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Build a Bridge Between Marketing and Sales Activities

July 28, 2010 By Mike Drohan
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Product-Focused Campaigns—The marketing team can call to qualify each prospect's need to prioritize the best opportunities for the sales team. In addition, it can develop the rest of the prospect universe by capturing decisionmaker names and e-mail addresses, and identifying where there are opportunities down the road.

Industry-Focused Campaigns—The marketing team should call to identify the right decisionmakers, introduce the company and its vast offerings, and generate appointments with the leads that meet its company's criteria. Then the sales reps can focus their efforts on meeting with qualified prospects.

Dormant Clients—Marketing follow-up with this group is important to open the communication lines, learn why the companies stopped buying and rekindle the relationship to stimulate future sales opportunity. When the marketing team identifies a client who is interested in reengaging and wants to make a purchase, an appointment is made for the sales team.

Nurturing Open Territories—The marketing team should make calls to provide touchpoints to let prospects and clients know that its company cares about their business. The team can identify the needs within the territory and prioritize them for the covering sales rep.

Hopefully, these examples provide a better view of how the marketing team can have a tremendous impact by qualifying leads to leverage the time of the sales team. Separating the sales opportunities from the non-prospects will produce better results and energize the sales team.

Mike Drohan is the president of Lead Generation Solutions, a King of Prussia, Pa. company that specializes in lead generation and lead qualification services. He can be reached at mdrohan@LeadGenerationSolutions.com.
 
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COMMENTS

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Most Recent Comments:
Karen - Posted on July 28, 2010
I agree with Lorraine. Calling prospects is a sales activity. If there is a chance this can be a sales call, does the screener hang up and say I'll have sales call you back?

People need to be more targeted in their approach and know quality is better than quantity. You can identify or eliminate people before hand by doing a bit more research or by using qualifiers when asking for information. The example you used regarding the whitepaper download can be resolved by asking people those specific questions you listed before they download the info...it's the cost to download the wihitepaper.

If someone handed me hot leads all the time, I'd go into sales too, but it's more than just talking to interested people on the phone. There is an art to selling.
Lorraine Craymer - Posted on July 28, 2010
At some point I think that there will be no such thing as a marketing dept and a sales dept - they'll just be one team and your article demonstrates why.
There isn't a clear line between the groups anymore.

In my mind, I always drew the line at the place where someone had to actually pick up a phone and call a person. It's the thing that most people will point to as the reason why they don't want to go into sales- one on one calling.

It is not easy to do and even though the call types you point to are among the easier calls to make - I'd still suggest that this is the type of contact best left to an inside sales team.

If the sales team is willing to delegate the one thing that makes them unique - an ability to manage one to one personal contact- they should just turn off their blackberry's and head off to the tar pits- cause they're clearly on their way out the door.

On the other hand, when there are just too many calls to be made in a compressed period of time, marketing would be well equipped to manage high quality voicemail campaigns and when they do it working with the sales team - you've got yet another way to bridge the gap.

Lorraine
Click here to view archived comments...
Archived Comments:
Karen - Posted on July 28, 2010
I agree with Lorraine. Calling prospects is a sales activity. If there is a chance this can be a sales call, does the screener hang up and say I'll have sales call you back?

People need to be more targeted in their approach and know quality is better than quantity. You can identify or eliminate people before hand by doing a bit more research or by using qualifiers when asking for information. The example you used regarding the whitepaper download can be resolved by asking people those specific questions you listed before they download the info...it's the cost to download the wihitepaper.

If someone handed me hot leads all the time, I'd go into sales too, but it's more than just talking to interested people on the phone. There is an art to selling.
Lorraine Craymer - Posted on July 28, 2010
At some point I think that there will be no such thing as a marketing dept and a sales dept - they'll just be one team and your article demonstrates why.
There isn't a clear line between the groups anymore.

In my mind, I always drew the line at the place where someone had to actually pick up a phone and call a person. It's the thing that most people will point to as the reason why they don't want to go into sales- one on one calling.

It is not easy to do and even though the call types you point to are among the easier calls to make - I'd still suggest that this is the type of contact best left to an inside sales team.

If the sales team is willing to delegate the one thing that makes them unique - an ability to manage one to one personal contact- they should just turn off their blackberry's and head off to the tar pits- cause they're clearly on their way out the door.

On the other hand, when there are just too many calls to be made in a compressed period of time, marketing would be well equipped to manage high quality voicemail campaigns and when they do it working with the sales team - you've got yet another way to bridge the gap.

Lorraine