Smart Sales Prospecting with Sales-Marketing Alignment

Success in sales mandates an obsessive focus on the customer. In order to develop a customer-centric approach, sales needs to be fully informed about each prospect’s behaviors, preferences, and needs. A study conducted by The Wharton School of Business noted it takes between 9 and 15 touchpoints for someone to even remember a particular brand when “decision-making” time arrives. This means an enterprise has to stay in constant touch through e-mails, newsletters, and customized offers. This blog focuses on “Smart Sales Prospecting,” which gives you an all-around, unobstructed view of their prospect base, enabling them to focus on the highest quality prospects—at the right time.

How automation can help?
Marketing automation and sales enablement software place high emphasis on the coordination of all sales and marketing activities and close the loop between the marketing and sales functions , tying the marketing system with sales, CRM and ERP to facilitate unobstructed flow of data from each of these systems. They lend a great degree of flexibility, scalability and personal touch to the marketing, sales prospecting and follow-up process. The platform automates the process of collating dispersed data into one useful view of your prospect. By using Marketing automation and sales enablement software for smart sales prospecting, you can benefit in the following ways:

360° Customer View
Automation helps you get a 360-degree view of the prospect/customer. It looks at prospect activities holistically and provides a more total prospect view. For example, you can identify which prospect/customer visited which page of your web site. It can provide information about the source that the visitor used to access your site—a marketing e-mail, a search engine or a press release, the pages they visited and the links they clicked.

Improved Sales Revenue and Closure Rates
Smart prospecting yields better results than traditional unfocused sales efforts targeted at prospects in general. Just as the interest level varies from prospect to prospect, the sales strategy should also vary. For example, one prospect may be close to the buying stage while another may still be hunting for information. Using smart prospecting you can ensure your communication with prospects varies depending upon their preferences and their level of interest.

Improved Brand Image
Smart prospecting can help you with your brand building, because it allows you to follow the customer’s digital footprint online and offer them value-added solutions. A facet of the brand image that forms in the mind of the prospect is that of a business that cares for customer needs.

The goal of smart sales prospecting is to build a strong relationship with a prospect throughout the buying cycle, no matter how lengthy or drawn out. It involves cementing a business’s relationship with its prospects. Visit our blog next week to learn more about How smart sales prospecting can help you sell more.