from this return visit to better understand where they are.
4. Viewing your company’s executives social media profiles (especially LinkedIn).
At this point, prospects are usually asking “is this person qualified, and do I want to work with them?” This is different than viewing or following your company profile, where that may only be someone wanting to continue to be educated on the space (or they are your competitor and are mining your content).
5. An email has been opened and clicked numerous (6 or more times) indicating that an item has been shared and viewed internally.
Related to this, watch for multiple hits to same piece of content over multiple days by the same prospect. Since buying decisions require multiple opinions now, this is a positive sign that the parties that need to be involved in the sale are becoming involved.
6. Downloading case studies, especially ones where the case study is in a comparable vertical.
Viewing these case studies not only provides social proof, but also indicates the prospect wanting a deeper analysis and understanding to see that what you provide (products/services) can work for them, too.
7. Re-watching videos or specific sections of videos.
Analyzing video heat maps show when videos or sections of videos have been re-watched. To best understand this buying signal, you’ll often need to look a little deeper at the section they are re-watching to be sure that the part that was reviewed is your value prop/business case/sales pitch/specific product feature and not industry education/general info.
If you are in sales or marketing, you know by now that the buying process has changed. Prospects are self-educating online and engaging in sales once they’ve “bought” what you offer. Using marketing automation software, you can more accurately assess a prospect’s stage in the buying process through non-verbal, digital interactions with your content (“content” being a very broad categorization of emails, webpages, social profiles, etc.).
For more on how a marketing automation platform can help sales, click here. Feel free to contact us with any questions.
by Glen Springer | Jan 23, 2014
At Gabriel Sales, we like analogies.
Recently, we discovered a truly magical analogy for marketing automation coupled with a notable piece in the Harry Potter stories, Dumbledore’s Pensieve.
Dumbledore: “I use the Pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one’s mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one’s leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form.“
Here are five reasons why marketing automation is like Dumbledore’s Pensieve:
1. It allows you to store large amounts of information without becoming overwhelmed.
When Harry Potter first asked Dumbledore what his Pensieve is, Dumbledore responds, “This? It is called a Pensieve. I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.”
When Dumbledore feels overwhelmed by too much information, he uses his Pensieve to unload important thoughts and memories in a safe place. Sales reps and marketers can use marketing automation to do the same in regards to the copious amount of sales and marketing related data they have to manage on a day-to-day basis.
2. It saves important information in a place that is always accessible.
Once a memory is put into a Pensieve, it will always be available for reference. This helps Dumbledore immensely in his battle against Lord Voldemort as he is able to recall key details from events that happened decades ago.
While marketing automation is not yet decades old, it can still be used in the same way. From the time you start using your marketing automation software, all data is recorded and saved for future reference. This can especially helpful in regards to prospect behavior and the increasing length of B2B sales cycles. It may take a year or more for a prospect to go through the entire buying process—making it hard to keep track of where they are in your sales cycle. Marketing automation allows you to go back and see the specific details of any digital interactions a prospect has with your company.
3. It allows you to look back at the past to help make decisions about the present.
Similar to the last point, the Pensieve allows you to look at specific details about events in the past to enable you to make better decisions about the present. Harry faces an extreme example of this when, during the Battle of Hogwarts, he looks at Severus Snape’s memories and determines the best course of action is to sacrifice himself to save humanity.
Admittedly, there are no guarantees that marketing automation will help save humanity from evil. But, it may help save a deal (or ten). Marketing automation allows you to look back and measure performance of different activities like email campaigns and social media efforts—allowing you to see what is and what isn’t working and determine how to best optimize.
4. You can take people along the journey so they can see for themselves.
One of the coolest things about the Pensieve is that you can use it to experience memories that aren’t your own. Harry does this numerous times during his lessons with Dumbledore to learn how to defeat Voldemort, and his experiences in the Pensieve become an integral part of his success.
Marketing automation platforms are like the Pensive because anyone in organization can be brought in to see for themselves what is happening or what has happened. For example, if a new sales rep is brought in, he can quickly bring up any prospect’s profile to see their most recent activity, marketing content score, most visited page views, etc. This gives him enough background to know exactly how to jump in and guide the prospect to the next part of the sales process.
5. It is a way for you to observe experiences without people knowing you’re there.
When you are reliving memories in a Pensieve, you live them exactly as they were, and no one knows you are there. Harry first realizes this when he goes into the Pensieve and experiences the trials from the First Wizarding War—and no one notices his presence.
Marketing automation platform also allows you to observe behaviors without people knowing that you are observing them. It may sound creepy, but like the Pensieve, it meant to be helpful. By viewing the engagement your prospects have with various emails, marketing content and internal webpages, you can more accurately assess their pains and provide them with relevant and valuable content that addresses how to solve those pains.
If you’d like to read another fun analogy about marketing automation, read “Marketing Automation is Not What You Think”. Feel free to contact us with any questions.
by Glen Springer | Jan 17, 2014
At Gabriel Sales, we have a slight twist on selecting certain types of software and platforms. We look closely at how the tool can be easily and most effectively used by a sales team and not just the marketing team. When selecting a marketing automation platform to be used by a sales and marketing team, here is some of the criteria we recommend you consider from the sales users’ perspectives:
Is it simple for a sales rep to login and know exactly where to go?
This is a bit of a no-brainer for software design in itself, but our experience with marketing automation software demonstrates that a lot of features may be clear and easy to use for the marketing team while the sales team is vastly overlooked. Look for software that is easy to use from your sales users by having them attend demos and ask questions pertinent to how they do their jobs.
How easy and versatile is the automated alert system?
It’s imperative that sales reps are notified real-time for certain prospect events and daily/weekly/monthly for others. Having a diverse set of alert options (email, SMS, desktop and mobile apps) will help your team have the fastest response time to your prospects. Data has shown that responding within an hour of inquiry increases conversation rates by 7x (Source). As an example, having a drip campaign sending automated scheduled emails that will then alert sales users when a prospect has interacted with an asset in the campaign where that interaction shows a buying signal.
How clear are the methods and accessible are the variables that can be segmented upon?
A sales rep wants to use their time efficiently and being able to group prospects into well-defined segments makes their job much easier. Want to call on everyone who has a score of 100+ that visited the site this week AND went to the pricing page? Should be a straightforward process to get that list.
How does lead scoring work?
Scoring needs to be flexible and comprehensive. A sales rep wants to be able to see the aggregate score and the specific activities and their respective score. They may not always understand the logic behind specific scoring, but if they are able to see that a video playback was scored at 50, they know that the video itself is a high value activity and a signal to the prospects interest level.
Is prospect activity tracking thorough and easy to understand?
Sales reps want to be able to understand what the prospect is interested in to best modify one-to-one interactions. Having marketing automation software that has a large collection of different activities it can track is imperative for best understanding specific interests in both content and content types. Does Prospect A watch a lot of videos? Send more videos in the follow-up. Is Prospect B interested in the features, create some quick clips on highlights of those features.
What processes can be automated to keep the sales staff productive and not breaking momentum?
Sales reps want to stick with their highest importance activities and not get caught up in dealing with too many steps to record and follow-up with new prospects. Having a systemized process that makes it dead simple to manage alleviates huge headaches and bottlenecks for sales reps doing their best work. An excellent example of this is building a form that the sales rep can complete (that does not set a cookie) that then triggers a series of activities including 1) sending an email, 2) adding to a nurturing campaign and 3) notifying sales executives of next steps.
This is not an exhaustive list of features to consider when selecting a marketing automation platform, but it is a list of the major features we’ve identified as a collaborative sales and marketing team that will optimally support your sales team.
