Uniting B2B Sales and Marketing Teams

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Uniting B2B Sales and Marketing Teams

One of the latest trends in B2B marketing is account-based marketing (ABM). The goal of ABM is to align a company’s marketing and sales teams.

While everyone talks about the need to make sure marketing and sales departments work together to capture sales leads, this goal is not often realized. Many in the industry believe that ABM may finally accomplish that goal.

ABM is being touted as the newest and best way to bring sales and marketing teams together. The fact is, however, ABM isn’t new at all. In fact, the theory behind ABM is to bring back an emphasis on outbound marketing. Once successful, an impressive list of accounts will be built and the focus can turn to delivering targeted messages to those accounts.

ABM allows marketers to increase sales with the aid of software programs. These software programs enable marketers to capitalize on a variety of factors including ad serving and retargeting, content personalization, lead generation and management, and sales intelligence.

While ABM software is still in its infancy, experts believe that it in the next few years it will explode in popularity among B2B marketers. This stems from the fact that ABM technology will do something that has yet to be done: allow marketers and sales teams to execute at scale through technology-based solutions.

Experts also say that ABM will break through all that has divided marketing and sales departments up until now. ABM is predicated on the belief that most B2B buying decisions are made by groups rather than individuals. ABM, therefore, allows B2B marketers to identify the most suitable accounts and then pinpoint their target audience within those accounts. More importantly, ABM will allow for the engagement of prospects on their terms, ultimately turning prospects into customers who will then become advocates for the brand.

While ABM can do wonders to bring your marketing and sales teams together, it is not something that can be implemented overnight or without the correct people and processes in place. Customer data and insight is crucial to its success which means the proper technology must be in place. Further, only marketing and sales teams that are committed to its success will allow ABM to do its job.

The Importance of Knowing How to Work a List

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The Importance of Knowing How to Work a List

Working a list for appointment setting purposes is not the most glamourous task but that doesn’t mean it isn’t vital to your bottom line. Working a list can be particularly daunting when it seems you have been making call after call with no results.

Of course, results ultimately do come. This is why people continue to work lists even when they can see no light at the end of the tunnel.

The fact is, after you have made what seems like endless calls, appointments start to fill in. So why does it take so long? It has to do with taking the necessary steps to create a funnel effect that gathers the best prospects together in one place. These steps include:

  1. Zoning in on decision makers
  2. Determining whether or not that decision maker should be pursued
  3. Warming up that lead

One of the biggest pitfalls to avoid when it comes to working a list is skipping steps to make the process shorter. This is never the right thing to do. Rather, the best appointment setters will always do the hard work necessary to make sure that they identify the decision makers who are ultimately most likely to convert into a sale.

Working a list is often best left to a professional telemarketing firm. This is because professional, experienced appointment setters always make sure they take the appropriate amount of time when cultivating a lead. They also will not give up too soon.

The right telemarketing firm also will make sure that they document every piece of information so that they have the facts about why a prospect is or is not worth pursuing. They also won’t give up in the face of adversity. If the phone number for a lead always goes to voicemail, or no one answers at all, they don’t just throw out the lead. Instead, a little detective work is in order. These professionals also know how to interact with leads once they are able to get them on the line. They are able to engage the person in the most appropriate way, taking into account different personalities.

Lists must also be constantly sorted into cold, warm and hot categories. The most experienced telemarketers understand the fluidity of such labels. A cold lead can quickly turn warm and vice versa.

Like anything else in life—and in business—persistence pays off. By the same token, giving up too early can do irrevocable damage.

Sales and Lead Generation are Just Two of the Ways Telemarketing Can Benefit Businesses

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Sales and Lead Generation are Just Two of the Ways Telemarketing Can Benefit Businesses

Telemarketing is an excellent way to grow your business while making it more efficient and profitable. After all, while digital marketing seems to get most of the attention these days, nothing can replace the importance of talking with customers and prospects and establishing a relationships built on personal interaction.

If you are looking to integrate more telemarketing into your business development strategy so that it goes beyond selling and lead generation, we have some suggestions for how to do just that:

  • Appointment setting is one of the best ways that companies can generate new business. There is no better way to sit down, in person, with a client to close a sale. Appointments are the way to make sure that these sit-downs happen.
  • Connecting with previous customers who have not purchased from you lately increases the chances of reactivating these customers. What’s best, information on these customers is already in your database so you don’t have to start cold.
  • Following up with leads is critical to making sales. Once a customer or prospect has had the opportunity to learn about your product or services through a direct mail piece, for example, a follow up call can help seal the deal.
  • Market research does more than just gather customer feedbacks and reviews. It allows you to gather the type of data that can be used for a number of important tasks, including how to best target prospects for your next marketing campaign. Further, marketing research conducted over the phone saves a great deal of money because you are able to gather information from people all over the country from a central location.
  • Seminar booking assures that seats at the seminars you hold are filled. Telemarketing offers an excellent way to make sure that your seminars are booked with the type of people that will respond to what you have to say. This task is particularly important because when your seminars are not well-attended, it doesn’t look good for your business or brand.

Telemarketing offers endless possibilities for businesses looking to grow. While selling and lead generation are two outstanding and proven ways telemarketing can work for your business, there are countless other ways to use this resource, as well.

Can Your Business Handle a Mixed-Marketing Approach?

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Can Your Business Handle a Mixed-Marketing Approach?

Marketing is an ever-changing entity. At different times, different approaches will be more relevant than others.

One thing marketers are beginning to realize, however, is that the integration of varied approaches is the key to any successful marketing campaign. While a mix of social media marketing, direct mail and telemarketing might work for a particular target audience, email marketing might be the best option for another.

The question every marketer must always ask is what approach works best in a particular situation. In order to answer that question it is vital to remember that no matter what the type—digital, email, inbound, outbound—it is all marketing.

Some prospects or leads will respond best to the human touch while others are active on social media. The biggest mistake marketers can make is to always be looking to jump on the latest marketing craze, regardless if it is relevant to their target audience. That’s not to say new marketing techniques don’t have their place, but sometimes the tried-and-true marketing techniques are the most effective.

What most marketers will tell you is that a mix of the old and the new is often the best way to go. If you are focusing on lead generation, consider approaching a lead through direct mail piece. Follow that piece up with a phone call from a professional telemarketer experienced in lead generation. The next step will be dictated by that conversation. Maybe a prospect would like to check out your website or connect with you on Facebook. Maybe that prospect would like a call back in a few weeks.

This approach is the best way to go because customers and prospects today want to be in charge of how they are approached. After all, their only real interest in your marketing campaign is how it relates to them. In light of this fact, offline and online approaches usually work best.

Marketers must also have the ability to assess the success of every marketing touch to see which one works best for each particular customer or prospect. If a customer never responds to offers on your website but when he or she is called, always reorders, you now know what to do. This illustrates the importance of having a flexible marketing approach that changes to meet each and every customer’s particular preference.

If your marketing department is not up to the challenge of marrying the old with the new and pinpointing exactly which marketing technique works best for a particular customer, prospect or target audience, your bottom line will suffer. That’s because you will be losing sales to businesses that have marketing departments that are up to the challenge.