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Objective: Develop new strategies to assist sales in converting marketing leads from “prospects” to “customers”.
Solution: Help uncover “gold” in potential and existing customer data to gain new revenue by adding “customer knowledge” strategies to your marketing plans.
Sales departments are always looking to their internal marketing counterparts to help in getting new leads so that they can work to turn them into successful opportunities. It is not enough to just provide names and contact information of someone who dropped their business card into a bowl at an exhibit booth to get a pen. Successful marketing strategies must also focus on providing contacts that would be viable customers and would include all of these targeted elements: industry, location, company size/revenue, department, title, job function, current technology utilized (if appropriate), and specific future growth plans (if available). This information not only empowers sales with the ability to speak to specific issues, but also arms them with knowledge that gives the potential customer that your sales organization has really done their homework and knows what challenges they are experiencing.
An example of how marketing could add more value to sales, is by providing more research data on the contact information received from participation in tradeshows, executive events, online ads, print ads, direct mail campaigns, email responses, webcasts, and all facets of executed marketing plans. Researching a target company or industry through reading their press releases,
Several years ago, when I was on the sales side of my organization, I was having a difficult time securing a meeting with a top level executive at a company I was targeting for a solution sale. I found out that he was going to be at an industry conference that I was also planning on attending. So, a few weeks before the conference, I decided to read as much material as I could find on his company, department, and his background. Because he was a high-level executive, I was able to find the online press release that announced his appointment to that position. That led to a summary of his background and information on the role and company he had worked for prior to his current position. Through that information, I researched the company he had moved from, in order to learn more about what his focus was there and the challenges and successes he experienced. After finding out as much about this executive and organization as I could, I felt confident that my company could help him achieve his departmental goals, and was hoping I would get a chance to speak with him at the conference we were both attending.
As it turned out, the first night of the conference was a networking cocktail party. Even though we had never met or spoken, I knew what the executive looked like since there had been a photo of him online with the announcement of his promotion. I was able to spot him in the crowd and introduced myself. We talked about the company he was at previously, his new role and responsibilities and how my company could partner with his to help him meet his goals and address some of the data challenges he was trying to streamline. He was so surprised and happy that I knew so much about what he had been dealing with in the past and the challenges that he was currently facing and that he could actually talk with someone that had an idea of what his department was going through. That conversation led to a formal meeting with a team of professionals from both of our companies and ultimately a strategic value assessment. Yes, a successful solution sale was made and that company is very happy, but none of that could have happened had I not done my research and could talk intelligently about his company's situation.
This demonstrates that by actually taking the time to delve into what’s going on in a specific industry, company, department, etc., you can provide invaluable insight into what that organization is facing and what they are trying to achieve. Now that I am on my company's marketing side I know that by doing some research and providing background information to your sales team, you will give them the advantage they need in order to help secure a conversation with a prospect or current customer. Knowing details of what an organization is focusing on or the challenges they are currently dealing with, can be the catalyst to a discussion on how your company’s solutions can assist in adding value to their bottom line. In the end, everyone wins!
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“There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.”
Freya Stark
