B2B marketing automation solutions (MA) are no longer a fad in the CRM industry. While it was a relatively small niche several years ago, B2B marketers are now adopting and implementing these systems at a breakneck pace. If you are still straddling the fence about accelerating your volume of qualified leads with marketing automation, consider the following points as you make your decision.
Sales cycles continue to get longer
Even though some B2B companies have experienced an uptick in sales over the last two quarters, the fact remains we are still in a very tough selling environment. Buyers are very slow to purchase even when clear business challenges are being solved. As long as budgets stay tight companies remain risk averse, meaning decisions are made slowly or not made at all – even on solutions with proven ROI’s.
MA tools address this challenge by engaging a much larger prospect audiences than a sales team can reach by themselves. Automated drip campaigns and nurturing processes also help build relationships with prospects before your sales person makes their first call.
Telephone cold calling is losing (has lost) its effectiveness
Engaging with prospects is difficult even if the prospect has experienced a triggering event that causes them to be sales ready. Using a telephone to hope to connect with a prospect at the proper time is hit or miss at best. With the pervasiveness of caller ID many people will not answer their phone unless they recognize the caller. Compound that with a macro trend away from the phone and toward email and the web.
As a result, sales and marketing teams are facing the challenge of selling to buyers who won’t talk to their sales team. Delivering the right content over time is the way to stay engaged with buyers until they are ready to talk to sales.
Content is King
Stop wasting money on expensive brochures and pamphlets, they are typically riddled with industry jargon and sales messages and usually end up thrown away. Buyers want content that helps them solve problems or is informative in nature, not advertising copy. More than half of the buying process cycle now occurs before your sales person is aware that a prospect is sales ready, staying top of mind with the buyer during this time is crucial. When a company experiences a trigger event and they begin exploring their options, marketing automation is a low cost / high value way to get – and stay – in front of prospects.
Unlike the sales function, marketing has traditionally been challenged proving the effectiveness of their programs. They often measure themselves on generic benchmarks such as pageviews, visitor traffic, collateral production, and brand impressions, which are important only if they contribute to providing qualified sales leads. By implementing a well-planned MA program, marketing departments can prove the ROI based on sales pipeline growth, and tracking each close back to the initial prospect engagement point.
Getting Started
3FORWARD helps marketing teams with B2B marketing automation consulting and best practices. If you would like to talk with us about challenges you will face, next steps to consider and how to get your team ready for MA, let’s get in touch. We’d be glad to have a conversation.
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