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Sales…Marketing: Blurring the Lines
January 25, 2008
A look at sales and marketing's automated evolution
By Luis Rivera
Remember when buying a list of names was the pinnacle of "lead generation," and seeing how many coupons were actually returned defined "metrics"? Thankfully, the evolution of the Internet has made the process a bit more sophisticated. The decisions that you used to have to make based on gut feelings and cobbled-together campaign comparisons have, thanks to technology, evolved into both an art and a science.
Google, Yahoo! and other pay-per-click (PPC) advertising providers have created a whole new avenue for both reaching and following up with clients and prospective customers. In addition, automated lead management tools, e-mail marketing tools and Web analytics solutions have changed the sales and marketing processes for small and large businesses alike.
When it comes down to it, PPC advertising is leading to an evolution of marketing and sales, blurring the lines between the roles to create one larger team in the broader online ecosystem. Marketing is extending its reach to include more functions that used to fall under the realm of sales. Simultaneously, sales is extending its depth to more effectively nurture and serve existing and potential customer relationships. And technology is serving as both the catalyst and the medium.
Marketing Extends Its Breadth
It used to be that as soon as the lead's contact information came in from the promotion or campaign, it was immediately handed off to sales. But with the Internet, the way that customers are interacting with businesses is changing. Customers enjoy the sense of anonymity afforded them as they compare products and services online. Whereas before they may have had to call into an 800 number to find the details of a particular promotion, now the process is as simple as clicking a link in an e-mail.
Because of this shift in technology, marketing's role has also shifted. And with today's technology that can automate a large portion of the marketing/sales process, it's now possible for marketing to not only generate the lead, but also to nurture that lead until it requires direct attention from sales.
What does "nurture the lead" mean? Well, everything from creating a white paper available for download, to collecting signups for a Webinar, to announcing a special offer via an e-mail campaign. All are additional customer touch points that marketing can now deliver in a one-to-many fashion. This affords them the benefit of reaching many potential customers in a personalized way, without having to spend tedious time in the personalization process. The software does it for them.
Sales Extends Its Depth
At the same time that the marketing team is extending its reach—from generating the lead to nurturing and potentially qualifying the lead—the sales team can focus its attention on creating stronger relationships with potential and existing customers. Because sales knows that marketing is essentially serving as a sales incubator for those leads that just aren't ready yet, they can dedicate their time, energy and resources toward going above and beyond for the customers who are ready to buy now.
Think about it like this: Say Joe in sales used to have to dedicate a portion of his day to combing through his "tickler" file to follow up with customers on the fringes of the sales cycle. Now he can now spend that time researching a question from a hot prospect.
Automation: Catalyst and Medium
Automation—in lead management systems, e-mail marketing software and Web analytics software—has been the number-one catalyst shifting the long-standing boundaries of sales and marketing. Through automation, marketing now has the time and the tools necessary to actually assess the quality of the leads and route them to the correct sales team member. Remember that all of sales team's tickler files, in essence, can be handled as part of a semi-automated marketing function.
In many cases, marketing has their PPC advertising down to such a science that they can "turn the dial" on their PPC advertising to increase or decrease the number of leads. This means many sales departments are concentrating less on outbound sales calls and more on effectively servicing the leads that have come to their front door.
For sales, this automation means that after an initial investment in time/money learning new systems or programs, the salespeople are having to spend less of their time on tedious administrative tasks. Instead, they're able to focus on developing and enhancing customer relationships and closing more sales.
Same Skills, Different Medium
With this evolution, it's natural to wonder what you need to do to make sure your skill set is still relevant to the changing organization. This isn't really a situation of learning new skills; it's more a case of being comfortable with using additional resources to make the most of your existing skills.
For example, what may seem at first like a waste of time (inputting information into a sales force automation tool) or counterintuitive (letting marketing handle tier two and tier three leads via automated communications) will actually make the sales job easier and more rewarding. Certainly, things will be different, but if you can keep an open mind to the technologies that are available, the evolution process won't pass you by.
Automation That Makes Sense
Getting your leads to do the work for you can be a beautiful thing. But if you push them too far, you risk driving away some of your biggest and most important prospects, because what they want to do is talk to a live salesperson. They're not that interested in providing a lot of info in a form because they are "special" and no form can accurately collect what it is that they need.
That's why you need balance in your automation, because automating the entire process would effectively kill your business. Use these automated systems when it makes sense to use them, but not a step beyond. That holds especially true when it comes to determining lead quality! Sales must work closely with marketing to provide specific feedback on lead quality, as well as to constantly tweak and make suggestions on getting to the info they need.
Deciding at which point automation needs to go back to human-driven action requires asking a few questions that confirm to the prospect that he or she is at the right place. Keep the info that you ask for as minimal as possible so the sales team can help tier the leads for assignment.
By keeping an open mind and retaining a sense of balance between automation and good old-fashioned human contact, businesses will be able to make the most of the resources available to them.
Luis Rivera is CEO of Lyris, Inc., a provider of marketing technology solutions including Lyris, EmailLabs, Sparklist, ClickTracks, Hot Banana and EmailAdvisor.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
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