Intelligent Demand Generation / eTrigue Corporation

I’m sure you’ll agree that increasing sales productivity translates into increasing revenue.

No doubt, you’ll also agree that sales reps should not be calling bad numbers (the result of poor data), bad leads (the result of poor qualifying by marketing) or leads that might be valuable sometime in the future, but for now are still quite cold.

Certainly, sales reps should NOT be spending their time on demand generation activities.

Interestingly, although everyone pretty much agrees on the above statements, a recent survey shows that almost 70% of the companies surveyed still struggle with lead generation, with sales executives reporting that the leads they get are just not good enough, and with sales reps taking on more and more demand generation responsibilities and performing them independently.

As I was reading through the survey findings, I was amazed that these issues can still persist, even in the era of marketing automation. After all, marketing automation is one of the best tools for keeping a clean marketing database. As I said before, several of the tools needed to manage your marketing database are built into marketing automation: removing duplicates; moving from titles to job functions when segmenting; dynamic progressive forms as a tool to append more information to the organic list; CRM integration; tracking opt-outs; and email deliverability status.

Marketing automation is also the perfect tool for dealing with another major concern mentioned in the survey – prioritizing leads, and sending only the sales-ready ones to sales. This is no doubt a difficult task to perform manually, but with marketing automation, tools such as lead scoring enable you to qualify prospects based on their engagement with your company, demographic profile, and timing, giving you the ability to independently score each dimension to provide a clearer picture of how a prospect fits your profile of a sales-ready lead. Once armed with this knowledge, you can make sure that only the truly sales-ready leads are handed to sales.

This tells me that many companies either haven’t yet adopted marketing automation, or they have adopted it but are yet to fully utilize its many benefits. I suspect that the latter group might have purchased expensive software that’s difficult to implement and operate and requires dedicated staff to maintain. These systems often end up shelved rather than used. Perhaps a look at the ease of use and simplicity of eTrigue is in order.

I often get asked, what exactly is sales acceleration and where does it fit in the buying cycle?

The short answer: sales acceleration is a point you reach during the lead nurturing process, where the prospect is almost ready to buy – but not quite. When leads are primed to buy, but need a little extra nudge in making the final decision, a sales acceleration campaign can help close the sale.

In other words, a sales acceleration campaign is a campaign that specifically targets warm leads with appropriate messages. Those messages would not be appropriate for colder leads that need to slowly move through the sales funnel.

How to determine who is ready for a sales acceleration campaign

Obviously, the sales rep can decide when a prospect is ready for a sales acceleration campaign and start sending her personalized messages, either through the marketing automation system, or right in the CRM system.

A more automated – and perhaps more accurate – approach would rely on lead scoring. When a lead’s behavior shows an increased interest and readiness to buy, he can be entered, based on a pre-determined score, into a sales acceleration campaign that sends out appropriate messages.

What type of content should I send out?

The content used for sales acceleration usually includes case studies of similar companies and ROI documents. The idea is to give the prospect information that would help seal the deal and support the efforts of sales, which means that these campaigns should always be coordinated with sales so that content and messaging fit the path that sales feels is useful.

Real-time lead alerts

One of the things I like best about sales acceleration tools is real-time lead alerts. Sales reps gain the ability to personally send trackable email from within SalesForce CRM, and to receive real-time email when emails are acted upon. This gives sales reps the real-time sales intelligence they need to sell more effectively.

Why is automation useful here?

Unlike human management of lead nurturing, which unfortunately is prone to errors, automated tools respond to prospect cues in a timely manner, never speeding up the process too soon, or allowing a warm lead to become cold. Detailed tracking information and lead scoring, coupled with real-time lead alerts, mean that sales reps can always follow up in a timely manner. In addition, automated sales acceleration, just like marketing automation in general, is very helpful for companies with limited marketing personnel and resources.

What NOT to expect from a sales acceleration campaign

It’s important to realize that automated sales acceleration tools do not speed up the prospect decision-making process. They do, however, make sure that when the lead is very close to making a final decision, she will have all the information she needs in a timely manner, and that sales would be aware of her reactions to that information. So while the lead is still in control of the process, you are in a position to respond to her actions efficiently and immediately, making sure that no sale ever falls through the cracks.

I wasn’t exactly surprised to read that a growing number of companies are recognizing the importance of sales enablement. If sales reps are reporting that “inability to communicate value messages” was their number one inhibitor to achieving quota, and that they have “a knowledge gap” or their company has “too many products to know,” then clearly we’re looking at a situation where Marketing can provide better support to Sales than it does now.

After all, marketing has the knowledge – not just deep knowledge of the company’s products or services, but also – when using a marketing automation system – deep knowledge of the company’s prospects.

This knowledge about each prospect, where they are in the sales cycle, what they did so far on the Web site, how they have responded to emails up until now- this rich history must be communicated to Sales in order for sales reps to be able to have meaningful communication with prospects.

An interesting alternative to communicating marketing knowledge to sales is to directly equip sales with this knowledge, via a sales acceleration system such as eTrigue SalesPro.

A sales acceleration tool assists sales reps in their sales lead management efforts and gives them the power to be more prepared and proactive, making sure each engagement is relevant and timely.

When sales reps have real-time intelligence about prospects, they are empowered to sell more effectively. Tools such as unlimited trackable email, web site activity tracking, email alerts and live tracking give sales reps the information they need to focus on the right prospects, at the right time.

Of course, even with a sales enablement system in place, sales should never be on their own. When communicating with sales reps, B2B buyers already have so much knowledge about the product, that a conversation centered around features is simply useless, and frankly, so is conversation centered around general benefits. The sales rep must be able to communicate compelling value to the specific prospect.

Which means that marketing/sales alignment is still crucial, and marketing (or better yet, the entire organization) must find a way to support sales reps by providing them with key information about the company’s products, so that reps are able to communicate value to prospects and sell more effectively.

I borrowed the title from this excellent blog post by Michael Gerard.

I’m not exactly surprised at this statement. Nor am I surprised to read that “SFA, customer intelligence, and sales enablement will expect to see the most increase in investment levels.” It has long been our belief here in eTrigue that in today’s buying environment, sales reps can use all the help they can get to be as prepared as possible prior to reaching out to a prospect.

We created eTrigue SalesPro specifically for that – to assist sales reps in their sales lead management efforts and to give them the power to be more prepared and proactive, making sure each engagement is both relevant and timely.

The idea behind a sales acceleration, or a sales enablement tool, such as eTrigue SalesPro, is to give reps the real-time sales intelligence they need to sell more effectively. This includes unlimited trackable email, web site activity tracking, email alerts and live tracking – all from within Salesforce CRM.

The best thing about sales enablement tools is that you don’t need to deploy a full Marketing Automation platform. Quick and affordable, you can deploy quickly and give sales reps the information they need to focus on which prospect is active, real, and ready to buy.

To promote sales productivity, it’s pretty much a given that cold calls must be avoided and that sales reps need to have as much information about a lead as possible prior to making contact. Sales automation gives them that information, including email and web tracking to help them know who visits the site and when. They can send unlimited trackable emails directly from Salesforce CRM, get real-time lead alerts in email and see web visitors directly in Salesforce CRM.

The goal is to quickly analyze active prospects and focus on the hottest leads, which ultimately increases sales productivity. Observes Gerard, “Although sales productivity has been in the top 3 of the priority list for several years, it’s only recently that sales organizations have begun to make a dent in improving it.” Using a sales enablement tool is the best ways to achieve this important goal.

What do customers want from the B2B sales process? While it’s tempting to assume that the most pressing concern is price, research from McKinsey & Company tells us this is not necessarily the case.

Instead, B2B customers are looking for the following:

1. Customers want to be contacted just enough, not bombarded.

2. Sales reps should know their products or services intimately and how their offering compares with those of their competitors.

3. Customers need information on exactly how a product or service will make a difference to their businesses.

This means that B2B sales reps must avoid making the following common mistakes:

1. Making too frequent contact. While you don’t want to neglect warm or hot leads, you definitely don’t want to give a cool lead the feeling that you’re harassing them. Use a sales acceleration system for prospect activity tracking and for making sure you only contact the right prospects at the right time.

2. Making too little contact. On the other hand, you don’t want to neglect your leads. Out of sight out of mind is more than a cliche – it’s actually quite true in life and in sales. Again, automating activity tracking can greatly help with the task of knowing which lead to contact and when.

3. Giving generic pitches. This is a common complaint among B2B buyers. There aren’t many things that are more of a turn-off for a buyer than a sales rep who gives them a generic pitch that clearly demonstrates she is not familiar with the specific customer’s pain points. The customer does not care about your product’s features. All they care about is the product’s benefits – for them.

4. Not having all the info. If a prospect asks questions about the product, or how it is different than the competition’s product, you better be able to answer that question. The only way to make sure you are ready for this type of questions is to have a deeply intimate knowledge of your company’s product. You should also be able to clearly explain how it is different than other offerings on the market.

I placed an order for new business cards the other day. The next morning, I received a follow-up call from the company’s sales rep. Basically, he was trying to upsell, to get me to buy more of the company’s services. By the end of the call, not only did I not buy more, but I doubt I’ll ever do business with that company again.

From a marketing professional’s point of view, the conversation was fascinating. The sales rep was a nice enough person, I’m sure, but it was obvious he was reading from a pre-written script. It wasn’t just the way he was talking with me, as if reading out loud, but also his lack of knowledge about my specific needs.

“Thank you for your order of business cards. I see that you haven’t printed a URL on your cards and wanted to suggest that you use our hosting services, get your own site up and running, and print more cards with your URL on them.”

This was untrue, of course. We do have a website, and the URL has been added to the business cards order.

I remained silent for a few seconds, a little irritated frankly at this waste of my time, when the sales rep added, unfazed, “So, you DID add your URL to the cards?” which made me realize that they’ve been calling people automatically with this offer, never bothering to check their specific order first. So, we need to tell them what we need? But they called us!

The main problem with these cold calls, where you call a prospect without making yourself familiar with their specific situation prior to calling, is not just that you’re wasting their time and yours. These calls are so annoying, that in many cases you will be alienating the person you call. When it’s time for me to reorder business cards, I will probably look for someone else to do it. This cold call had just cost the company a customer. Is it so difficult to have a sales system in place where sales reps actually get access to a customer’s info before they call him?

Instead of pouring money into “dialing for dollars,” more and more B2B companies are shifting their teleprospecting investments to qualifying and nurturing prospects that have already shown some interest in their solution.

By focusing on prospects that have had some prior contact, inside sales or call centers typically have much higher success rates in creating opportunities for the sales team because they are spending time on “warm calling” rather than cold calling.

Dan McDade, President of PointClear, a prospect development company that has worked with B2B brands such as Microsoft and D&B, recommends his clients focus on multi-touch, multi-media campaigns to accelerate their pipelines. “Historically, database marketers expected to increase results by up to 8x when following up a direct mail or email campaign with a telephone call,” McDade said. “However, stopping at a single touch leaves anywhere from half to substantially more business on the table for your competitors to grab.”

To maximize pipeline performance, it takes at least nine individual touches, including a minimum of two email messages, according to PointClear’s research. “Our data also shows that the initial contact cycle, the first time you touch the market with those nine individual touches, will yield only 40%-50% of the total opportunities,” McDade added. “The other opportunities existing within the market can only be identified by continuing to touch the same prospects, with the same multi-media, multi-touch strategy on a regular basis.”

Sales intelligence tools not only allow sales reps to do “pinpoint prospecting,” they also help to identify “trigger events,” which can drive short-term sales opportunities. Real-time lead alerts can increase connect rates by up to 10X. Reps armed with website visit history, campaign and detailed prospect information have more confidence and more information to effectively engage with interested prospects. The result is a much higher success rate then traditional, often futile, cold calling.