Outsource Sales and Marketing for Effective Marketing Automation

Outsource Sales and Marketing for Effective Marketing Automation

by | Dec 5, 2016

When you outsource sales and marketing to help transform and modernize and scale your sales and marketing operations, one of the greatest benefits you will realize in the short term will be the outsourcing of your marketing automation systems.

First let’s look at the benefits of hiring an agency to implement your marketing automation platform vs. hiring a full time employee (FTE). Hiring an FTE to implement and manage a marketing automation platform used to mean that you had a person sitting in your office available right next door. However in today’s business environment odds are that one or both of you are working remotely, so that’s no longer the upside it used to be. Also, hiring a single FTE would mean they would have one or two key strengths and skill sets – it could be systems integration, copy writing, content management, content production or sales messaging. Successful sales automation requires all of these skills sets to have the greatest impact. When you outsource sales and marketing, you will have access to a blended and dedicated team experts in automation with both depth and breadth in marketing automation, content marketing, databases management, CRM and sales. So you will be accessing a wealth of insight, strategy and skill.

So your next concern would be that this blended team will be more expensive than an FTE. That’s not the case because the costs of hiring that one employee with the limited skill set can go as high as $120,000.

Let’s start with simply finding that person. Marketing automation as a discipline is in high demand so you will need to start by advertising, hiring a recruiter, and interviewing. Your employee hasn’t even started yet and you’ve already spent weeks or months on the search and $1000s of dollars.

Next they join the team. You’ll have the regular salary, and benefits package that will be between 25% to 40% of their income including typical benefits like insurance, dental plans, paid vacation etc.

Once established in the office, you’ve got to allow time for ramp up; which takes an estimated 20 weeks for professionals and 26 for executives. One survey of CEOs in Harvard Business School estimated that the average mid-level managers require 6.2 months just to offer break-even value.

Simply stated you’re paying out long before you will start to see a return. Even more detrimental is that only 50% of hires pan out the first time, so you could be out twice that investment.

So now to the kicker when it comes to marketing automation and ROI. Marketing automation requires that you also invest in software. Marketing automation typically takes 3 to 6 months to start producing a more consistent set of leads. So while you are also waiting for your new FTE hire to:

  • Implement the system
  • Create the content use to fuel the system
  • Generate the leads to put into the system

You are burning through valuable resources and delaying the net return on your investment by not getting the tools and system as productive as quickly as possible. When you outsource sales and marketing along with marketing automation you will have sales ready leads before an FTE will even have your engine off the ground.

Bottom line, when you outsource sales and marketing in combination with outsourced marketing automation you will hit the ground running, with no training costs or ramp-up period required.

Having a blended teams collective experience, tactics, best practices and expertise at your disposal will give you access to a marketing automation and lead scoring brain-trust no single FTE can match. Especially when you consider that this blended team will have the collective experience of over 20, 30, or even 40 implementations under their belt to cross-pollinate best practices and set benchmarks from their past implementations.

So yes, when you outsource sales and marketing you will get all the benefits detailed above. But when it comes to building an automation system, the return will be even greater because ultimately all the investment will be returned even faster when your new and improved marketing automation program delivers a higher ROI faster because your blended team put the right skills behind the technology.

Gabriel Sales provides sales consulting & outsource sales and marketing automation services to companies committed to modernizing that sales and marketing operations. To learn more about our  outsource sales philosophy and how we can help you build a sales and marketing revenue engine from start to finish, please visit our outsource sales and marketing services page.

Outsourced Sales and Marketing and Webinars

by | Nov 28, 2016

In 2015 Live Webinars were one of the top 3 content formats leveraged by buyers to help them learn more about a company’s solution.  But according to DemandGen’s 2016 Content Survey webinars slipped slightly from this position in 2016 for the following reasons:

  • Lack of time to view a full webinar: 88% of buyers surveyed said they prefer shorter content formats
  • Too much content available in general: 83% of respondents said they are overwhelmed by the amount of available content
  • The need to watch webinars live: 73% of respondents said they prefer to access audio/video content on-demand.

But on the positive side…if you create compelling webinars buyers that do invest the time are more likely to convert into Sales Qualified Opportunities.  So as an outsourced sales and marketing we still love webinars because they are a killer piece of content to make it easier for your buyer to buy and a great predictive tool in your lead scoring strategy.

So as an outsourced sales and marketing company here are 5 tips we give our clients to ensure they get the most out of their Webinars to maximize their content marketing investment.

Turn one webinar into multiple pieces of content Outsourced Sales and Marketing Team can leverage  

We can get a dozen pieces of content because that one webinar can typically be repurposed into:

  • 4 to 5 Short Weblette Videos
  • 4-7 Blog Posts
  • A White Paper and/or an Ebook.

These also are shorter pieces of content which buyers now prefer.

You don’t need to always have live webinars. 

Having live events are a great way to generate leads but you don’t  need to always go into the extra work of making these live events.   If you do have live events you should expect as many as 50% to 60% not to show.  But this does not need to be a huge cause of concern. You can still follow up with these with additional content marketing.  Remember to send them a notification when the live webinar is recorded.  And we have also found that if senior buyers sign up its worth as many as seven follow up calls to these senior decision makers because they signed up for the event because they had a problem they needed to solve.   It’s worth as many as 7 calls.

Simply Start with an On-Demand Webcast

Building on two of the points above, doing webcasts live puts more pressure on the presenter and the moderator.  Now that buyers prefer on demand webcasts you can start there..   Simply simulate a live webcast.  With video editing software it is now easy to clean up any mistakes if you don’t like how you presented a section.  So in one session with some basic editing you can create an impactful piece of content that can be used for an extended period of time faster and with less pressure.

On-demand webinars are essentially DVRed TV shows, Demand Gen Report’s 2016 Content Preferences Survey showed that 73% of respondents prefer to access audio/video content on demand.

Send Email Promotions Strategically: Blasting multiple emails with the same message and content is not the right strategy. Send the first mail about two weeks prior to the event, the second two days before the event and the last mail the day of the event.  And articulate what they will learn from the event with slightly different subject lines and content.

Conclusion

Webinars should be a staple of any marketing, education and lead scoring program.  But they are just one important part of an integrated outsourced sales and marketing program.  Marketers should stop thinking about them as events and start thinking and using them as part of an overall strategy to tell their sales story to the market in a substantive way.

To learn more about how Gabriel Sales can help you get more out of your webcasting and overall content marketing and sales efforts and how we can help you build more modern sales and marketing operations we invite you to check out our  outsourced sales and marketing outsourced sales and marketing or the About Us section of our website.

How Outsourced Sales and Marketing Impacts Calling Efforts

by | Nov 23, 2016

Solutions are first Bought and then Sold 

All culminating in the ability to score leads so your callers are focused on buyers most likely to transact

Ten years ago the number one way to generate new leads was through the proven method of targeting the right market, picking up the phone, telling your prospect a great sales story and setting an appointment.    The more calls you made, the more appointments you could set.  But times have changed and you can no longer throw bodies at the problem.

According to Forrester Research over “70% of buyers now prefer to receive an email and be educated digitally before meaningfully engaging with a sales rep.”  Couple this with the fact that buyers now pick up the phone 50% less than they did several years ago,  you can see why you and your outsourced sales and marketing company now need to approach cold calling and their phone approach to sales and lead generation differently.

A Changing Market 

So now when you outsource sales and marketing in 2017 you can expect your outsourced sales and marketing team to generate leads through a combination of the integrated process including  Email Marketing Campaigns, Content Marketing, PPC Campaigns and Cold Calling

When cold calling your outsourced sales callers will start by introducing content

If buyers prefer to learn about new solutions through educational content this is where your calling efforts will start.  You should use your callers to target customers that fit your ideal customer profile – buyers that are in the right vertical, buyers and influencers that should have a need for your solution that can help them hit their own personal annual bonus this year, and buyers that you have a proven ability to serve.  Your goal of that initial call should be to get to pitch your solution in under 30 seconds, confirm that they have at least a little interest in your solution and that they are the right person at the company to share the information with.   Once these goals are achieved you should share the information and get off the call and move on to putting more early stage deals in the funnel.

Your outsourced sales team should focus on helping and not selling

You callers initial focus needs to be more customer service and buyer education focused.  Not trying to set appointments immediately with closers.   Your callers need to shift their mind set to discover if there is a real possibility of a fit.  Your initial aim needs to qualify, not force or convince.   Forcing a fit is a waste of your buyer’s time and your time.

One of the primary innovations of automation technologies is that it gives you’re the ability to observe a buyers digital footprint so you can see what buyers are most curious and interested in your solution.  Once the lead has been generated your outsourced callers should focus on these leads first.

Your callers should focus on understanding your buyer’s needs

If your callers are calling on buyers that are highly scored this means the buyer is educating themselves about you digitally. Your callers don’t need to pitch, they need to understand what the buyer’s specific needs and goals are.  Your callers need to change their language from “sales speak” to natural language.  You need to ask smart questions, then listen. Doing these two things will immediately set yourself apart as someone who is patient, open minded and willing to listen.   Ask what more educational material the buyer would like to see.

Finally your callers need to close on the sales appointment

When you follow this process that allows the buyer to buy the way they want to buy you will know that:

  • The buyer is a fit for your business
  • What the buyer needs
  • That the buyer is educated

At this point your outsourced sales team is ready to hard qualify the deal for your closer and ask for the appointment. At this point the buyer is either ready to buy or not ready to buy.  The buyer will trust you so you will be able to ask hard qualifying questions and expect accurate and truthful answers because trust will have been established in both directions.  And most importantly when you pass to your closer they will have all the information they need to service and close the buyer for a mutually beneficial long term relationship.

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Gabriel Sales builds outsource sales and marketing teams for Start Ups and Small Businesses.  We help companies build modern sales and marketing operations for buyers in this new digital landscape.  If you think this may be a fit for your company we invite you to visit our outsources sales and marketing services page to learn more about what we can do for you.

 

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Outsourced Sales and Marketing Can Help with Automation

by | Nov 18, 2016

Why Outsourced Sales and Marketing Makes Sense for Marketing Automation Implementations

So you have decided that you want to transform your sales and marketing operations. This means you need a lead scoring system and marketing automation platform.  But you are still a little leery because of the sizeable investment in the software and team of marketers this commitment will represent. You have the following concerns:

  • You want to test a marketing automation platform but you don’t have the internal resource to run it
  • You want to limit your investment until you know it will work before you make that commitment to both talent and software
  • You have enough content to generate leads but not to nurture leads
  • You don’t understand the best practices or how to baseline that return

Essentially you want to get started and prove you can get a return on your efforts before you pull the trigger and build your own team.

Here are 5 ways outsourced sales and marketing can help with Marketing Automation as you execute this strategy.

Automation Platform Selection

Most outsourced sales and marketing companies will have deep expertise across the platforms.  They will have preferred providers but you can expect them to make solid recommendations based on your needs, sales cycle and budget. .

Outsourced Sales and Marketing Allows You to Try Before You Buy

You can always contract directly with a marketing automation software supplier if you wish.  And once you have decided that marketing automation works for you that is what we typically recommend.  However almost all the software providers require at least an annual commitment and in some cases an annual payment. They want you to commit because it takes marketing automation about six months to a year if you are building a team on your own. Most substantial outsourced sales and marketing companies will be able to negotiate shorter commitments or in Gabriel Sales case will be able to provide solutions on a month to month basis until you prove concept.   This frees up budget to spend on generating leads to help you produce an ROI from your marketing automation process faster.

CRM Data Integration

Key to successful marketing automation is connecting the automation system to your CRM so you have one clean buyer record.  This make it possible for your sales reps to see the value from the automation platform without needing to learn another system.  An outsourced sales and marketing company will have processes to clean your data and will be able to connect all the data required.  This makes the system useful to your sales team immediately. .

Outsourced Sales and Marketing for Campaign Deployment

An outsourced sales and marketing company will have the technical skills to deploy a campaign through your platform in a fraction of the time it would take to learn this systems on your own.  This includes; customer and prospects segmentation, best practices for how to launch your campaign, how to scale, and the frequency of your email communications. .

Lead Scoring Best Practices

Lead scoring requires a combination of sales and marketing alignment, a strong content matrix and a strong definition of both implicit and explicit qualification criteria.  An outsourced sales and marketing company will be able to work through these issues in a fraction of the time ensuring that your engine identifies buyers most likely to buy.

Sales Team Adoption

Your automation platform only has value if your sales reps follow up with leads.  An outsourced sales and marketing company will be able to train your sales reps how to leverage the system and also provide appointment setting support if your team lacks the time to follow up with your new volume of leads.

Reporting

Many of the marketing automation platforms give you the ability to run hundreds of reports,  Most executives only want to see dashboards and a handful reports that demonstrate how many contacts you’re marketing to, how they’re segmented and what scores are leading towards pipe velocity and sales conversions. An outsourced sales and marketing company will be able to cut through the noise and provide these reports to you for ROI measurement out of the gate.

 

Gabriel Sales help companies transform their sales and marketing operations by providing the team and tool you need to generate,  score and qualify leads faster at a lower cost.  To learn more about our outsourced sales and marketing approach and philosophy visit our About Us page.  Or feel free to contact us for complimentary assessment.

Outsource Sales and Marketing for Effective Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation Helps Sales Outsourcing Team

by | Nov 16, 2016

Summary of 4 Benefits of Marketing Automation for Sales Outsourcing Reps

The goal of any sales outsourcing engagement for Gabriel Sales it to put a consistent flow of real sales opportunities into the sales pipeline of the companies we work with. Our aim is to do this at a lower cost. As we help our clients build a modern and repeatable sales and marketing process an automation technology is now a requirement for 4 specific benefits that are directly related to the productivity of your sales outsourcing team:

  • Email Automation
  • Lead Scoring
  • Lead Intelligence
  • Real Time Lead Alerts

Here’s a brief explanation of how each of these features will help your sales outsourcing team:

Lead Scoring and your Sales Outsourcing Team

There are two main ways to qualify leads using an marketing automation technology: using implicit behaviors and activities and explicit data and demographics.

Automation technologies allow you to rank a leads level of interest based on the content they are consuming on your website. Different types of content are scored based on how predictive they are as it relates to where a buyer is in their sales cycle.  Basic educational content is not as highly scored as video demos relating to a specific solution.  You can also score by what emails buyers are engaging with and how frequently they are engaging.

We also use explicit data to score leads.  This is typically demographic data.  A CEO gets a higher score than IT managers.  A company with 1000 employees gets a different score than a company with 50 employees. You can also change grades up and down based on industry, revenue size and other factors.  This is grading prospects against an ideal customer profile that your sales and marketing team identifies.

This scoring allows your sales outsourcing team to focus on the most interested buyers and allows you to prioritize on buyers that are the best fit for your company’s solution.

Email Automation

Email automation helps increase the volume of communication for your sales outsourcing team to a new level. Your sales outsourcing team can use emails send bulk emails that appear to be  “personal” emails through your marketing automation tool.  This allows your sales outsourcing team to personally track opens and clicks with automatic notifications.

Your marketing team can craft a message to segment prospects, and dynamically assign the “From” and “Email” field of the lead’s assigned rep.  This serves two main purposes: 1) the sales outsourcing rep will get the credit for a pleased buyer being sent valuable content (yet the rep didn’t have to do anything – marketing and software took care of the touch for them) and 2) all replies to the content will go directly back to the rep.

Buyer Intelligence for Sales Outsourcing Team

Your outsourcing sales rep will be able to see all online behaviors and that information will be available in the CRM that the sales rep works from.  Information like original lead source, specific page views, how long they spent on the page, webinar attendance and video views can all be tracked.  This allows your sales outsourcing team to frame conversations, voicemails and follow-up emails based on those specific prospect activities and areas of interest and need.

Real-Time Lead Alerts for Sales Outsourcing Reps

Real-time lead alerts allow your sales outsourcing team to follow up faster when buyers are actively engaged in the sales education content.  In some cases they can receive instant alerts via email, text messaging, mobile apps, and desktop apps, whichever they prefer.

With these alerts and summaries Reps can:

  • Prioritize their day with the most active prospects
  • Call buyers when they know they are sitting at their desk
  • Click on links to trigger CRM profile lookups for buyer insights
  • Send custom emails to active prospects with a few quick clicks

If you would like to see the tools reps will have at their disposal we invite you to contact us for a free demo of the tools in action.

If you want to learn more about how Gabriel Sales can combine your product knowledge and thought leadership with our sales and marketing automation expertise to get you in the lead scoring game faster, request a complimentary review.

Reasons Start Up Executives Should Consider Outsourced Sales and Marketing

Reasons Start Up Executives Should Consider Outsourced Sales and Marketing

by | Nov 14, 2016

Here are several reasons Start-Ups may want to consider outsourced sales and marketing:

You Don’t Have Time to Wait to Go-To-Market

As an entrepreneur launching a new business will require you to spread your time addressing multiple responsibilities including managing finances, human resources, account development, product development and sales and marketing.  Hiring an outsourced sales and marketing company will help you to immediately maximize your sales and marketing operations.  You will immediately have an executive peer that can make your vision for sales and marketing a reality.  And this sales and marketing executive will also help you to avoid the pitfalls that have encountered to help you succeed faster.  And you outsourced sales and marketing executive will already have a full team in place behind them to put soldiers on the ground quickly all armed with the tools and technology they need for immediate success.  Most start-ups simply don’t have the runway and bandwidth they need to gain revenue traction fast enough to please their investors.  An outsourced sales and marketing team can move from strategy to execution 4 times as faster than building on your own so you start selling faster.

Lack of Funds for Multiple Full-Time Hires

Finding the best individual marketers and sales people is hard and getting harder. And the reality is that the top talent in this business environment have their choice of where to work, and in many cases do not have the unique skill sets working in a start-up environment requires. To compound the complexities for start-ups, successful sales and marketing efforts now requires multiple skill sets to help the buyer the way they now buy.  Success now requires having a database marketer, a content marketer, a marketing automation expert,  someone to help with content production, a sales and marketing strategists,  business development reps and a closer.   Hiring even a handful of these professional full time would cost you a minimum of $250K annually and there would be no guarantee that they would work well together as a team. And odds are that you would not need most of these hires on a full-time basis.

An outsourced sales and marketing company can bring a blended team to your company overnight at a fraction of the cost.  You will immediately gain access to all the talent you need at a fraction of the cost.  And one of the things that we believe makes Gabriel Sales unique is that when we craft our outsourced sales and marketing solutions we remain open to transitioning some or all of this team over to your team as revenue grows and your sales maturity increases.

Lack of Core Sales and Marketing Domain Expertise

Most start-ups are founded and driven by incredibly competent and passionate professionals and leaders.  But our experience has been, even when being founded by core sale executives,  the founders of most companies have not been in the trenches of the daily grind of sales and marketing on daily basis for many years. So, especially with the advent of marketing automation, most Start Up companies simply can’t afford the learning curve of building a sales infrastructure and process that will produce day after day consistently. In addition, hiring a sales and marketing team, without having the recent experience of managing these employees (often part time) can be time-consuming. An outsourced sales and marketing company with a blended part-time and a full-time team will help you move faster with less of your executive’s team bandwidth. As a result, your executive team can spend their time on higher value activities.

Every entrepreneur should examine their own situation and decide whether or not it makes sense to outsource sales and marketing in some capacity. If you have the funds, time, and expertise, you should hire full-time employees. You should consider a consultant to help you grow your business if you are lacking in any of these key areas. Please contact us if you would like to talk and determine whether outsourced sales and marketing are right for your organization.