Three Ways Your Sales Team will Directly Benefit from Marketing Automation

We frequently stress the importance of alignment between the sales and marketing departments within an organization. Their synergy is a critical component to the success of a company. Unfortunately though, Hubspot says a mere 22% of companies feel like their sales and marketing departments are jiving. This isn’t good for the company, and it isn’t good for the customer. In 2018, we did a blog post about the common disconnects between the two departments and steps you can take to achieve alignment. You can read about it here.

Knowing the struggle many have, we felt we could all benefit from diving in a bit deeper to the subject. There are many ways marketing techniques benefit the sales process, but let’s look at the benefits of marketing automation.

All can agree that the marketing department has a big role in supporting the sales team in acquiring leads and nurturing those leads. And marketing automation is a game changer in doing just that. A few years ago, Regalix released a report stating that 86% of marketers using an automation solution said its greatest benefit was improved lead management and nurturing. Half said marketing automation increased sales and marketing alignment. Talk about telling statistics! You can read more of the report stats here. Let’s dig in to three ways your sales team will directly benefit from marketing automation:

1. Generates More Qualified Leads

One of the least beneficial things a sales team can do is spend their time chasing leads that have no interest in converting to customers. Ever. Not only is it a huge time suck, and time is money, but it quickly squashes sales rep confidence. Marketing automation allows the marketing team to pass off more qualified leads to the sales team because through the automation process, they are getting to know these leads on the front end - before they make it to the sales department. Thanks to automation tactics like dynamic/adaptive ads, landing pages, lead qualifying in certain automation tools, or automated email with further form completion, the marketing department is able to carefully vet the leads and segment or tag leads in multiple ways.

2. Helps Identify Objections in the Sales Cycle

A marketing department utilizing marketing automation tools will soon start to see where there are hiccups in the sales cycle. Where are leads dropping off? Where are there hold ups in responses? Or even which messages trigger higher response. Being able to identify these issues and opportunities quickly allows you to rectify them quickly. By honing and adjusting your content, you’re able to unveil pain points and able to segment your leads by those pain points to create drip campaigns that speak directly to their issues and concerns.

3. Keeps The Lead Engaged

Although it would be nice, most leads aren’t ready to convert right away. That’s part of the new customer dating game, right? Because many of your leads aren’t ready to pull the trigger during your first (or second) touchpoint with them, it’s important to utilize your email automation, remarketing, social targeting and scheduling capabilities to constantly nurture those leads so you’re able to capitalize when the time is right. You want to present relevant content frequently so you remain top of mind, and they will look to you to solve their problem by using your service or product.

The bottom line is that sales and marketing alignment can help your company become 67% better at closing deals. Marketing automation planning, the timing of implementation and the tools that get you there allow both departments to do what they do best. Interested in implementing marketing automation tactics for your business, but don’t know where to start? Reach out. We’re here to help.