Using Marketing Automation To Bridge The Sales-marketing Disconnect

By Author: martin well
Total Articles: 364
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The Sales and Marketing disconnect is a matter of concern for most B2B companies. Sales and Marketing connect is of prime importance because they need to compliment each other’s effort for generating leads. The main contributing factor to this disconnect is because both teams work in isolation. Marketing’s job is to generate demand for the company’s solution, drive prospects down the sales funnel, and the Sales team’s job is to convert these prospects into sales. But, both teams work remotely in most companies.
From a company perspective the real ROI on its marketing spends is when both teams can support and assist each other in converting the inquiries and prospects to sales.
There has to be a common platform which enables these two teams to collaborate in real time. This can help bridge this gap between marketing and sales within an organization. This kind of process ensures increased productivity and higher lead conversions.

Online visitor behavior analysis tracks visitor behavior from the very moment they enter the website. By capturing the visitor’s "fingerprint" on the website, companies can ...
... obtain in-depth knowledge about their intent and achieve a significant advantage in determining the best approach to targeting a marketing and/or sales response. This can be made possible by using marketing automation solutions. Sales and marketing departments can then leverage this information for customized lead nurturing as well.
Key Features of Marketing Automation Solutions

Campaign Management
• Sales and Marketing teams can send targeted and personalized messages to prospects.
• Teams can leverage intelligent analytics from marketing automation software to multiply the efficiency of the sales force.
• Helps to leverage several social media channels to create visibility and awareness of the product among prospects.

Lead Intent
• Assesses the website visitor's intent and provides important, intelligent information about the product/solution the prospect is interested in.
• Provides company level view which reveals the hierarchy in the purchase cycle.
• Helps sales teams assess if a prospect is "sales-ready".
• Provides invaluable guidance for lead nurturing programs.

Lead Analytics
• Through intent detecting teams can convert anonymous leads into prospects.
• The real-time analytics helps to identify the purchase-seriousness of a prospect.
• Using the campaign analytics teams can work on new campaigns in the appropriate mediums.
• Helps identify up-sell opportunities for Sales teams.

Through collaboration and easy coordination of lead generation activities, Sales and Marketing teams can work in tandem towards effortlessly generating leads for their companies. Lead generation activities and efforts need not be hampered due to Sales and Marketing disconnect anymore.

Also read on - Lead management, Marketing automation