The key function of any marketing team is the develop and deliver sales leads on an ongoing basis, and it’s no secret that this is often easier said than done. This is especially true when it comes to delivering high-quality leads. So how can we, as marketers, streamline our process to accomplish this in the modern world that is full of noise and distractions?
During our Digital Summit at Home online event in March 2021, Marie Rosecrans — Salesforce SVP of Marketing — delivered an easy-to-follow 3-Step framework business owners and brands can leverage to deliver higher quality leads and become the best business they can be.
Understanding Today’s Top Marketing Changes & Trends (5:10)
2020 certainly threw a few wrenches into the plans of marketers and business owners, alike. Rosecrans makes the point that the pandemic has forced many to become more agile than ever, adapting to changes in the ways that they had to conduct business.
These changes ranged from keeping employees safe, improving efficiency with fewer resources, responding to customer demands and expectations, stabilizing business operations, and attracting and retaining customers.
Perhaps none of these changes was as critical as the need for businesses to go digital to connect with their customers to meet their expectations. Online presence for brands was suddenly front and center, and customers began to expect businesses to provide personalized and unique experiences to them.
With these changes in the consumer and business landscape, it is more important than ever to fully understand your target market and how you should be reaching them digitally. Take the time to better understand the following:
- Your Audience: What are their needs and pain points, and what messaging resonates with them?
- Your Competitors: Who are they, what is their messaging, what keywords are they using, and how do they rank online?
- Your Data: Why and how are you winning deals, who is the direct buyer, and why are potential deals lost to a competitor?
The Foundation: Three Pillars of High-Quality Leads (14:00)
There are three key pillars that marketing teams can and should invest in to drive new business and engagement. She defines each pillar and associated areas of focus as follows:
Organic & Paid Channels
- Organic & SEO
- Paid Digital
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Review Sites
- Content
- Partnerships
Outbound Campaigns & Prospecting
- Lead Scoring
- Email Journeys
- Direct Mailers
- Competitive Plays
- Review Sites
A Personalized Experience
- Real-Time Customer Interactions
- Connecting Digital Interactions
- Personalized Customer Journeys
DO THIS: Take a hard look how your business currently operates in these three pillars and identify where any gaps may exist. Upon identifying these gaps, determine if it makes sense to add any of these missing activities to your business’s marketing mix.
The Goods: 3 Foolproof Steps For Delivering High-Quality Leads (19:00)
Building on the key pillars necessary to build high-quality leads, Rosecrans dives into three actionable ways that marketers can drive business for their sales teams.
Step 1: Align Sales & Marketing On A Single Platform (19:10)
Rosecrans makes the case that CRM tools (like Salesforce) and marketing automation tools should be built on a single platform. In doing so, sales and marketing will be operating much more closely together, increasing efficiency and productivity, and more closely connecting marketing efforts with sales results.
Step 2: Track Lead Activity In Your CRM (22:05)
With the amount of work that goes into setting up and implementing marketing automation tools, it is critical to ensure that all lead activity is captured in CRM platforms. This includes all data and conversation history, which will better help sales to score these leads. Doing this also allows people across the organization to see the direct impact that marketing efforts are having on sales.
Step 3: Enable Sales To Have Relevant Conversations (24:00)
When sales and marketing are aligned on one platform, and the data is connected in the CRM, the ability to deliver personalized and relevant content is unlocked. Leveraging the data, marketers are then able to drive the relationship forward through content and other activities to push leads across the finish line and convert them into sales.
Bringing it Home: Measuring Success (25:45)
Rosecrans emphasizes the importance of measuring ROI and how it can effectively guide marketers to pivot, when necessary, to have a stronger impact on sales. This is especially critical for marketing teams with limited budgets. She outlines the following key KPI metrics for optimizing marketing efforts to revenue, pulling directly from her experience at Salesforce:
Digital Marketing:
- Website Traffic
- Form Views & Completions
- Conversion & Bounce Rates
Leads:
- Responses (MQLs)
- Valid Leads (SQLs)
- Conversion Rate (Cost Per)
Pipeline & Revenue
- Pipeline by Stage
- Average Deal Size
- Conversion Rate
- Revenue, CAC & LTV
DO THIS: Identify your “North Star” when it comes to setting marketing and sales lead goals to better inform your strategy and to closely track results. In doing so, sales and marketing can be better aligned and ultimately have a strong impact on revenue.
If your current marketing strategy falls short of delivering high-quality sales leads, this session provided us with powerful insights and easy-to-implement steps that can help to change course. Through more closely aligning your marketing strategy to meet the needs of your business and its sales team, the opportunity for driving more revenue is immense.
To hear from experts like Marie on the regular, check out an upcoming Digital Summit event — including our upcoming Digital Summit at Home: B2B virtual conference May 25-27. It’s three days of game-changing B2B marketing workshops, sessions, and keynotes — from the world’s biggest brands in the B2B ecosystem, including Salesforce!