Alignment is key when it comes to avoiding a leaky sales funnel. The AMA said that 75% of marketing created materials go unused. Help your sales organization close more deals, faster, so you can grow revenue with your team.
Organization is the Key to Success!
Organizing your content can be critical for your sales teams. Having multiple pieces of materials in more than one place creates havoc for your reps and can disrupt the sales process. Getting all your brand compliant content in one spot can alleviate headaches for your teams – AND for you! Give them a “one-stop-shop” to share the branded materials with their leads to close more sales. Having all your assets in one location gives your teams, and your leaders, a level of comfort knowing that the process is simple and easy to use.
MQL or SQL? – That is the $5M Question
A Marketing Qualified Lead does not always equal a Sales Qualified Lead. It is one of those sayings where a square is always a rectangle but a rectangle is not always a square, right? Anyway, not all the leads that marketers pass over the sales fence are actual leads the sales force considers “qualified.” As a marketer, when you pass off MQLs, what is your process with your sales organization? Do they have the tools and assets to close the sale? The Sales Cycle consists of more than just a phone call and a signed contract. There are multiple touches along the way that your sales reps need to execute on. A sales rep nurtures the lead that is handed off to them and the assets you provide are giving them the road map for success. This is why it is crucial for you to have a funneled approach when it comes to the content you create and at which stage of the sales funnel it falls under. The sales funnel is a three-pronged approach as well. There is a pre-qualification assessment that needs to be done and the right branded materials will help keep your team aligned and on message. Once the assessment has been performed the next step is to quantify this lead on where it falls in the funnel. Do they have the budget, authority need and timing to make this decision? The collateral you provide them will support their efforts to close the sale. Finally, there is the post assessment which results in a contract that is signed. These are the heavy hitting content pieces your team uses to seal the deal. Each piece you produce is helping in each of these stages. How’s that for true ROI on your branded materials?
Measuring Success – Do I Have To?
The short answer? Absolutely! A digital marketing platform allows you to easily display, sort and measure all of your brand approved content for your sales organization to use. At first, keep your success metrics high-level. Identify areas of usage such as: 80% rep initial adoption rate within the first 45 days of launch, OR, 75% rep download rate within the first 90 days. Once the system is up and running you will be able to better identify success metrics that will be more specific to asset usage or shares within the system by user.