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 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 | Apr 18, 2017
Outsourcing is growing and it is no longer uncommon to outsource sales and marketing for a small business.
When many small business founders reach their bandwidth capacity and contemplate growth they have two choices, they can build their own team or they can outsource sales. If you are considering outsourcing the sales and marketing functions and you understand your basic direct sales process, here are three reasons why outsourcing makes sense.
When to Outsource Sales and Marketing for a Small Business
There are three top reasons to consider outsourcing any function: saving money, freeing up time to focus on core strengths and more mission-critical functions, and gaining access to specialized skills.
When you outsource sales and marketing you first need to decide what it is you need. In most cases we find that the founder or business has plenty of time to close business. What they lack is the time to develop and qualify leads. So when you outsource sales and marketing it’s important that you don’t think of this has simply replacing one internal hire with another internal hire. Instead you need to think of it as replacing one hire with a blended team that has experience in both sales and marketing.
With that stated let’s look at each of these three reasons to outsource sales and marketing:
Outsource Sales and Marketing for a Small Business can Save Money
Expense is the primary reason why most companies consider outsourcing over hiring sales reps. If the current market for a quality business development rep is, as an example, a total compensation package of around $10K to $12K per month then outsourcing at $8k to $10K per month will be a substantial savings.
Instead of looking at this as one full time employee (FTE) vs. another outsourced employee you can look at it as getting a team of multiple employees that are part time. An outsourced sales and marketing company will provide phone reps, content marketers, database marketers and management. Most small business could not afford to staff and manage a part time team (let alone full time employees in all these functions). So depending on your lead volume, needs and growth targets, a blended outsourced sales and marketing team often represents a substantial savings.
Outsource to Focus on Core Functions
Beyond the core business operations and services a small business delivers, there are two goals and support functions in most small business: gaining clients and adding value to those clients. Most of the remaining support functions of finance, human resources, and information technology are the obvious candidates for outsourcing. We also believe that introducing the business to new prospects is also a function that makes sense to consider outsourcing. This is true now more than ever because the decision to outsource sales and marketing for a small business success requires understanding:
- Inbound lead generation tactics
- Outbound lead generation tactics
- Phone skills
- Automation technology
- Content marketing
Outsource to Gain Access to Specialized Skills
Most companies’ closers have specific domain knowledge and sales expertise. There is no way this knowledge (especially domain expertise) can be easily replaced. However a seasoned outsourced sales and marketing company will be able to extract this knowledge and add their expertise in the marketing tactics mentioned above to allow your organization to automate and increase the volume of conversations you are having through digital channels and over the phone.
Gabriel Sales specializes in building moderns sales and marketing operations for companies that already understand the core steps in their sales process. We help small business build scalable engines that address the new digital buyer. To learn more about how we work with companies to build these engines we invite you to reach out today.
by Glen Springer | Mar 24, 2017
Why choosing to outsource sales and marketing might be the wisest option
When many small business founders eclipse their bandwidth capacity they ask themselves the question, “Why outsource sales?” It is obviously our belief that it can with the following caveat. The founder should have a rough idea of the steps required to take a deal from the first sales conversation to transaction. If you are considering outsourcing the sales and marketing function and you understand your basic direct sales process, here are three reasons why it may make sense to outsource sales and marketing.
Why Outsource?
There are three top reasons to consider outsourcing any function: saving money, freeing up time to focus on core strengths and more mission-critical functions, and gaining access to specialized skills.
When you outsource sales and marketing, you first need to decide what it is you need. In most cases we find that the founder or business has plenty of time to close business. What they lack is the time to develop and qualify leads. So, when you outsource its important that you don’t think of this by simply replacing one internal hire with another internal hire. Instead, you need to thinks of it as replacing one hire with a blended team with experience in both sales and marketing.
With that stated, let’s look at each of these three reasons why outsourcing may be the smartest option:
Outsource Sales and Marketing to Save Money
Expense is the primary reason why most companies consider outsourcing over hiring sales reps. If the current market for a quality business development rep is, as an example, a total compensation package of around $10k to $12K per month then outsourcing at $8k to $10K per month will be a substantial savings.
Instead of looking at this as one FTE vs. another outsourced employees you can look at it as getting a team of multiple employee that are part time. An outsourced sales and marketing company will provide phone reps, content marketers, database marketers and management. Most small business could not afford to staff and manage a part time team (let alone full time employees in this function). So depending on your lead volume needs and growth targets, a blended outsourced sales and marketing team often represents a substantial savings..
- Outsource to Focus on Core Functions
There are two goals and functions in most business: gaining clients and adding value to those clients. Most of the remaining jobs to be done are the support functions of finance, human resources, and information technology are the obvious candidates for outsourcing. We also believe that introducing the business to new prospects is also a function that makes sense to consider outsourcing. This is true now more than ever because sales and marketing success now requires understanding:
- Inbound lead generation tactics
- Outbound lead generation tactics
- Phone skills
- Automation technology
- Content marketing
Outsource to Gain Access to Specialized Skills
Most companies’ closers have specific domain knowledge and sales expertise. There is no way this knowledge (especially domain expertise) can be easily replaced. However, a seasoned outsourced sales and marketing company will be able to extract this knowledge and add their expertise in the marketing tactics mentioned above to allow your organization to automate and increase the volume of conversations you are having through digital channels and over the phone.
Gabriel Sales specializes in building moderns sales and marketing operations for companies that already understand the core steps in their sales process. We help small business build scalable engines that address the new digital buyer. To learn more about how we work with companies to build these engines we invite you to learn more about our team and our new approach to outsourced sales and marketing.
by Glen Springer | Feb 17, 2017
Content marketing is now a critical component for successfully outsourced sales and marketing. Supporting your outsourced sales and marketing team with content allows you to effectively:
- Demonstrate the character of your company
- Communicate the business problems your company solves for your potential buyers
- Build trust with your buyers digitally
Quality content also helps you to increase visibility in search engines, can be used for email marketing campaigns and in social media. Not only will buyers find you with greater ease but when they do engage with your outsource sales reps and conduct a search of your company (typically when on the phone with your outsource sales rep) they will discover some of your content and advice lending greater credibility to your outsourced sales and marketing sales phone and digital conversations. Here is a quick list of how to approach content when working with an outsourced sales and marketing company.
Plan for the type of content your outsourced sales and marketing team needs
Create content for every stage of your sales process and buyer’s journey. Below is a framework we leverage to help our outsource sales and marketing clients.
Early stage content should be educational
Content should be created with the goal of engaging and educating your potential buyers. Don’t simply push features and benefits of your product. Technical specs and businesses cases are important later in the sales process. But early in process its important to make sure that your content has the goal of educating the customer about issues or concerns they have, and/or problems they may need to solve to improve their business.
Use all types of content
Not all buyers engage with all formats of content. Some buyers will want to read blogs, some checklists and some whitepapers. Live webinars are a fantastic source of deep and rich educational material but many busy business executives may prefer a recorded video they can watch in the evening. And finally don’t forget short education videos.
Use all types of video
Videos can be created in short and impactful bursts. As an outsource sales and marketing company we can run half day to full day workshop and typically create 7 to 12 impactful videos that can be used over and over again in an outsource sales process. Types of video we recommend are
- Short video demos – screen casts of your solution or product being used.
- Headshot videos – of your thought leaders sharing information
- Short intro pitch video – take your initial PowerPoint presentation and compress into short animated video
Gabriel Sales helps company build modern sales and marketing operations to help you more effectively outsource sales. To learn more about how we build our sales engines and use content to build trust with your potential buyers feel free to check out our new approach to outsource sales and marketing engagement.
by Glen Springer | Jan 16, 2017
As a sales outsourcing company that has been providing B2B sales outsourcing services for over a dozen years we have seen a seismic shift in the rules of selling. And many of our clients come to us because throwing more callers and closers at sales is no longer working. But what exactly are these new sales and marketing rules and how are they different from the traditional and historical approaches of B2B sales and marketing.
New Approach – Our sales outsourcing approach now focuses on the buying process
Buyers now have 24/7 access to digital information. And this access to information in almost any industry means the buyer now controls the sales process. And when a buyer has a need that can have a positive impact on their business the fact is that they like to buy. And they can now buy without being “sold”. So as a sales outsourcing company we now customize our clients approach to helping the buyer buy and have shifted away from selling and hard closing. You need to build a sales outsourcing process that helps the buyer to buy (especially early in the decision making process) and then sell the buyer once they are educated and ready to be closed.
New Approach – Your content and website should do the heavy lifting for early stage buyers
According to all the data from 2016, after the initial contact is made and a buyer is aware of your product or solution, buyers now do a majority of their short listing of companies by using your website to educate themselves digitally. In fact depending on your industry this can range from a low of 20 percent to as high as 90 percent. And this ratio is just expected to grow over the next several years.
This means you need to focus on using content and your website to make it easy for your buyers to buy. Jobs that used to be the exclusive domain of inside or outside reps now need to be done by your content as well. In many cases, as a sales outsourcing and marketing company, our job is to now to clone what works for your early stage buyer education process and digitize it. Below is the content framework we use.
New Approach – Don’t hide your information
Historically many companies were reluctant to share too much information. There are two main reasons for this:
- Competitors could steal the information
- They were worried prospects would build on their own
But the truth is, there is typically going to be a fair amount of information about your business domain out there online and if your buyers don’t find it from you they will find it from your competitor. If you want to help buyers buy then do it. The more you share the more you will get back in return.
New Approach – Nurturing is critical to sales success
As a sales outsourcing company we will always prioritize inbound leads. But 3 years of data and other research has shown that once a client engages with your content there are just as many prospects that will buy in the short term (within 90 days) as there are that will buy in the long term (after six months or more). These buyers considered themselves qualified so you need to stay in touch and share relevant content on a periodic and regular basis because these will be your buyers six months to a year from now. If you don’t, as a sales outsourcing company, we can guarantee that your competition will.
Gabriel Sales provides sales outsourcing services to help small business quickly adapt to the new rules of sales and marketing. To learn more about how we help companies transform their sales and marketing operations we invite you to check out sales outsourcing services page.
