MArketing Automation & CRM

Do you expect salespeople to:
- Capture and enter leads in CRM?
- Follow up to acknowledge every inquiry?
- Deliver branded emails and content based on buyer interests?
- Target leads with ads on social media?
- Call leads when they’re ready to buy?
If you answered “Yes” to any but the last question, you’re wasting time and money. While great salespeople might be able to do these things (some not-so-much), would you want them to? Would you have consistency, compliance and branding concerns? Even if my sales team could do these things right, how long would it take them?
Q. What is a salesperson’s highest value activity?
A. Interacting with customers.
So, let’s keep Sales in front of customers and minimize the time they spend doing everything else!
Marketing automation platforms can take over these tasks, and there are several good vendors. You decide what to deliver, to whom, and when, upon setup by identifying key points along the customer journey and specifying what to do at each point. The systems collect data for you to use to test and improve your methodologies.
Concerns
- Marketing automation is expensive.
- How much money do you waste having salespeople do ‘other things’ (usually not well) when they could be closing deals?
- Costs have come down.
- There are net returns with increased conversion.
- Marketing automation is for large organizations; my team is too small.
- Systems can and do provide economies and leverage for small teams, and where contacts/leads number as few as 1,000.
- I don’t have expertise to select and program a system.
- You will identify key points in your customer journey and what you would like to happen at each point, and then get your system to respond appropriately.
- Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that are generally user-friendly
- Vendors have vast knowledge bases, if you are fairly technically capable and have time to use them.
- You can start slow and build on what you learn.
- Outside resources are available to get you started or run things for you.
elevenX Marketing has experience with many popular marketing automation systems. Think of us as the member of your team that you don’t have to hire as an FTE. We can work with you when you need us, execute projects, or run things ongoing, so you can focus on your highest value activity.
Contact elevenX today to learn how to “set it and forget it” and get marketing automation to do the heavy lifting behind your sales team.