We’ve all been there: stuck in a seemingly endless quagmire of things that need to get done but are progressing so slowly that it doesn’t make sense, or processes that are more work than the projects themselves. Part of working within an organizational structure is needing to set up a methodological way to move information and tasks from one team to the next, and one of the most important for B2B marketers is learning to move leads and lead information from marketing to sales. It might seem like a simple thing, but getting your leads to your sales team – and then getting your sales team to follow up as quickly as possible – is the best way to impact that all-important bottom line. So how do you go about it? Lucky for you there’s marketing automation.
Marketing automation might not sound like a productivity tool, but at it’s heart, that’s central to its functionality. It takes the process of generating, nurturing and qualifying leads from an art to a science, and gives you the precision and control to ensure that you’re not only finding the warmest leads to fill your sales teams’ pipeline, but your’e also getting them to your reps faster than before.
LEAD QUALIFICATION: WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS
It starts with qualifying your leads. Knowing that a lead is ready or likely to buy is step one in figuring out when to get them on a call with a sales rep. You’ll want to start by working with your sales team to determine what a qualified lead looks like. From there, you can set your parameters in your marketing automation platform and qualify leads based on their activity and how closely they fit the profile of your idea buyer.
TRANSFERRING LEADS TO SALES
Once you’ve qualified a lead, the next step is to get it over to your sales team. Marketing automation can increase your productivity here as well. Once a lead has been passed to sales, your sales reps will receive automated alerts that notify them of a new lead. The lead will be passed with the score and grade information, so your sales reps will know right away which ones they need to follow up with.
HELPING SALES CLOSE THE DEAL
Once you’ve filled your sales team’s pipeline, the final step is helping them close the deal. What’s more efficient than having your sales team digging through content and spending valuable time creating emails to engage prospects? Having your marketing team do it for them. With marketing automation you can give them access to nurturing campaigns and and email templates created by marketing so that your sales reps can send out consistently on-brand messaging to finalize the sale.
Want to learn more about how marketing automation can boost your productivity? Get in touch with us via asklava@lavaprotocols.com for more info!
Source: Pardot
Pardot is a marketing automation tool by Salesforce.com. Lava Protocols is an authorised Salesforce Partner with more than 9 years of experience in cloud solutions and cloud related consultation services.