As we all know sales wants more qualified leads as soon as possible from marketing. Over the past 5 years sales cycles are becoming longer and longer which is making it harder for sales reps to reach their goals. We are going to cover 5 tactics for how marketing can help generate quicker qualified leads for sales to start shortening the cycle.
- Keep sales up to date on website visitors. When sales people know how individual prospects are behaving, they can get a head start on determining if now it is right time to start talking to the prospect. And the earlier they start talking to the prospect, the more they can help guide the decision process.
Marketing should teach sales to approach prospects with their perspective in mind. It’s important that sales reps are familiar with key business terminology, standard operating procedures and have insight into the strategic, tactical and operational challenges of their target audiences.- Sales should make a soft introduction call positioning themselves as a trusted resource. Providing compelling and relevant information early in the sales cycle can go along ways. Establish yourself as a trusted source early so you can help speed up the decision making process.
- Marketing should include a capabilities matrix, competitive matrix and an FAQ document early in the lead nurturing process. This way sales can focus on selling the purpose and objectives rather than features and functions.
- With lead scoring marketing can trigger subsequent calls beyond when a prospect reaches the status of MQL, triggering sales to respond to prospect behavior. You can program automatic alerts to sales people on their mobile devices or schedule them as a task within your CRM system.
How is your marketing team helping generate qualified leads for your sales team?
